Mortgage News
CML conference: New lenders will fill void in affordable housing market
Building firms or private equity will step into fill the gap if mortgage lenders walk away from the opportunities in affordable housing, warned a top UK mortgage specialist.
Peter Williams, executive director of IMLA and director of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research warned the big opportunities offered by Low Cost Home Ownership will attract other funders at the CML’s Mortgage Lending and affordable housing conference yesterday.
The market is currently just 2-300,000 properties, which he called a “drop in the ocean.”
“So it’s either time to call it a day or push affordable homes into the mass market. Mortgage lenders need to make up their minds about the sector and decide whether they want to make a political gesture or genuinely offer the mortgages as an important component within mortgage ranges,” he said.
With a 1.99m backlog in UK housing provision, there is no shortage of appetite, he added.
But the government continues to close down information resources in this sector, he said, which is not helping the market function successfully.
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“The impact of low cost home ownership will vary hugely from local authority to local authority and the government also needs to be clearer on Low Cost Home Ownership and the role it is going to play in the UK,” he said.
Led by the Homes and Communities Agency, the government is already updating, rebranding and simplifying its affordable homes policy with little fanfare on an ongoing basis.
In the UK excluding London, affordable housing schemes will be rebranded to Homebuy UK Government and in London to First Steps to Homeownership in April, when the new website will also launch.
Public sector key workers like teachers, nurses and the police have are set to be dropped as a national housing priority with military personnel gaining priority status instead.
The 14 government appointed Homebuy agents will be forced to work to set service standards, including faster turnaround times on application forms, marketing plans and superior home re-sale services and affordability assessments with mortgage calculators.