The Generation Rent problem will be solved when first time buyers begin to start purchasing their own properties. An indicator that this might be happening is an increase in the number of sales at the affordable end of the market.
I have looked at the number of sales registered at the Land Registry in May 2013 versus May 2012. Overall there has been a slight increase in sales(59,642 to 60,335). This shows a small increase in activity. For reference there were over 110,000 in 2007.
The chart below shows the change on sales in May 2013 versus sales in May 2012. They sales are split out by value in £10,000 increments.
The key picture is sales below £150,000 decline year-on-year. These are probably the sort of properties that ought to appeal to first time buyers. Government seem keen to improve the ability of first time buyers, but it seems they are having limited success. There are some new schemes(Help to Buy schemes) that are being introduced to help first time buyers, it will be interesting to see if in a years time this situation has reversed.. The value of the under £150k sales is £2.5billion over 23 thousand properties. It seems unlikely many purchasers are going to be lured in the market by a saving of a small financial inducement, so for a scheme to work it is going to require billions rather than a few hundred million pounds.
0 comments:
Post a Comment