Help is coming…..maybe

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

I was at an event a few weeks ago with some merchants and suppliers. All more or less agreed on two things. 1, that things are, and have been for some time, about as bad as anyone has seen them. 2, that there is the possibility of some relief, however light it may be, to come through this year.

So far, so what. That tiny sense of hope may be due to the fact that, by the end of this year, we will be halfway through this particular Government’s reign. That slight sense of optimism might be down to thinking that we will, by December, be closer to the end of Labour’s term than the beginning. Or, it might be due to a feeling that, tempus fugit and all that, Labour knows it has to do something to even get within a country mile of its housebuilding aims. Or, it might be due to a sense that things have been held up, money held onto, projects put on hold, for so long that people are fed up of not doing stuff.

A perennial fence-sitter, I’m inclined to think it’s a bit of everything. The Government certainly knows that it’s not been able to do exactly what it promised it would do, its housing commitment being hindered by planning, regulatory skill shortage and consumer confidence issues.

At the BMF’s parliamentary reception last month, Chris Curtis, Co-Chair of the Labour Growth Group told the assembled delegates that he knows the government now needs to look at the demand side of housing. At doing something to generate demand, particularly at the bottom, first-time buyer end of the chain. He said that he, and his First Time Buyers Commission which he chairs, have been  working with people right across the housing development industry. Indeed there’s even someone from the House Builders Federation, who sits on that commission. His actual words, on the terrace of the House of Commons, were: “And we’re not taking any option off the table, including an introduction of a new Help To Buy scheme.”

He added: “We believe that it’s important to look at all options in order to ensure that first time buyers can get onto the housing ladder again, and, once again, support the development industry, particularly given the difficulties that the industry is facing at the moment”

I don’t believe any politician from a party that’s in power would really stand up there in front of stakeholders and say that. If something like a new Help to Buy scheme wasn’t already quite a way through the pipeline.

The last time we had something like Help to Buy, it was inflationary, there’s no doubt about that. The way it was structured, certainly after the first iteration, helped houses to be bought and sold quite a long way up the chain. It made them easier to buy, so buyers were able to pay slightly more than they might otherwise have done. Inflationary.

As long as lessons are learned, as long as there is an understanding that house prices galloping ahead of people’s ability to afford them is good for man nor beast nor a construction sector that’s desperate for some green shots, then Relative-of-Help-to-Buy might be what sees the industry’s faint hopes take root and bloom.

Maybe.

Of course, if it all kicks off in the Middle East, and fuel and energy prices start to soar, all bets are off. Oh, wait, what?