It’s official: House building activity in strong recovery

Mr._Pricklepants

It’s official: House building activity in strong recovery.

The first hard evidence that house building activity has turned the corner has emerged from latest NHBC registration figures.

2013 Q1/2012 Q1
Private registrations rise 16% to 23,608
Public sector registrations soar 43% to 8,131

As the leading warranty and insurance provider for new homes in the UK, NHBC’s housing registration statistics are a key leading indicator of activity in the new homes industry

http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2013/05/03/its-official-house-building-activity-in-recovery/


A bit of good news on a gloomy and rainy Tuesday morning.

The corner has been turned...both in house building activity and the economy as a whole. Time to rejoice.

shortchanged_2

House building, good news for many. Not good news for people looking to make money out of property.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Mr._Pricklepants wrote: »

The corner has been turned...both in house building activity and the economy as a whole..

Very good news.

With prices rising and lending starting to ease a bit, it's not surprising that supply of new builds is slowly increasing.

Still a very long way to go of course, as we really need to be building 300,000 + houses a year to keep up with need and catch up on the current million houses shortage, but a welcome if very small first step.

Conrad

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Still a very long way to go of course, as we really need to be building 300,000 + houses a year to keep up with need and catch up on the current million houses shortage, but a welcome if very small first step.

And once we've built this million? All will happen is even more immigrants will be attracted to the resource. Then what, build another million, why not 10m, why not plaster roads everywhere and revel in congestion and noise, hoorah!

Talking at the weekend to locals, none of us could face going anywhere due to the traffic in the South East which gets worse with time.

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Very good news.

With prices rising and lending starting to ease a bit, it's not surprising that supply of new builds is slowly increasing.

Still a very long way to go of course, as we really need to be building 300,000 + houses a year to keep up with need and catch up on the current million houses shortage, but a welcome if very small first step.

To what extent do you think rule changes are responsible? The Tories appear (contrary to their usual stance) to be encouraging building.
Whatever the reason it's certainly a step in the right direction.

ILW

Won't prices start dropping if building increases?

wotsthat

ILW wrote: »

Won't prices start dropping if building increases?

If the government are correct and we need 250,000 houses/ year and this data represents less than half of that then no.

Maybe they'll just go up more slowly.

Percy1983

Well more building certainly is good news.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

To what extent do you think rule changes are responsible?

Not at all, so far.

There are several hundred thousand empty plots with full planning permission granted already. About 3.5 years worth of supply at current building rates.

That isn't the reason building has been at the lowest levels in a century.

The credit famine is solely to blame for that.

Any current increase in building is down to a greater availability of finance, whether it be development or mortgage funding.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

wotsthat wrote: »

we need 250,000 houses/ year .

Not quite.

We need 250,000 a year to keep up with current and future housing need.

We need another million to alleviate the existing shortage.

300K a year for 20 years would just about do the trick and balance housing supply with housing need.

ILW

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Not at all, so far.

There are several hundred thousand empty plots with full planning permission granted already. About 3.5 years worth of supply at current building rates.

That isn't the reason building has been at the lowest levels in a century.

The credit famine is solely to blame for that.

Any current increase in building is down to a greater availability of finance, whether it be development or mortgage funding.

Good reason to tax these plots then.
If nothing else it would bring in a few quid to the treasury.