Opinion: first-time buyers are repeatedly failed by our Government
It turns out that the latest attempt to help first-time buyers is merely going to push prices further out of our reach. Can't the Government come up with something that will actually help aspiring buyers?
As an aspiring first-time buyer, any conversation around buying a house is tinged with helplessness and frustration.
Though I'm far from alone. Hope of homeownership among my generation is at its lowest point, with many believing that they will never buy a property.
Unfortunately, the whole process is getting more and more expensive. The average house price in London has risen to £478,142 compared with a national average of £209,971.
Breaking it down, typical deposits have doubled to £26,224 since 2007, while in the capital they’ve quadrupled to nearly £100,000.
To deal with these unreachable costs we need to get help from somewhere.
A good portion comes from the Bank of Mum and Dad (£4 billion out of £10.2 billion in the year ending March 2017 alone).
There's also a host of help from the Government, such as the Government Help to Buy schemes.
But as we pointed out in this earlier piece, all that's done is help push up prices, making it even more difficult for aspiring buyers.
Not the saviour we hoped for
It just so happens that the Stamp Duty exemption announced in the Autumn Budget has done the very same.
According to a new report from the Treasury Select Committee, a permanent reduction in Stamp Duty will crank up first-time buyer house prices by twice the level of taxation.
Abolishing stamp duty on homes under £300,000 was the centre piece of the November budget
— Gerraint Oakley (@Gerraint) January 25, 2018
...but the treasury select committee said the move is likely to push house prices up by at least the amount the reduction in stamp duty is supposed to save#ukhousing https://t.co/zruNzx9iba
It also cites HMRC, who found that the previous Stamp Duty holiday, between 2010 and 2012, hadn’t made properties more affordable.
Though optimistic, Hammond’s master plan won’t fix the broken housing market because it’s trying to solve the wrong problem.
The more money we put towards helping people buy existing houses, the more the prices will continue to rise.
Instead of this vicious cycle, we need more affordable homes to meet the demand without increasing competition for already-overpriced properties.
What should be done
National charity Empty Homes says that England needs around 240,000 – 245,000 extra homes a year to meet newly arising demand and nearly one-third of those needs to be below market prices and rents.
To get the engine going on house building, regulations and red tape should be cut to speed up the process and (as Hammond actually promised in the Autumn Budget) more money needs to be invested in training to get tradespeople working on building.
We also need to make it less enticing for investors to hold onto properties in the name of self-interest.
'Buy-to-leave' causes problems as it's often the ones intended for first-time buyers they're after.
Rather than deal with the potentially troublesome tenants and wear and tear, they'll leave a property to increase in value and then sell it as new at a higher price.
Taxing empty properties at an even higher rate could be the thing that finally puts buy-to-leave investors off.
Investors aside, providing a greater number of affordable homes will be beneficial for all buyers: people further up the property ladder will face less competition and increasing price pressure from those lower down and, of course, those newbie buyers can finally get their foot on the first rung.
How do you think the housing crisis should be fixed, particularly for first-time buyers? Tell us in the comments below.
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