Number of new builds per year/style of construction.-a query

Cornucopia

martinsurrey wrote: »

So you have a 1,000 unit housing estate to built, and you want to build them all at once, on day one you need to hire 1,000 ground workers to clear the entire site and dig foundations for 1,000 houses, then you sack them after a few months, then you need to hire 1,000 brick layers to start building 1,000 houses walls at once, then you sack them after a few months, then you need to hire 1,000 roofers to build 1,000 roofs at once, then you sack them after a few months, and at the end you have 1,000 houses to sell at once.

and I guess you've found an easy way to find and hire these vast numbers of trades in an area for a short period of time rather than building 100 houses at a time and employing 1/10 of the people for 10 times as long.

not to mention the efficiency from developing in stages as you learn as you go and the trades get to know the designs.

but no, its easier to blame "fat cat builders".

The trickling effect does not require a miraculous instant build in order to be resolved. Some of these builders are releasing 2 or 3 properties per month on sites of 500-1000 houses. That rate of progress makes little difference to underlying local housing shortages.

If the builders want to do it that way, or if they are constrained to do it that way, it's fine. But let's not pretend that they can then play a part in delivering the massive amount of housing required. We need to do something else.

Oh, and the trickling through is not just in the build phase. There are reported issues with builders acquiring land and consents, and then sitting on them for years. I think that Councils will start to put time limits on consent, and I would support that.

Fuzzyness

the people who are buying all these houses are those that have been renting in house shares or living with their parents. otherwise known as concealed households and it is worse in the 25 - 34 age group.

daveyjp

Land is an important raw material. If you are a housebuilder and you run out of land you are stuffed! That's why they buy land years before they need it - it may take years to get permission to build.

There are already time limits on consents - 3 years.

If you want more houses you need more developers, unfortunately the UK is dominated by a few big developers.

martinsurrey

Cornucopia wrote: »

The trickling effect does not require a miraculous instant build in order to be resolved. Some of these builders are releasing 2 or 3 properties per month on sites of 500-1000 houses. That rate of progress makes little difference to underlying local housing shortages.

Large sites aim for 100-150 completions per year, its a sensible amount for the logistics of building,

If a developer has bought a 1,000 unit site (you'll be looking at about £30m+ for it) and is sitting on it or only delivering 24-36 units a year (taking 40 years to build the site out) they are shooting themselves in the foot, their return on capital employed would be TINY in fact can you link a single 1000 unit site delivering under 40 units a year?

Cornucopia wrote: »

If the builders want to do it that way, or if they are constrained to do it that way, it's fine. But let's not pretend that they can then play a part in delivering the massive amount of housing required. We need to do something else.

ohh they can help, but its not a magic pull a switch and suddenly houses pop out of the ground

Cornucopia wrote: »

Oh, and the trickling through is not just in the build phase. There are reported issues with builders acquiring land and consents, and then sitting on them for years. I think that Councils will start to put time limits on consent, and I would support that.

Again can you link that, large sites with consents that are dormant for more than a few years.

What a lot of headline people seem to forget is that you get outlying planning permission for 1,000 units on a site, you then need to develop a detailed plan, get highways consent, agree section 106 agreements, get utility consent, apply for detailed planning permission (massive hurdle), get ecology reports done, environmental impact statements, remediate the site if its brown field, all which can take a few years before you even get a spade in ground.

westernpromise

Conrad wrote: »

Again I'm finding myself asking, if it's so grim here why are thousands of Europeans each week choosing to settle here, over other parts of Europe?


Here are only some other examples of 'UK worst in Europe' reported recently which makes me question why so many ruddy people keep CHOSING the UK?




Fattest in Europe

Most drunk

Least active

Least productive (in work)

Shortest stay in maternity wards

70% of European card debt

Highest teen pregnancy

Worst literacy and math results

Highest domestic abuse

Highest abortion rate

Greatest inequality

Highest rents

UK school leavers 'the worst in Europe for essential skills', report says

UK school children unhappiest in Europe

English teenagers 'are most illiterate in the developed world', report reveals (Jan 2016)


Worst at learning other languages

Highest incidence of builder's bottom as well no doubt.

Those flaws are exactly what draws foreigners, because the locals are easily outcompeted for the best jobs and thus outbid for the best houses.

The average Polish plumber can't speak very good English but neither can the average British plumber.

Cornucopia

martinsurrey wrote: »

Large sites aim for 100-150 completions per year, its a sensible amount for the logistics of building,

If a developer has bought a 1,000 unit site (you'll be looking at about £30m+ for it) and is sitting on it or only delivering 24-36 units a year (taking 40 years to build the site out) they are shooting themselves in the foot, their return on capital employed would be TINY in fact can you link a single 1000 unit site delivering under 40 units a year?

Probably not. I do have a house, though, that is on a site that was being developed for well over 10 years.

Even your figure of, what, 8-12 properties a month on a large site is pretty meagre.

ohh they can help, but its not a magic pull a switch and suddenly houses pop out of the ground

No, but some of the technologies are completing to water-tight within 2-3 weeks.

Again can you link that, large sites with consents that are dormant for more than a few years.

It was on a recent Dispatches program. You can probably still find it on All4.

What a lot of headline people seem to forget is that you get outlying planning permission for 1,000 units on a site, you then need to develop a detailed plan, get highways consent, agree section 106 agreements, get utility consent, apply for detailed planning permission (massive hurdle), get ecology reports done, environmental impact statements, remediate the site if its brown field, all which can take a few years before you even get a spade in ground.

Sure - and the amount of bureaucracy is one thing that Government could do something about. In fact, one cost-effective measure might be for local authorities to push land on to the market with some of that work already done at public expense.

martinsurrey

Cornucopia wrote: »

Probably not. I do have a house, though, that is on a site that was being developed for well over 10 years.

Even your figure of, what, 8-12 properties a month on a large site is pretty meagre.

Until you realize that you need 200 workers full time to build at that rate, not to mention the supply chain management to support it, if you build 10 a month average and each house costs £300k and builders manage about 20% profit margin, thats £29m tied up in WIP at a time, if you multiply that up and they try for 400 houses, that's £120m tied up, a single delay could send a large company under!

Cornucopia wrote: »

No, but some of the technologies are completing to water-tight within 2-3 weeks.

Off site manufacture maybe, all you are doing is moving the build phase off site, and that 2 weeks doesn't include the building of the roads, foundations, utilities.

Cornucopia wrote: »

It was on a recent Dispatches program. You can probably still find it on All4.

I've just read an article on it.

"In England alone, there is now planning permission available for 476,000 homes that remain unbuilt, a record high.

The annual reports of the three biggest developers show that while between them they completed 44,360 new homes across the UK last year, they had planning permission for 200,823 more. The same three companies own “strategic land holdings”, without planning permission, with space for another 278,6000 homes.

so 476,000 is about 3 year supply at 150k a year, since it takes several years to get a site from outline planning to finished, thats not too high a number.

the large developers also hold the largest sites, so a 5 year land pipeline (200k/44K) isn't really that high, given the technical hurdles they often have to overcome.

Cornucopia wrote: »

Sure - and the amount of bureaucracy is one thing that Government could do something about. In fact, one cost-effective measure might be for local authorities to push land on to the market with some of that work already done at public expense.

so your solution is to get us to pay for a pen pushing in the council to do the important infrastructure? I mean look at the current road network and how well maintained and timely that is done?

C_Mababejive

Conrad wrote: »

Again I'm finding myself asking, if it's so grim here why are thousands of Europeans each week choosing to settle here, over other parts of Europe?


Here are only some other examples of 'UK worst in Europe' reported recently which makes me question why so many ruddy people keep CHOSING the UK? ]


I do appreciate the point you are making Conrad, but surely mine is a statement of fact? It is surely true that the average British home is smaller and more expensive that most other homes in the developed world.

I think it has much to do with land ownership and who controls it. It has also much to do with Brits happily buckling down and accepting the status quo. We are quite happy to pay £250,000 for a flat in a house conversion somewhere which is just plainly ridiculous when in other parts of the world, the same money would buy a 3 bed detached and more.

http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/fun-at-home/news/a7654/house-sizes-around-the-world/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/10909403/British-homes-are-the-smallest-in-Europe-study-finds.html


EG £142,000
http://www.estate.dk/villa/6200/praestegaardsvej/210024/1329

GreatApe

It is down to construction costs and taxes, you could not build a 150 sqm home in your back garden (free land) to UK standards and types for less than £200k.
Whats more try to do this as a business and you need to build two homes, give one to the state for £100k (even if it cost you £300k to build). Add in say £50k a plot and 20% margin and you have something like

build 2 x 150 sqm homes you have something like £400k cost £100k land £100k profit . The government buys one of the homes off you for £100k for its subsidized housing schemes. So you have to sell the other house for £500k to make 20%. If you sell it for £400k you make nothing.

The primary problem is this subsidized home tax the secondary problem is building costs (both labor and design/materials) and thirdly a land cost.

Cornucopia

martinsurrey wrote: »

Until you realize that you need 200 workers full time to build at that rate, not to mention the supply chain management to support it, if you build 10 a month average and each house costs £300k and builders manage about 20% profit margin, thats £29m tied up in WIP at a time, if you multiply that up and they try for 400 houses, that's £120m tied up, a single delay could send a large company under!

I'm not sure I follow your maths, or the logic behind it. Builders are already committed to the cost of land - that is a constant throughout the build cycle - the sooner they complete and sell a house, the sooner that investment is repaid. So to say that the entire sale cost is tied up or at stake only during the build phase is not quite right.

Off site manufacture maybe, all you are doing is moving the build phase off site, and that 2 weeks doesn't include the building of the roads, foundations, utilities.

Sure. But moving off-site changes the logistics considerably. Can't lay bricks in the rain? No problem.

... they completed 44,360 new homes across the UK last year...

... so 476,000 is about 3 year supply at 150k a year...

Is there a particular reason why you're estimating a completion rate over 3 times what they actually achieved last year? Are you saying they WERE dragging their feet last year, or are you accepting that rather than holding 3 years worth of property, it is actually nearer to 10?

so your solution is to get us to pay for a pen pushing in the council to do the important infrastructure? I mean look at the current road network and how well maintained and timely that is done?

I can envisage a new mode of housing supply where a local authority works with multiple eco-build developers and part of that process would be for the authority to deliver a site that is already planned, remediated, ground-worked, and with utilities plumbed in to defined plots. The developers can then move in, and undertake the 2-3 week build per property that is needed, and with maybe 15-20 developer teams working, from multiple companies, perhaps populate a 500 home site in 18 months - and depending on how clever the logistical phasing of the site was, there could be intermediate releases of whole streets throughout that period.