DATA: Nationwide reported UK house prices rose 3.7% in year to Nov 2024
This was the highest annual rate since November 2022 thanks to a 1.3% increase on the month and prices are now just 1% below their previous peak.
DATA: Halifax reported UK house prices rose 4.8% in year to Nov 2024
They report(PDF) house prices hit a new record high in November, with the fastest annual increase recorded in Northern Ireland at 6.8%.
DATA: BoE published quoted mortgage rate data for Nov 2024
They report the average two-year fixed-rate mortgage increased to 4.53% in November compared to 4.41% the previous month. The revert-to-rate decreased to 7.59% from 7.70% over the same period.
DATA: HMRC published UK Stamp Tax Statistics 2023 to 2024
See Chart of the Week for more detail.
DATA: MHCLG published Local authority green belt statistics for 2023/24
They report “there was a decrease of 3,540 hectares (0.2% of the Green Belt, or 0.03% of the total land area of England) in the area of land designated as Green Belt between 31 March 2023 and 31 March 2024”.
DATA: MHCLG published Social housing lettings in England for 2023/24
They report “There were 261,000 new social housing lettings in 2023/24, an increase of 4% from the 252,000 lettings reported in 2022/23” and “The median weekly rent for new social housing lettings in 2023/24 was £103 compared to £93 in 2022/23”.
DATA: Homes England published Housing Statistics December 2024
They report “Housing programmes delivered by Homes England resulted in 15,682 new houses starting on site and 14,295 new homes completed between 1 April and 30 September 2024” and “This represents an increase in both starts and completions compared to the same period in 2023”.
DATA: MHCLG published English Private Landlord Survey 2024
They report “Just under half of all landlords owned one rental property, though nearly half of tenancies were owned by landlords with five or more properties” and “Around three in five landlords had some form of borrowing on at least one of their properties”. They also report “More landlords in 2024 reported planning to decrease the size of their portfolio than in 2018 and 2021”.
DATA: Scottish Gov published Scottish Household Survey 2023
They report “13% of households in social rented properties reported being very/fairly dissatisfied, compared with 7% in private rented properties and 1% in owner occupied properties”.
DATA: DfBT published Construction building materials for Nov 2024
They report “deliveries of bricks increased by 19.0% in October 2024 compared with October 2023” and “the material price index for ‘All Work’ decreased by 0.8% in October 2024 compared with October 2023”.
DATA: Financial Market Expectations For BoE’s Bank Rate
The chart provides a summary for the expected future level of Bank Rate based on daily data. The One Year figure was 4.28% on the 5th Dec compared to 4.00% on the 28th Nov.
DATA: New Build Energy Performance Certificates, England
This chart provides a summary of the number of EPCs on new build properties, a useful leading indicator for net additions. The 52-week rolling total was 216,959 for the week commencing 25th November, down from 217,415 the previous week.
DATA: ONS reported on plans to improve labour market data
The release covers the ONS approach to improving the Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey while a letter to the Treasury Select Committee contains an “ambition” to transition to the new Transformed Labour Force Survey by 2026, with 2027 appearing more likely. As the Treasury Select Committee Chair points out: “These delays will make some of the most consequential decisions taken by the Treasury and Bank of England challenging at best and misinformed at worst”.
POLICY: Prime Minister committed to his missions
These missions still include the ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes during this parliament despite the scale of the challenge. Apparently a ten year strategy for housing will be published next spring. Increasing land supply through planning and other reforms will help, but more needs to be done to tackle the capacity to both build and fund these new homes.
POLICY: Scottish Gov published Scottish Budget 2025 to 2026
It will “provide £768 million for affordable homes, enabling over 8000 new properties for social rent, mid-market rent and low-cost home ownership to be built this coming year”.
POLICY: MHCLG launched Remediation Acceleration Plan
They are “seeking views on proposals to prevent freeholders, property managing agents and landlords from imposing on leaseholders opaque and excessive charges related to building insurance, often in the form of commissions. Instead, they would only be able to charge a fair and transparent permitted insurance fee to leaseholders”.
POLICY: MHCLG launched a consultation on reforms to EPCs
They are seeking views on reform of the Energy Performance of Buildings framework.
POLICY: MHCLG launched a consultation on permitted insurance fees
They are “seeking views on proposals to prevent freeholders, property managing agents and landlords from imposing on leaseholders opaque and excessive charges related to building insurance, often in the form of commissions. Instead, they would only be able to charge a fair and transparent permitted insurance fee to leaseholders”.
REPORT: Centre for Cities reported on planning reform & the private sector
The use of newly digitised historic data is welcome but the analysis is compromised by the use of more recent data that undercounts delivery since at least the mid 2000s and probably since the 1990s, especially in cities and other urban areas. They recommend “a new flexible zoning system”, devolution, overhauling the London plan, and “Review the “anti-supply measures” of the previous Government”.
REPORT: Centre for Cities reported on social housing & the public sector
The analysis in this report is less compromised than the above due to the use of alternative affordable housing supply data but any comparisons it has to private sector delivery in recent decades are misleading. They suggest “To match rates seen between 1956 and 1979, the Affordable Homes Programme would have to grow to £16.6 billion every year”.
REPORT: JRF published their cost of living tracker
They report “7 million low-income households (60%) were going without the essentials in the previous 6 months, including 5.4 million experiencing food insecurity in the previous 30 days” and “4.3 million low-income households (37%) were in arrears on at least one household bill or credit commitment”.
REPORT: Bank Overground reported on household savings
They report “households no longer have excess deposits; but equally, households do not seem to be facing a shortfall of savings from the period of acute cost-of-living pressures”.
REPORT: UK Finance published Household Finance Review for Q3 2024
They report “a drop off in the proportion of borrowers who are stretching themselves most (measured by the proportion of income taken up by mortgage payments), from the final quarter of 2023” but “it is clear that affordability remains far tighter than it has been for over a decade” and “other factors, including rising house prices, are pushing affordability metrics back towards the levels seen late last year”. They also report “half of all homeowner mortgages currently in arrears were taken out in the years immediately preceding the credit crunch (2005-2008)”.
REPORT: HBF reported on the State of Play for SME home builders
They report “Over half (51%) of SME home builders report waiting over a year to obtain planning permission” and “56% of SME home builders report a 30% uplift in the cost of obtaining planning permission”. They also report “80% of respondents identified obtaining suitable offers for S106 Affordable Homes to be a barrier to growth”.
REPORT: Housing Forum reported on buyers for S106 homes
Housebuilders report “challenges in finding buyers for the affordable housing built to fulfil Section 106 conditions on mixed-tenure developments” due housing associations’ constrained financial capacity and focus on remediation. They suggest “In the long term, the price developers expect to achieve for affordable housing will fall”.
REPORT: LGA on LHA & temporary accommodation reimbursement
The report, by BisImpact “investigates and quantifies multiple aspects of the Local Housing Allowance rate, especially the impact of the temporary accommodation subsidy”.
CORPORATE: Berkeley Group published Half-year Report
They report “Berkeley’s sales have been resilient at levels largely consistent with FY24 run rates, with a slight improvement in recent weeks” and “Sales pricing for the period has generally been ahead of business plan levels, with cancellations at normal rates”. They also report “During the period build cost inflation for Berkeley has been stable at negligible levels”.
Chart of the Week
This week HMRC published stamp duty statistics for 2023/24, including breakdowns of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) data. This includes the only accurate transaction data we get for English regions due to the lag in the Land Registry data. As the Chart of the Week shows, transactions in London had been leading the recovery following the financial crisis but have fallen back behind the rest of the country since 2015/16. You can check out my latest Financial Times article for more on this trend.
The data also shows that the Higher Rates on Additional Dwellings (HRAD) accounted for 22% of transactions across England in 2023/24, ranging from 18% in the South East and East of England, to 27% in the North East. This suggests investors and second home owners were still significant buyers in the market during the period as the number of HRAD refunds remains relatively low – home movers temporarily stuck with two properties during a transaction can apply for a refund of HRAD if they sell within three years.
