Improve all U.K. housing markets locally

Welcome to The House Price Solution. This web site is campaigning for a change to the new government’s policy on having Top Down housing targets.

The purpose of this website is to stimulate debate and help find, collectively, the best way to bring house prices back to within reach of a majority of those wishing and needing to buy (or indeed rent) housing for themselves and their families.

This is the alternative to simply trying to out-build housing demand, until prices reduce to lower levels; for that will never work!

The full reasoning of these unique proposals can be explained in interview by allowing these proposals and the methods they require, to be adequately explained and discussed.

This is a new and comprehensive planning and marketing solution which can resolve both the above problem and the house price crisis as well. I would ask that this is given due consideration by our new government.

The proposals set out on this website are future generational, based upon a detailed analysis of house price levels by the author as found to exist during historic and damaging economic turbulence in Britain.

The object of these proposals is to replace existing flawed sales and planning methods with new ones, designed to avoid the effects of unwanted future price escalation within all British housing markets. This would be the advantage of deploying The House Price Solution.

Having been in contact with my own MP about it, I am hoping for a referral of my alternative proposal to The Secretary of State at The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I would like to generate some in-depth discourse on this important and earnest submission before very long. It must be emphasised The House Price Solution is not in any way simply an idealogical fix!

It is hoped that the Civil Service responsible for advising government on housing policy, together with the brave and considerate Labour government which has just been elected, will consider and fully examine these special new policy proposals for remedying the present housing crisis.

The first question to consider is, how can The House Price Solution resolve the housing crisis?

There are two aspects to answering this question. The first is about how to make all local housing markets across Britain work like free-market economic models.

This would involve replacing estate agency as we know it with a new, better and properly licensed service which I am calling Residential House Agents or (RHAs). This is the first radical change. These buyer and renter-advising agents would primarily work for buyers and renters instead of for sellers, as happens at present.

The job of these new Residential House Agents (RHAs) would be not only to sell or indeed let individual owner’s houses but more importantly would find and secure the houses which their contracted client(s) are seeking both for themselves and their families – whether such clients are wishing to buy or to rent.

Individual RHAs working with clients would need to have gained an approved new qualification showing their level of competence. The reason for this is that the existing estate agency service breaks the economic market rules and generally talks prices up. This skews all residential property marketplaces by over-valuing most of the individual houses and flats. This is a fundamental misrepresentation and is damaging all the housing marketplaces across Britain.

What is needed instead is a service that records all genuine offers (whether to buy or to rent), and immediately submits these to the relevant vendor (or the landlord if for rentals), for consideration. After the decision is made and one of the offers is accepted by the vendor or the landlord, the RHA handling this will arrange for a pre-worded lock-out agreement or contract with that vendor as well as with their legal adviser such that they all agree not to accept any other offer for the agreed period of time that it should take for the conveyancing to be concluded (or the tenancy agreement if its a letting). In essence a newly prescribed lock-out agreement.

Once the sale or letting is completed in this way, the RHA would collect their fee from the satisfied buyer or renter, via the solicitor dealing with completing the transaction (or from the landlord if appropriate). See the other articles on the website explaining this in more detail.

One other key advantage of introducing these proposals would be that there would no longer be a need for a Council Tax Revaluation, as this method of valuation would be superseded by the market valuation procedures set down in these new proposals. This, in itself, would save the government a great deal of money as well as civil servant time.

The second radical change, deals with the town and country planning rules relating to residential property. What it proposes is the substantial change necessary to make the best and most efficient use of all housing units, whether already built, or yet to be constructed.

A main reason for this is that housing is in great demand as well as in unprecedentedly short supply. As a result, each viable existing housing unit should be zoned within the local Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP), such that whenever that property becomes vacant (and/or changes hands), the appropriate NDP zoning for that house or flat must take effect. For example, if the house was previously used as a second home, but it has subsequently become zoned on the NDP for local housing use, then after the vacation of the property, the new use must comply with the current NDP zoning. Enforcement action could follow wherever this is not the case.

Clearly, because it is the local town council that draws up local NDPs, the best organisation to administer this would be that same one. I therefore propose that all residential planning decisions should be devolved to each local town council for them to determine this exclusively and in accordance with the NDP once adopted.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing adopted Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDPs). See ‘The House Price Affordability Crisis’ on the web site for more information.

Balanced demand and supply locally could be achieved for each individual town and village by having an Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP) fully adopted as being the document to refer to when making planning decisions throughout the validity of the ENDP.

This would mean the existing arrangements for regional councils to decide such planning applications would no longer be needed, which is a third radical change, one designed to speed up planning decisions a great deal.

As a result, there would no longer be a need for government planning inspectors to deal with residential planning appeals centrally. In other words there would be no need for an appeal process for individual residential planning matters anymore. This would save inordinate amounts of time as well as great expense and bring much needed clarity, as to exactly which use designation each residential property should have, for the vital benefit of the town including any parishes’ within the local housing economy of course.

This site proposes changes to the whole way in which houses are marketed by agents as well as bringing in far more effective planning controls. 

For more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution – Part 1.

“Introducing The House Price Solution”

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Consulting Valuation Surveyor
Author of:– The House Price Solution

“Solving the affordability crisis”

Please also note. Unless things change significantly along the lines explained, countless people will continue to experience considerable financial anxiety or pain so, please sign our petition.
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The cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

Your action in asking our government to debate this could help bring about all of these much needed changes.