2012 house slump ends on minor boost

The NHBC has revealed that only 99,160 new homes had been registered by the end of November 2012: that’s 10% down on the same period in 2011. However, figures for the last three months (September to November) show a 7% increase on the same three months of last year.
The NHBC is hoping that the end of year boost is a sign that house building is perking up. Richard Tamayo, the organisation’s Commercial Director, commented:
“2012 has generally not lived up to the hopes we held for it, however as we approach its end there are signs that activity is picking up. Government backed schemes such as NewBuy and Funding for Lending will hopefully provide further support in the New Year to those who have desired to own a home but in the past experienced difficulties obtaining mortgages. Hopefully 2013 can consolidate and then build on this momentum.”
However, those three months show just 26,420 new home registrations (compared to 24,731 in the same three months of 2011) in the whole of the UK. To put this in context, the latest available figures showing that there are over 23,000 households on the waiting list in Tower Hamlets alone, so the new registrations are far from the levels needed to meet national need. 4,992 of the new registrations were in Greater London (up from 3,931 in the same quarter in 2011).
Of this last quarter’s registrations, private sector registrations were only up 4% on last year, whereas public sector registrations rose by a massive 15%. Many of the new public sector registrations will have their rents set at 80% of local market (private) rents, which will restrict the numbers of housing applicants who can afford them.
These figures suggest that the national housing crisis looks set to continue.