Posts

Posted on

The cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

Building thousands of new houses arbitrarily, without consulting local communities to find out what is most needed and where these should be built would be a derogation of duty when done without due regard to all existing locally drawn up Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs), as originally promised by the newly elected Labour government. Enhanced NDPs should also be commissioned, before good taxpayers money is spent and wasted on new housing. Simply building high numbers of new houses cannot solve the current housing crisis because the pricing issue is a market failure problem rather than a supply one. I would happily explain why that is to anyone interested.

If you haven’t already done so please sign the petition link at the bottom of this page if you want changes to stop the present house price crisis from continuing to crash the starter end of our housing markets.

Sadly none of the political parties in Westminster are addressing the housing price crisis properly. This is hurting the nation’s economy by becoming an inflationary drag on the whole of society.

The following three remedies are designed to correct the housing markets by enabling sufficient affordability to be restored and maintained, aimed particularly at those working locally.

Did you know that a substantial part of the price of a house today is based on the value of the land beneath it!

The first and (No1) proposal is to make any land which gains planning consent for residential use, should become rated as having a nil or a nominal land value. This would help bring house prices back to genuine affordability levels once more. This proposal is based on the valuation knowledge, reasoning, and experience of the petitioner. There are two further proposals in addition to this.

You may well ask, how have ‘I’ (one person or individual), come to know exactly what to do and which way to turn in order to resolve matters of this degree of specialisation? The answer is that I chose surveying and valuation as my career in my 20’s and commenced in a training job back in the 60’s, working amongst a team of qualified surveyors already knowing all of these things and taking five or so years to qualify by examination. As a newly qualified surveyor I could then put such knowledge into use, advising clients and employers throughout the rest of my career. As I’m now retired, I can give commentary to what I have come to know over my career. I am able to diagnose and cure the present housing crisis using my knowledge relating to land, buildings, law, planning, economics and valuation. Crucially, I understand how to use valuation knowledge as the essential tool required for resolving the present house pricing issues, which have becoming a significant problem across society these days. There are two further proposals to set out in addition to this.

To continue …
The second or (No2) proposal in this petition is to change The Town and Country Planning rules so that whilst the regional planning authorities should continue to administer the whole planning process as happens currently, all such decisions relating to residential land use would fall under the jurisdiction of the relevant Town or Parish Council and would be decided by that local Town or Parish Council with reference to the currently adopted Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs). These instruments will have been created in liaison with the regional planning authority as now of course.

Such devolution of planning decision procedures are required in addition to the current Government’s ‘New Wave of Devolution’, which essentially proposes to introduce regional Mayors if local planning authorities should decide to apply.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing an adopting Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP). 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.

The additional change under this petition is to devolve all such decisions relating to the residential use and development of land to the relevant Town or Parish Council to decide subject to and with reference to the currently adopted Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs), as explained.

Such extra devolution on residential planning decision-making would have to be included in the government’s current proposals for amendments to the existing National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), also part of the ‘New Wave of Devolution’.

Under this new devolution for residential planning applications there would no longer be a right-of-appeal to planning inspectors nominated by The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in the U.K. Instead, the local Town or Parish Council would be the authority to determine (to grant or refuse), all such planning applications within their jurisdiction.

If a dispute should arise following a decision made by the relevant local Town or Parish Council, any necessary appeal would be decided by a regulated arbitration process and there would be a formal hearing if deemed necessary. Under this procedure an appeal would be convened and heard locally upon application by the parties in dispute, instead of remotely by The Planning Inspectorate.

In other words, on the question of all applications for residential, or part residential planning approval, the local Town or Parish Council itself would expect to have a proper say, instead of only being allowed to make a formal comment to the regional authority, as occurs at present!

This way, appeals would be dealt with more quickly and appropriately, speeding up the whole planning process for residential planning applications. There would be a significant saving both in the time taken to determine these and in the financial cost of accomplishing the approved development.

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in the U.K. should however retain the ultimate right to call a particular planning application in for determination at inception, but The Planning Inspectorate should no longer be involved in determining residential planning applications and appeals in general, because appeals against such decisions would have been fully devolved to the relevant local Town or Parish Council to decide locally.

To reassure petitioners on some of the technical aspects of this change and in brief, all land would still be owned freehold or leasehold but any change of residential user would be treated as development under the planning rules and such development of land would require planning permission as newly administered by the relevant Town or Parish Council. Therefore obtaining formal planning permission for a change of residential user would differ from that which currently happens under the existing planning rules.

The third or (No3) and final proposal, is to bring better pricing knowledge and advice in, making this available for all buyers and renters, by introducing new buyer-orientated property agencies.

To achieve this there should be a complete change of all the existing marketing methods for housing, by introducing property agents representing the buyer and renter side of the negotiating process in place of the existing seller-led estate agency system. This issue has been failing all housing markets around the whole of our country for a long time.

This proposal would be a considerable improvement for reducing the cost of housing and hinges on shortening the time it takes for sales and purchases to result in becoming successful completions. It would work by improving the way all residential property is marketed, whether going for sale or to let, by replacing the existing estate agent regime with a new and fully licensed buyer and renter orientated agency service called Residential Housing Agents (RHAs). 

These agents would act primarily on behalf of buyers and renters by advising them both upon the market value of the property under consideration and also the condition of such property. This way those purchasing or renting property, especially if it is for themselves and their families to live in, would be directly hiring and paying for the Residential Housing Agent, both to find the best property for them and to deal with the whole of the purchase (or the renting transaction), right through to completion. This would be completely different from (and a reverse of), the existing estate agency regime, bringing significant advantages to the market. Another of the distinctions would be that the sale of the family’s former residence may be dealt with by a different RHA from the one advising on the purchase (or the rental) of the house to be acquired but working on the common ground of obtaining a completion.

If these changes were brought in people moving between houses at the higher end of the market should not be out of pocket as a result, whereas those at the lower end would see considerably lower prices, helping them to climb onto the property-owning ladder in the first place. Lower rental values would also be a spin-off effect from this.

The overall cost of building new houses would also be noticeably reduced as a result of these three proposals.

Sales throughput of all forms of residential property would increase as the affordability levels themselves would simultaneously increase.

These are the very stimuli needed to get housing sales flourishing and get new house building completions increasing once again.

So, here on this web site is the full reasoning explaining what is needed to finally improve all the housing markets across the whole of Britain? If you follow the link below you will find yourself on that very page. Please enjoy this offering and by all means comment if you have thoughts of your own about this.

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

“Introducing The House Price Solution”

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

Please sign our petition.
It is about squaring the price levels of housing depending upon the respective level of wealth of purchasers and their ability to afford such property. Unless things change significantly along these lines, countless people will continue to experience considerable financial anxiety and suffering in the process.
The link below opens the petition in a new tab for you to look at.

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.

Posted on

A one-page synopsis of ‘The House Price Solution’, especially for newcomers

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, 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 merely 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.

I am also hoping that the Civil Service responsible for advising government on housing policy, together with this 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 ask is, how can my solution help?

There are two aspects. 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 or parish 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 or parish council to have them determined exclusively and in accord with their adopted NDP.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing an adopting Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP). 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 or parishes’ local housing economy, primarily 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 affordability crisis

“Solving the affordability crisis”

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

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.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

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.

Posted on

Kick-starting economic growth is now top of the agenda 

Angela Rayner is reported to have said (30 July 24), “Britain was facing the most acute housing crisis in living memory”. This appears to acknowledge that there is an underlying failure within the housing markets of Britain, well beyond dealing with the rented sector and that this needs to be fully realised and addressed.

As an experienced professional in the property sector I have developed a new and comprehensive planning and marketing solution which can resolve this problem. I merely ask that this is given due consideration by government.

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, most earnest submission, before long please.

The first question is:- How can my solution help?
It can do so by enabling more buyers, especially first-time ones, to purchase their property for less, rather than being required to borrow more then they can afford. This would mean people’s earnings would enable them to purchase essentials like housing for themselves more easily.

The cost of living would become lower as a result of the changes being proposed, meaning manufacturing and business could become more competitive allowing increased sales of products for export.

This may seem counterintuitive at first sight but it would in fact be a direct way of boosting exports.

The second question is:- How could median house price levels be lowered?
By improving the way houses are marketed, so that prices would depend more on each individual’s level of affordability rather than each having to rely upon borrowing increasingly eye-watering amounts of capital against the property being purchased by way of obtaining increasingly large mortgage loans!

The way this could be done, in brief, would be for buyers to submit arms-length offers (or bids) not to the present-day estate agents but to newly licensed and trained residential house agents (RHAs), contracted to act for them in seeking the best house for their needs.

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

This would be a significant departure from the present system where the seller appoints an estate agent employed by them to obtain the best possible offers (including helping each buyer to borrow as much as mortgage lenders might be willing to lend to the buyer against the property deeds, to be held by the lender as their security).

A knock-on effect if such a new RHA regime, were to be brought in, would be to reduce the land value aspect of each property valuation. By doing this; developers could continue to build at economically viable development costs. This is a well known aspect of residential property valuation.

Reading this, you will no doubt appreciate that matters relating to house price levels are actually somewhat more complicated than they may be at first sight. Surveyors and valuers are aware to this but in my experience, many estate agents sadly are not.

My knowledge of all of this is based upon my valuation training and approximately 30 years experience as a residential property valuer and front line surveyor.

This allows me to isolate ways of enabling lower house prices without adversely affecting the profit level of builders and developers expected to maintain the levels of quality of housing desired, yet allowing the affordability of most housing to improve, at this highly critical time.

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 affordability crisis

“Solving the affordability crisis”

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

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.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

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.

Posted on

The House Price Crisis, The Present Dilemma Over Estate Agents, and The Politics Governing Town Planning

The result of the general election is the best opportunity to remedy the ongoing house price crisis. It is all about affordability, affordability, affordability for those buying or renting housing to live in, as it forms a major part of the cost of living crisis.

Of course a significant amount of new housing needs to be built to compensate for the growing population but doing that is not going to reduce house prices by much and maybe not by anything at all. The reason for this is explained in our online post headed “The notion that we can build our way out of The Housing Affordability Crisis is utter nonsense”

The following explains the precise reasons why the present house price crisis is manifestly not as a result of the insufficient numbers of new houses being constructed – contrary to widespread belief! Also without additional community infrastructure, substantial new housing will simply worsen the infrastructure shortfall.

It seems that most political parties today support the idea of house prices increasing over time and it also appears that currently, no political parties are prepared to canvass on or sanction a reduction of house prices in their manifestos, even though the increase in house prices to the heady levels we are currently experiencing is as a direct result of the policies which previous governments have been pursuing!

My working experience includes over 30 years as a Chartered Surveyor with a property valuation qualification and during that time I observed the house price trends, both privately and professionally. Having done this I find these price trends strongly suggest that the relentless increase in house prices of past decades is more to do with the way estate agents have been legally allowed to operate against the natural economic market trends for some decades now.

If one considers, even for a short while, why it is that the general public maintain such a low opinion of estate agents, the answer to this quickly becomes plain.

It is that estate agents have  been and still are, in reality, treading on the toes of those trying to get clear advice for knowing the correct market price of each residential property they are concerned with, whether it’s being bought, or sold.

This is because estate agents are trying to advise their contractual clients, the sellers, as to the best price they may be able to achieve, yet at the same time they are trying to help the buyers by basically doing precisely the same, namely advising them all about the prices they (the sole agent) have in their minds’ eye for the property which they are wishing to sell at the time! This is providing a distorted view of true or current market values, which is how market prices are continually being distorted.

In other words, what is actually happening is that estate agents basically guess at a price that a particular property might sell for in the market and, they tend to guess high so as to try not to bring themselves into disrepute; an uncomfortable situation for any organisation to find themselves in at any one time let alone all the time.

In  addition, as they are mostly paid on a percentage of the price attained, they usually try and get as much as they can from each prospective buyer, even if there are sometimes no genuine or actual ‘other’ offers being submitted! It is simply too tempting for them to do this and bolster their fee; however best intentioned they may well aim to be.

This shows that estate agents, as advisers, cannot reliably assist either the seller, or the buyer with accurate market value analysis, because of the situation in which they find themselves, with their primary responsibility favouring the vendor.

The only solution to overcome the resultant adverse market position which the house-owning and renting public find themselves grappling with, is to campaign for a change to the way residential estate agents operate, by making them primarily responsible to professionally advise each buyer, (or each renter if the house is for rent), as to the price any particular property can attract in current open market conditions. 

To do this estate agents would have to be made essentially to contract with each buyer (or each renter), and no longer have any business contracts dealing with potential selling, or letting clients at all.

This simple change would bring untold and immense improvement by restoring open market conditions for residential property being bought or sold on the market as well as being rented or let. 

Not to change this now would simply allow the present regime to continue unabated. The tragedy, i.e. that of accelerating house prices, if allowing such a thing to happen, should now be plain for all to see. This is what we are experiencing, the present and extreme house price crisis. Available finance to buy at such historically high prices is another significant factor which is helping to stabilise house prices at the levels being negotiated by all the selling agents.

Extremely high house prices like these are factually connected with three of the other top 5 issues for voters. This elevates the housing crisis to become one of the top priorities now requiring a swift solution.

No political party taking part in the 2024 general election has, in its party manifesto, a realistic proposal to deal with house price levels which are now in a very substantial crisis, when taking into account the relatively low average yearly earnings benchmark, certainly regarding wages within England and Wales.

It must, of course, be accepted that changing the way houses are currently marketed will receive staunch objection by those in the present estate agency sector. Instead of attempting to agree or disagree however, it would be better that such important matters as these should be the subject of constructive dialogue in order to arrive at an acceptable and improvement solution. As the author of The House Price Solution I would like to take part in any such discussions.

The other equally important change necessary to peg house prices back to reasonably affordable levels is to make changes to the town and country planning rules such that local town and parish councils should decide all residential planning applications within their designated areas without a right of appeal. This would bring much needed housing to the exact locations within the towns and parishes where extra housing is most needed, especially for local working families. This aspect is fully covered on the other posts within this web site.

The political party that is handed the mantle of governing our country should not only understand the dilemma which everyone is in housing-wise, (namely that average house prices are now well in excess of 15 times yearly average earnings), but that the new government should be able to properly understand the housing markets’ economic landscape and resolve to develop and use this necessary wisdom combined with the powers they will have.

It is becoming clear that all towns and parishes with a housing crisis like St Ives & Porthleven in Cornwall, The South Hams in Devon, Ilfracombe in North Devon (as screened on BBC Spotlight on 30th July 2024), as well as Frome in Somerset and Whitby in North Yorkshire, should canvass for fully devolved planning decision-making powers to be provided to local town and parish councils up and down the whole country. 

The towns named above have been in the news lately as being unable to resolve the crisis in housing, endemic in their regions over several decades past, where local workers as well as the retired are concerned. All this despite more powers having been devolved to their county or regional authorities over past years. This strongly suggests a wholly different planning policy is now needed.

Shortcomings such as these ought to be tackled head on. It would seem that this is an issue needing to be raised at the very highest level and without delay. So, I’m including it here as well as referring it to my local MP. You should do the same too if you think there is a similar problem in your local area.
If you want to know what to ask them, ask why they aren’t changing the way houses are both planned for and marketed, to finally resolve the poorly performing, over-priced and obdurate housing markets around the whole country?

It is important to understand that house prices are variable but should broadly relate to average yearly earning levels locally, taking into account other things such as current interest rates and acceptable mortgage term lengths. However, this can only happen once the housing markets are operating as they should, i.e. operating as arms length markets in accordance with, free market economic fundamentals.

Anyone may add their own comments to this blog if they wish to, whether in support, or otherwise and are warmly invited to do so.

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 affordability crisis

“Solving the affordability crisis”

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

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.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

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.

Posted on

The best thing to do to resolve the national housing crisis

A leaked set of proposals to The Guardian newspaper recently has resulted in a front page article outlining the content of a recent report by The Labour leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Stephen Cowan, about to be sent to the Labour Party.

Among some serious issues being highlighted is the cost of living itself and the problem of rising rents deemed as a result of insufficient supply of available rental properties coming onto the market.

I think there is a lot more to this than meets the eye however.

Mr Cowan suggests solutions could range from putting restrictions on the amount of rent increases and their frequency, to possibly considering scrapping no-fault evictions.

A significant problem with these ideas would of course be that such actions are likely to further restrict the already dwindling supply of private rental property being offered on the market.

Sir Kier is said to have promised to tackle England’s housing crisis if elected as Prime Minister, in part by relying on a massive socially rented house-building programme. However, there are other alternative proposals that I would like to advance for consideration and debate.

From my viewpoint, as a retired surveyor, the best solutions to be applied should retain and nurture an open market for privately rented housing, without excessive restrictions on rent levels or discriminating against good landlords simply wishing to operate in the private rental sector. I don’t think Mr Cowan has been able to consider proposals such as the ones I have been putting forward.

Firstly, it is clear that the way houses are currently marketed via estate agents, is an economically imperfect way to do so. This has to change as a matter of urgency so that buyers and renters are considered equally in any negotiations on rents and/or prices.

What is causing the increasingly unaffordable house price increases is being driven by the fact that traditionally, house price increases are being decided in liaison with estate agents and letting agents acting solely for vendors and landlords. This is what needs to change. There needs to be open market consideration by buyers and renters so that their affordability criteria can be fed into the equation. Agents need to be tasked with balancing any price / rent increases with buyer / renter affordability in the market. Local buyers and renters ought to be included for full consideration when determining which applicant is the best applicant for the house or flat in question.

The only and long overdue answer for this would be to re-regulate the marketing of all privately owned and rented residential property by improving the way all houses are marketed both from a buyers’ and a renters’ perspective.

Secondly, it is vital as part of this to make sweeping changes to residential planning rules so that local town and parishes absolutely decide user types of all residential properties in their areas, and no one else should be involved. This could also be done with immediate effect by our central government.

It is clear that to assist with the provision of additional residential dwellings in the locations where they are most needed, important changes to the planning rules are brought in such that local town and Parish councils, (which are democratically elected), should decide the residential use classes of all the houses or residential properties in their designated areas. They could do this by putting the required classifications into the next five-year Neighbourhood Development Plans. These, once adopted, would then be decided until further superseded, as housing demand locally may fluctuate and change.

For those owning residential property that has had changes to its use class, such owners must accept that when the property is next vacated, the new use class must take effect under the Neighbourhood Development Plan then in existence.

That may mean when marketing their property, that a different class of occupier may involve a different level of affordability. The risk of this would naturally have to belong to the owner of the property concerned, not the town or Parish.

Doing this would allow local areas to be able to balance the supply of suitable properties in their area with the actual demand for these.

More about this may be found in the various articles published on this web site of course.

Whilst I was finalising these unique proposals I needed to explain, to my professional body the RICS, having qualified as a Chartered Surveyor back in 1974, all about these solutions to the housing crisis which had come to my attention. They are based upon the valuation knowledge and my market awareness gained whilst conducting my inspections mostly on behalf of buyers and renters. Unfortunately, it was clear at that time (some years ago now), that RICS was not willing to sanction these changes and instead vehemently supported the existing estate agency model which is now as old and archaic as the hills!

In the final analysis however, there can be only one preferred solution to successfully being able to solve the existing and worsening housing crisis; namely my solution.

Having arrived at such a viable solution myself, I believe RICS ought ultimately to acknowledge the validity of this cure, along with others who will hopefully consider my alternatives. I remain open to discussing the details of these proposals with RICS if and when they may be interested in doing this of course.

Meanwhile, I hope the newly formed British government will take these proposals seriously and perhaps debate these both within these pages and indeed in The House.

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 affordability crisis

“Solving the affordability crisis”

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

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.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

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.