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Housing Strategy Aims for 450000 Homes by 2015
The Government will today unveil its long-awaited housing strategy to get the industry building in volume again.
The plan will include a £400m Get Britain Building fund to help projects, which have been put on hold due to a lack of funding.
The government claims the cash will “unlock” the construction of up to 16,000 new homes, supporting 32,000 jobs in the process.
David Cameron is also understood to have backed plans for 50% discounts on council homes in a revamp of right-to-buy and a Government-backed mortgage indemnity scheme for first time buyers.
In the foreword to the Laying the Foundations report, both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister pledge to “unblock” the property market with a raft of new measures.
Cash from right-to-buy receipts will be streamed into building new housing, creating a funding pot for a second wave of affordable housing programme deals.
So far the Government has signed off contracts for the first £1bn of its £1.8bn funding allocation for phase one.
The Government has pledged to replace every sold council home and build 100,000 new affordable homes at 80% of market rates.
House builders have been calling for a mortgage indemnity scheme for several months to give lenders more confidence in supporting first-time buyers.
Under the new plan, the government is expected to cover the risk for the lender, which should enable first-time buyers to take out larger mortgages relative to the value of the home.
Homeowners would first lose their deposits before the government suffered losses, which would be shared with the initial bank lender.
The Enquirer also understands the document will flesh out the plan to release publicly-owned land for up to 80,000 plots.
House builders will be able to bid for land on a build now, pay later basis, which it is hoped will coax Britain’s major housing developers into raising the volume of new homes they build.
The new Government Housing Strategy is also believed to contain proposals to allow borrowers to use some money in their pension pots to boost deposits.
A similar scheme to help first-time buyers was launched by the Scottish government earlier this year.
The strategy document will draw together a raft of Government housing initiative announced over recent months as housing starts have slid.
According to official figures published last week, housing starts now stand at half the level under construction when the sector peaked at the end of 2005.
Actual completions are now running at the lowest level seen for several decades and have alarmed Government into pledging to lead a housing revolution.
