New Homes Commentary October 2010

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New build properties do seem to continue to 'buck the trend' when it comes to the general sales market. This is likely however to be due to the tiny volume available for buyers to purchase versus normal years. September did supply a decent amount of stock, but it's likely that because of spending cuts, continued economic gloom and doom, coupled with lenders' reluctance to give decent loan to values on new builds, that developers won't be keen to increase the housing supply anytime soon.

Grant Shapps is keen to tell everyone that delivering more homes is vital to the economy, but as the Coalition don't think it's an important enough job to be a cabinet minister post and his boss, Eric Pickles has just lost a Court case over scrapping labour's housebuilding targets, he's unlikely to have any impact on housing supply soon. According to the Guardian, so far he's just succeeded in "Local authorities cancelled plans for 189,000 new homes". The one initiative - bonus payments to local authorities that build - is unlikely to be enough of an incentive to pass planning applications when they will be voted out by local opposition who have been strengthened by their new 'localism' policy and are likely to vote councillors out that 'push' through new homes where people don't want them.

Not all properties are doing OK though, town house prices are down by 3% year on year. Any price growth appears to be down to semi detached (up 8.6%) and apartments (up a staggering 13.4% in September), while detached are up 4.4% versus last year. Month by month though, a better indicator for what is happening to prices 'now' shows little movement over the last few months. 

READ MORE on OCTOBER'S REGIONAL PERFORMANCE

READ MORE on the impact of the Coalitions' policy on new build development.

Contact the Designs on Property team if you have a new home or property question by emailing enquiries@designsonproperty.co.uk or tel 0845 838 1763.