Who Buys New Builds?

Who Buys New Builds?

8:01 AM, 10th February 2017, About 7 years ago 11

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I would like to see some statistics over the last few decades to show how many new build properties have been purchased by private landlords vs owner occupiers. I suspect individual landlords will have purchased the higher percentage, but whatever the figures, I know for sure that a lot of them were snapped up by landlords. Who Buys New Builds

It occurred to me some time ago that due to Government policies to discourage private landlords, this could lead to less housing being built. If the latest Government crackdown on Buy-to-Let had occurred a couple of decades ago, based on this line of thought there would be less housing than there is today. On that basis the Housing Crisis would be even worse than it already is.

The counter-argument to the above is that if landlords hadn’t purchased the new builds then properties would be cheaper. However, I don’t subscribe to that logic. Would it have been viable for developers to have built all the properties they have if the property values hadn’t risen?

A knock on thought is what about new build affordable housing?

These are usually funded off the back of new developments, whereby Council Planning Departments only grant permission to build subject to a percentage of the new housing being made available to Housing Associations and the likes for “affordable housing” provision.

Therefore, my question is this; if Government continues to discourage housing investment by private landlords, will the numbers of new builds increase or decrease?

It seems now that Government are taxing landlords in order to fund the initiatives they are providing to people who wish to buy for owner occupation. Isn’t the availability of these initiatives simply fueling house price growth though? As we all know, when demand is higher than supply, people will pay as much as finances allow. Increase the availability of financing and price increases will naturally follow.

Government is also providing incentive’s to its corporate sponsors in the financial and construction sectors to “build to rent”. This is also being funded by taxing private landlords. Surely that will lead to displacement which isn’t sustainable?

What are your thoughts?


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Comments

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

13:04 PM, 11th February 2017, About 7 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "H B" at "11/02/2017 - 12:38":

Red tape and infrastructure costs have though!
.

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