James Chidgey's December column from Mortgage Strategy

We are nearly closing on yet another successful and productive year for mortgage advisers in the new build sector, riding the wave created by the huge focus on the country’s need for more housing, supported by government initiatives, not least the popular and very straightforward Help to Buy equity loan scheme, five years old next April.  Since this facility caught the attention of first time buyers, it’s been a case of can housebuilders keep up with the strong demand for new homes? But as we look ahead to 2018 and the continued political and economic uncertainties, we already know that it will be a critical year for the Brexit negotiations. The final agreement reached may or may not adversely impact on consumer confidence in the housing market, we will have to wait and see.

Before that and by the time you read this, we will have heard from Chancellor Hammond with his Budget Statement for 2018. Will there be any move on Stamp Duty to inject more confidence in the market, will there be more effort from government to implement the White Paper initiatives announced back in February but delayed by changing housing ministers, and of course the June fire tragedy at Grenfell Tower in west London.

Earlier this Autumn, the new build industry widely welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement that a further £10bn injection has been granted to the Help to Buy scheme in England, to ensure it met demand through to 2021. So mortgage advisers can continue to have this in their product armoury, along with other mortgage solutions for the next three years. For private developers however, whilst welcoming this additional help, their eyes are firmly set beyond 2021, as they try and second guess government support for house building and how the country’s economy may look outside the EU.

We expect more guidance on this in the Budget, along with other announcements to boost the supply of homes, particularly affordable homes, if not, the longer term apprehension about what lies beyond 2021 remains.

This concern was underlined by the HBF’s Policy Director, David O’Leary, in his recent and thoughtful article in Housebuilder magazine, laying out a variety of options for the future of Help to Buy, some of which I featured in my October Housing Watch, seeking to avoid a ‘cliff-edge’ scenario in 2021. Whilst there are many options that might come into play, David concludes that ‘adjustments to the maximum equity loan level for non-first time buyers would probably have the least disruptive influence on the majority of builders or buyers’.

It was pleasing recently to see some very positive statistics backing up the wider well being of the new build sector. The NHBC reported new home registrations struck their highest third quarter total for a decade, with almost 38,000 new homes registered, a 6% increase on the same period last year.

NHBC said that seven out of 12 UK regions saw registration growth during Q3 2017 against 2016. Among those areas with the most significant growth were the West and East Midlands, Eastern England, the North-East, and Scotland. The region with the most notable fall was Greater London. Given these registration figures were recorded in the height of the summer period we can expect a continued roll out of completions over the winter and well into 2018. Also for England, the DCLG recorded the highest ever number of planning applications granted in a twelve month period, 384,000, in the year to June 2017, which, whilst not all for residential use, goes to show that the country is still taking full advantage of the demand for new housebuilding up and down the land.

To distract business owners in what will be a pivotal year for the country, an important piece of regulatory legislation comes into play which fundamentally changes how businesses manage the information to their customers. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is set to come into force as early as 25th May, and will impact all firms, particularly those that receive leads from corporate introducers, including in the new build sector, housebuilders and developers.

So there is plenty for our sector to consider and plan for over the Christmas and New Year holiday!