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Extending Home Ownership: Government Initiatives

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Extending Home Ownership: Government Initiatives BRIEFING PAPER Number 03668, 24 March 2016 Extending home By Wendy Wilson Antony Seely ownership: Government Cassie Barton initiatives Inside: 1. First time buyers and affordability 2. Low-cost home ownership schemes in England 3. Purchase schemes for social housing tenants 4. Stamp duty reforms 5. London 6. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland 7. Comment on the impact of home ownership schemes www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary Number 03668, 24 March 2016 2 Contents Summary 3 1. First time buyers and affordability 5 2. Low-cost home ownership schemes in England 12 2.1 Equity loan schemes 15 Help to Buy: equity loan 15 Help to Buy London 16 2.2 Shared ownership 16 2.3 Rent to Buy 18 2.4 NewBuy Guarantee 18 2.5 Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee scheme (from October 2013) 19 2.6 Help to Buy: ISA 20 2.7 The lifetime ISA 21 2.8 Starter homes 21 2.9 Failed housing transactions 22 3. Purchase schemes for social housing tenants 23 3.1 Right to Buy and Right to Acquire 23 3.2 An extended Right to Buy 24 3.3 Cash incentive schemes 24 3.4 Social HomeBuy 25 4. Stamp duty reforms 26 4.1 Autumn Statement 2014: the new ‘slice’ structure 26 4.2 Autumn Statement 2015: higher rates on additional properties 28 5. London 33 6. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland 34 7. Comment on the impact of home ownership schemes 36 Contributing authors Antony Seely, Stamp Duty reforms, Section 4 Cassie Barton, statistics, Section 1 Cover page image copyright: Richard Cracknell 3 Extending home ownership: Government initiatives Summary Home ownership rates in England have been falling since 2003 despite the fact that it remains the tenure of choice for a majority of people. The 2014 British Social Attitudes survey found that, given a free choice, 86% would prefer to buy their own home rather than rent. Younger households are facing particular difficulties in accessing home ownership: the percentage of young adult householders owning their home decreased from 55% in 1996 to 30% in 2015 for 25 to 29 year olds; and from 68% to 46% for 30 to 34 year olds. The financial crash and the subsequent fall in house prices after the end of 2007 had only a limited impact on affordability for first time buyers. Lenders have tightened their criteria for mortgage approvals and require buyers to have substantial deposits. Mortgage products themselves are more expensive. In addition to relative mortgage scarcity, there is an issue of incomes failing to keep pace with house price increases, this is particularly acute in London. Within this context the Department for Communities and Local Government has said “Our department has a driving focus to increase housing supply and make it easier for the 86% of people who say they want to own their own home, to achieve that aspiration.” This paper describes the specific Government initiatives which have been developed in order to assist first time buyers into home ownership and, in some cases, to help existing owners who are seeking to move. Constituents interested in checking their eligibility for these schemes should contact their local Help to Buy Agent. Low-cost home ownership schemes are not new, they have existed in various forms over many years. Commentators have generally supported interventions to support home ownership in challenging market conditions but have emphasised the need for an overall increase in housing supply in order to prevent subsidised home ownership from simply adding to house price inflation. As the Housing and Planning Bill 2015-16, which provides the statutory framework for the delivery of 200,000 discounted Starter Homes, has progressed through Parliament, significant concerns have been voiced over the Government’s emphasis on home ownership. For example, the Chartered Institute of Housing’s response to the Bill said: …we must make sure that the new homes we build are a mix of tenures (home ownership, shared ownership, private and social rent) so that people on lower incomes are able to benefit too. The government has made its commitment to home ownership very clear – but what about people who can’t afford to buy, even with government support? The Treasury Select Committee’s report on the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 (February 2016) questioned the Government’s focus on the promotion of home ownership: The Chancellor’s characterisation of problems in the housing market as a “home ownership crisis” is reflected in the policies of the Summer Budget and Autumn Statement, which are likely to reduce the supply of properties to let at both social and market rates, while continuing to subsidise demand for owner-occupation, including through outright discounts on the market value of homes. While they clearly stimulate demand for owner-occupied housing, it is far less clear, despite the promises to the contrary, that the measures contained in the Summer Budget and Autumn Statement will materially increase the supply of homes. This is likely to lead to a rise in house prices, sharply curtailing any overall increase in owner- occupation. Changes to housing association grants to meet a commitment to provide Number 03668, 24 March 2016 4 135,000 shared ownership homes will alter the tenure of dwellings being built by housing associations, but not the overall number. In any case, the Government has allocated money to subsidise the purchase of only 60,000 of a planned 200,000 Starter Homes. […] The Committee is concerned about the focus of the Government’s housing policy. Addressing the “home ownership crisis” must not come at the expense of a shortage of homes to rent. The Chancellor should make clear what he intends to do to help those who want or need to rent, and to ensure a healthy supply of properties in the private rented sector. The Government’s response to this report is awaited, but Ministers have rejected the charge of a disproportionate focus on home ownership during debates on the Housing and Planning Bill; for example: Some noble Lords suggested that the provisions in Chapter 1 mean that we no longer believe in anything other than home ownership, which is not the case. As I have said before, there is a gap in the market. An additional product is required to fill that gap and that is why we are legislating for starter homes. We are helping people to access homes that they can afford in a number of different ways and this Bill should not be seen in isolation. The Government have committed £4.1 billion in spending reviews to deliver 135,000 shared ownership homes and £1.6 billion to deliver 100,000 affordable homes for rent. [HL Deb 3 March 2016 c954] 5 Extending home ownership: Government initiatives 1. First time buyers and affordability Affordability before the credit crunch Prior to the financial crisis and housing market downturn at the end of 2007, there was a great deal of press coverage on the subject of potential first time buyers being priced out of the housing market. For example, in January 2005 the Halifax published a survey which indicated that young single people could not afford to buy a home in more than 90% of English towns and cities. 1 Up to March 2007 the Labour Government published monthly Housing Market Reports. The June 2004 edition looked at a number of issues around affordability. One of its findings was that the deposit required by first-time buyers in the first quarter of 2004 was 21.7% of the purchase price compared with 8.8% in the second quarter of 1997. The final Housing Market Report of March 2007 recorded house price inflation as having risen to 10.9% in January 2007, up from 9.9% in December 2006. At the same time, average earnings growth stood at 3.5%, down from 3.6% in December 2006. In July 2007 the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) reported that first time buyer income multiples had reached their highest-ever level in May of that year: Today’s survey revealed that first-time buyer income multiples reached their highest-ever level in May at 3.37 times the average first-time buyer income, up from 3.33 times in April. And, mortgage interest payments continued to rise, reaching 19.1%, up from 18.7% in April - their highest level since 1992. Home movers also face increased affordability constraints. In May the average home mover income multiple reached a record 3.03 times, up from 3.01 times in the previous month. And, the proportion of income used to pay mortgage interest also jumped to 16.6% from 16.3% in April. 2 Roof magazine’s Affordability Index, published in May/June 2008, recorded the UK’s affordability crisis as “reaching a new peak in 2007.” The index, devised by Professor Steve Wilcox of the University of York, took 1994 as the base year (100) and concluded “that UK affordability deteriorated to 176.7 (meaning that it was 76.7% harder to access the market) in 2007.” 3 The credit crunch and beyond The impact of the credit crunch on house prices after 2007 appeared to have only a limited effect on affordability for first time buyers. Lenders tightened their criteria for mortgage approvals and required buyers to 1 ‘First-time buyers priced out of nine towns in 10’, Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2005 2 CML Confirms affordability worse than ever, 10 July 2007 [accessed on 9 March 2016] 3 Mortgage costs accounted for 12% of householders’ income in 1994 and 21.2% in 2007.
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