The Battle for No. 10 and How It Will Affect the UK Housing Market
With the battle for no. 10 raging on between the former Chancellor of the Exchequer – Rishi Sunak – and the former Secretary of State – Liz Truss, it is important to consider their positions on housing.
The UK is currently experiencing a property market boom; however, many are worried that the balloon will soon pop. Therefore, the future prime minister could cause the market to continue its current trajectory, or cause prices to nosedive.
Liz Truss - Former Secretary of State
Liz Truss has come out to pledge her support to “generation rent” by suggesting that lenders take a history of rental payments as proof that the homebuyers would be able to afford mortgage repayments. This will allow more first-time buyers to access the property market and, therefore, allow more transactions to take place – a seemingly obvious positive for the UK property market.
The conservative candidate has also criticised the existing housing targets by calling them “Stalinist” and saying that she thinks “that’s the wrong way to generate economic growth”. Truss has suggested replacing the housing targets within the Levelling Up Bill with financial incentives and easier planning processes for sites in “opportunity areas”.
However, Housing Today disagree and have called for further commitment to building 300,000 homes each year to tackle the housing crisis, as these targets have previously proved to increase the rate of construction.
Rishi Sunak - Former Chancellor of the Exchequer
Rishi Sunak has also been criticised for his views on housing. The former chancellor has pledged to prevent development on the green belt. This would be in keeping with why the green belt exists in the first place; however, with demand outweighing the supply of adequate housing stock and with this being the driving force of unsustainable house price growth, this pledge will significantly limit the number of houses being built and further accentuate the current housing crisis.
Having said this, Sunak has also pledged to clamp down on large developers who landbank sites in the hope to make more money when property prices rise further. This would help to increase the incredibly low levels of housing stock and help to get more buyers on the property ladder.
It will be interesting to see how the property market reacts to who’s moving vans turn up at Downing Street on September 5th…
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