the house price solution – Improve all U.K. housing markets locally

14 November, 202412 December, 2024

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.

11 July, 20221 December, 2024

Restricting second homes and holiday lets will not restore the affordability of houses in local communities

Restricting the numbers of second homes and holiday lets will not restore the availability or the affordability of reasonably priced houses for people living and working in local communities – why?

This is the published opinion of a senior contributor and property surveyor of 30 years working experience and author of the ‘improvethehousingmarket’ web site.

It is published in a bid to start restoring the viability of ‘community’, in all regions of our country and to protect us from excessive second home and holiday property ownership, especially in more attractive localities.

Sadly these ideas may not be on the radar of any political party within Westminster at this particular moment in time. Why, we cannot say!

One thing is certain however, there are problems with any proposals to tax those who wish to own second homes or run holiday letting businesses, not least because doing so will not somehow make such properties suddenly become more affordable to those living and working in the particular communities concerned.

Rather than try to tax (or to fine) those who, for example, use houses as second homes or for holiday letting, or just leave them empty, I propose a fundamental upgrade to the workings of the whole British housing market, because to actually track down and fine the different classes of owners would not just be difficult, it would be impossible to administer in practice.

Some of the main elements of these proposals and their key effects are discussed below. The proposals which I advocate here are urgently in need of being brought in.

House Prices v General Affordability:

The way to resolve the house price crisis, would involve using the unique expertise which I have gained as a professional property valuer with over 30 years working experience in advising clients specifically on house prices.

Without appropriate change, things cannot start to get better for everyone, with regard to house price levels and their broad range-affordability.

“The changes I am advocating here would bring house prices back to within reach of those best suited to the houses currently being sold on the market or becoming available locally.”

Here are the effects of the proposals I am putting forward:

Firstly, local buyers would have a better chance to purchase such houses as well as rent one of them if this remained their wish.

House prices would more closely reflect earnings in the various areas of Britain and hence remain within reasonable affordability for those ready to offer a service within their community.

Finally, with more stable house prices, there would be certainty for builders endeavouring to build the extra properties needed to satisfy increasing local demand. In other words their costs would be able to be estimated more accurately.

Implementing this strategy would however require our government to challenge those entrepreneurs driving house prices higher, (whilst taking profits for themselves in the process).

This would necessarily also have to include fresh discussions with the large scale housing developers, land owners, banks and even some charitable housing associations.

A ministerial team of politicians would have to be assigned to carry this venture forward in order for it to be accomplished swiftly enough to resolve the present crisis.

This proposed alternative solution to the house price crisis involves two aspects:

FIRSTLY:
Instead of allowing the price of houses to depend on sales being arranged by sellers in conjunction with their appointed estate agents (as happens at present), house prices should actually be based on true buyer competition, using offers made for each property, coming with the added knowledge of where each specific buyer currently lives and where they will work.

This way, all ‘local’ offers could be listed alongside all non-local ones and the house seller would then be allowed the opportunity of considering choosing a local buyer over a non-local one.

This is the primary change necessary to bring about fairer house purchases for all houses across the whole of the UK. To achieve this, would simply need the change from seller appointed estate agents to buyer’s agents instead. There’s more on this later but you should know that most people buying something valuable prefer to have an expert representing them and most prefer not to have the selling agent trying to help them when doing this!

Using this procedure, especially where sellers are moving within their own local area, there would be far less need to entertain buyers from richer areas hoping to out-bid those living in poorer ones especially where attractions such as sought-after rural and coastal locations are concerned.

SECONDLY – in addition to the first:
This should involve strengthening the planning system instead of relying on it completely. It should be in addition to the first essential change explained above.

In peacetime (i.e. whilst our country is not at war with another), residential planning consents should be delegated to all local town or parish councils for them to determine, depending upon local housing need.

This way, genuinely democratic decisions may be arrived at using local decision-makers whom are best able to understand what the current needs of the community are at any particular time.

As a retired residential property valuer I remain convinced that if democratically elected local councillors were to be granted full authority to decide local residential planning applications, the effect of this could resolve the whole housing crisis.

Decisions made by such elected representatives would not be based upon NIMBYism ‘Not In My Back Yard’; quite the contrary!

Instead it would be a question of ‘IN My Back Yard’, as these councillors would be representing the wishes and needs of the local community – not simply trying to resist necessary change!

There could be no finer outcome than this, especially where residential property is concerned, because with this solution these councillors could work to actually resolve the housing crisis which we are now all being affected by, particularly owing to its increasing severity.

I am saying towns and their associated hinterlands should zone all existing and future housing within their administrative areas into the following specific categories and document these within the current Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs). These criteria should all be enshrined within new and upgraded Neighbourhood Development Plans lasting at least for five years at a time.

Owner occupation: (by those working locally or retired)

Affordable to buy: (for those starting off in life and by those working locally)

Private rental: (by those working locally)

Social housing lettings: (by those working locally or retired)

Second homes: (for those not working locally)

Holiday lettings:
(If considered advantageous planning-wise, a mix of these user designations, which should be specific to each individual house, might be allowed in the same street or location.)

This would impose new restrictions on residential uses by using planning criteria contained within democratically agreed neighbourhood plans and registers similar to the system currently being proposed in Wales. Such policies could become a blueprint for reducing inflation and to encourage businesses to invest.

This would also help to limit the purchase of scarce housing and so would assist those with local requirements who could then compete with one another to buy the available houses, without being continually beaten to the post by those with more capital coming from outside. It should be stressed adding more planning rules cannot achieve the desired result on its own however.

As just explained, our assertion is that the only way to bring house prices back to levels in line with local buyers’ levels of affordability is to change the present rules for selling such houses by using both of these methods combined – namely both a wholesale upgrade to the workings of the British housing market across the board and the imposition of restrictions on residential uses – using planning criteria as contained within democratically agreed neighbourhood plans and registers.

The author of this post also says: “This new combination would be more inclusive, it would be more local market and it would be able to include local buyers, rather than largely to exclude them, as happens at present.”

If setting up the planning side of these market improvements should prove difficult to do or if it may involve a lengthy time delay, the best thing to do would be to implement stage one and change the marketing policy on its own to begin with. That should have a significant effect on the way the present and imperfect housing market operates and would make a massive difference all on its own.

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 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.

14 April, 20221 December, 2024

Are estate agents taking us for fools?

The continuing rise in house prices which have occurred both prior to and following COVID clearly show that the proposals set out on these pages for re-shaping house-marketing are both fully justified and long overdue.

The noticeable reduction in the number of sellers putting their houses on the market is a clear indication of the general concern for not being able to successfully move house, owing to the unexpectedly rising house prices causing general market instability.

The argument being put forward about estate agency today is that the service provided no longer supplies an arms length advisory service to either buyers or sellers. To explain this the market definitions below are the current definitions of what ought to be expected by all housing agents’ clients.

Market Value advice is defined as:
The estimated amount for which an asset should exchange on the valuation date between a willing buyer and a willing seller in an arm’s length transaction, after proper marketing and where the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently and without compulsion.

Market rent advice is defined as:
The estimated amount for which an interest in real estate property should be leased on the valuation date between a willing lessor and a willing lessee on appropriate lease terms in an arm’s length transaction, after proper marketing and where the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently and without compulsion.

Market Approach advice:
The approach that provides an indication of value by comparing the subject asset with identical or similar assets for which price information is available and about which price adjustments can duly be made.

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

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.

19 September, 20161 December, 2024

The housing market is desperate for economic reform to bring everything back into line with local affordability

It’s now obvious that the housing market is desperate for economic reform in order to bring everything back into line with local affordability.

My proposal for the way housing across England and Wales should be marketed, is based on changing from vendor-centric estate agencies to buyer-oriented ones as described in The House Price Solution (otherwise known as The Hendry Solution). This would not cost much to implement and would bring massive benefits to all local marketplaces.

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

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 note. Unless things change significantly along the lines explained here, countless people will experience considerable financial difficulties, 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.