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.
For more on this please follow the link below:
The house price affordability crisis
Posted by: Peter Hendry, Housing Valuation Consultant
Author of:– The House Price Solution, otherwise known as The Hendry Solution.