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SELL YOUR HOME QUICKLYSixty percent less houses being built than this time last year
According to the National House Building Council, the number of new houses being built today is 60% lower than the recorded figure this time last year. A Council spokesperson explained that increasingly harsh lending conditions are responsible for the situation.
With 20,000 house builders registered with them, the Council’s records show that there were only 6,890 new home building projects in the private sector during May, as opposed to 15, 713 in the same month last year. The number of new public sector housing projects has also decreased from 4,306 in May last year to 2,699 today, reports The Guardian.
These figures were released on the same day that the UK’s leading mortgage lender, Halifax, announced that it will be increasing its fixed lending rate by another half a percentage point – which makes it the 20th time the lender adjusted its rates this year.
House Builders Association’s strategic policy advisor, Roger Humber, explained that the recent developments were not surprising: "We've seen an enormous downturn with the rate of sales falling 60% year on year. The issue is not the lack of demand but an absolute lack of mortgages.”
Humber continued to say, "Until the credit crunch is resolved by a reopening of the wholesale markets which banks rely on, we've got to see a continued low level of house building. Home building levels have got to come down in line with sales."