Quarterly House Building Stats Out Today from MHCLG – COMMENT from Michael Stone, CEO of new build specialists, Stone Real Estate

October 3, 2019
new build homes essex uk

The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government this morning released its latest data on new house building completions and starts to June 2019 (England).

See https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/835887/House_Building_Release_June_2019.pdf

The upshot is that they are broadly positive, particularly completions, at 45,190 homes built in the April to June period, UP 4% on the last quarter and UP 11% year on year. Housing Association completons are considerably higher at 20% stronger year on year!

However, housing starts are down and we wonder if this bodes badly for the next quarter’s figures?

In any case, Michael Stone, Founder and CEO of Stone Real Estate, the specialist new homes estate agent has this comment for you:

“On the surface, these latest numbers are extremely encouraging and tell a positive story in so far as overall new homes supply with house builders delivering on 11% more than a year ago. This is no mean feat given current political headwinds and economic uncertainty and is surely testimony to our teflon-like aspirations as a property owning nation.

In particular, affordable homes have seen a big spike in completions and this has to be warmly welcomed given that this is where the biggest deficit in housing provision lies. 

However, celebrations at solving the bottle-neck of housing supply will be short-lived if the downturn in ‘starts’ is not reversed in the next set of numbers. These latest MHCLG numbers point to a reduction in dwellings started of 2% quarterly and 8% year on year. This is no seasonal blip and our house-builder friends and local authorities alike will need to work hard to dig-down, literally, in order to ensure that the positive trend in housing supply continues to come close to meeting demand”.  

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