Speaking at the Council of Mortgage Lenders Future Housing Conference in London today, Savills’ Yolande Barnes, said the private rented sector is heavily geared towards single person and childless couple households, with serious social implications.
She warned that the inadequate supply of rental stock for families, combined with the lack of mortgage funding, left many people unable to trade up.
Barnes said: “There comes a point when households stop forming when there isn’t a property to move into. We face a real danger in this country of a falling birth rate.
“The same fear applies to first-time buyers, because if they are unable to acquire stock in the owner-occupied market, it is a potential barrier to household formation.”
She said there was a lot of scope for investors to expand into family accommodation and a broader range of property types beyond smaller apartments.
Barnes said: “On the build-to-let side, there is a niche for investors to exploit supplying family accommodation. However, unless there is a specific build-to-let programme, I’m not sure how this can be fulfilled.”
In addition, Barnes said lenders must expand beyond traditional mortgage lending to include co-ownership and giving collectives the opportunity to provide each other with equity to purchase homes.
Barnes said: “It may well be that lenders will have to get to grips with these collectives and group finances in the future, as people look for other ways to get onto the property ladder.”
