Tag Archives: UK Property

Number of applicants on wait list up 6%, the highest since 1999

The number of Londoners waiting for government-subsidised housing rose by 6 per cent to the highest since 1999 as the UK economy soured and the supply of new homes tightened.

‘The average rent in London is £206 a week, compared with £86 in a subsidised house or apartment.’ – Belinda Porich, London regional head of National Housing Federation

The waiting list increased to 353,130 households in 2008, or one in nine London families, from 333,857 a year earlier, the National Housing Federation said in a report called ‘Home Truths’ published yesterday.

‘The economic situation is putting pressure on social housing,’ said Belinda Porich, London regional head of the federation, in an interview. ‘We are building way less than the number of people coming onto the list each year.’

The worst economic slump since World War II has increased unemployment, reduced home construction and raised demand for social housing in the UK capital. It’s a category that includes rent-subsidized, council apartments and houses and properties purchased using low-cost, government-backed plans.

The federation says there continues to be an ‘affordability gap’ in the UK capital. It estimates that the buyer of an average-priced home in London, which costs £362,810 (S$798,182), would have to have an annual income of £93,294. That’s based on a mortgage for 90 per cent of the property’s value and three-and-a-half times the buyer’s salary. Continue reading →

Lobby group says transactions will remain low unless lending picks up

The UK housing market will struggle to sustain a recovery unless lending picks up, the head of Britain’s main homebuilding lobby group said.

‘It’s potentially quite fragile,’ Stewart Baseley, chairman of the Home Builders Federation, said in an interview in London on Tuesday. ‘Without mortgage finance, the housing market will continue to be at very low levels of transactions. It’s difficult to describe that as recovery.’

House prices have fallen 13 per cent from their peak two years ago and may drop as much as 30 per cent, Fitch Ratings said in a report last week. Banks are granting about half as many loans every month than at the end of 2007. Lenders remain constrained by a lack of capital and are looking to reduce leverage, Bank of England deputy governor Charles Bean said on Tuesday. Continue reading →