It may be reasonable to ask if the government has a clearly defined policy towards housing. I say reasonable because in recent years there has been talk of the number of new houses needed while losing the broader context of overall housing policy.
On Gavin Barwell’s recent appointment as housing and planning minister he made reference to bringing together all of the stakeholders but, oddly, forgot to include any reference to lenders. Strange, you may think, given lenders’ roles and stakes in many forms of housing provision?
The mortgage industry has adapted extremely effectively to changes in housing preferences. The buy-to-let phenomenon was an example of lenders recognising a different approach by consumers and introducing products which investors snapped up. There is every reason to believe that if policy turns once more to owner occupation, we can be equally adaptable, assuming that we, as lenders, are given the confidence and direction to plan and execute.
Some may point to increased regulation as an obstacle to greater levels of mortgage finance. However, the implementation of MMR and MCD were really only modest bumps in the road compared to the fallout from the financial crisis. Lenders have demonstrated that they can absorb regulatory change relatively comfortably even if interpretation can lead you to question their intent.
There have been calls to place housing at the centre of government policy. That doesn’t really work unless it is part of the overall thinking sitting alongside wider strategies concerning regional development, for example. So here’s a thought; if greater economic investment (overseas or domestic) could be encouraged into the regions, is there a case to support the view that the pressures on housing in London and the South East might ease?
This presupposes that joined up thinking combines the need for new housing and the vital infrastructure that supports that development, such as schools, shops, surgeries and so forth. However, this will not prevent new homeowners from commuting to work elsewhere, unless some thought goes into a more integrated strategy that also gives consideration to developing and encouraging business to grow where that workforce actually lives.
Without it, the magnet that is London and the South East will continue to skew house prices and overload our already failing transport infrastructure.
The housing issue is not therefore a question of building property wholesale in order to simply reach a quota. It has to be part of a coordinated plan, supported by all political parties that lasts longer than one government’s tenure on power.
Lenders can be a dynamic part of the housing debate, but without a non-partisan, coherent and inclusive strategy, it is likely that this debate will be repeated ad infinitum like Groundhog Day but without the humour or the eventual solution.
