What does the Tory majority mean for UK housing?

https://www.ft.com/content/ecf04abe-2dfa-11ea-a126-99756bd8f45e

December 2019 was certainly a defining month for the United Kingdom.

The Conservative Party gained a healthy majority in the general election, winning 365 of the 650 available seats available to sit in the House of Commons. With the slogan of ‘get Brexit done’ reiterated daily by Boris Johnson, an objective to set the country ‘straight’ and finish the uncertainty, ultimately, became the successful motto of the campaign.

But what does that mean for UK house prices?

A 1.4% increase in December 2019 in house prices, which is the first time in the past year it has grown by over 1%.

Jade Greenhow, Operations Director for Insight Data comments

“When house prices rise, its an indication that people expect to have more disposable income in the future. With people being more prosperous, it gives a big opportunity to the home improvement market to cash in. Those people who have been waiting for the end of uncertainty, politically, may now proceed to go ahead with medium to large home improvements across the UK following this General Election”

What about the Conservative manifesto for housing?

The Conservative manifesto sets out that it will “continue our progress towards our target of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s” but also goes onto say that “it still isn’t enough”.

“This will see us build at least a million more homes, of all tenures, over the next Parliament” which suggests a significant increase in house building is to be expected in the next 4-5 years. “Make the planning simpler” and “support modern methods of construction” are two key points set out on how they will attempt to achieve this.

Jade Greenhow comments

“Housing and affordable housing in the UK has been in crisis for a very long time now. It’s encouraging to see a pledge to build ‘at least a million more homes’ in the UK over the coming years and that will give building product suppliers a better opportunity to capitalise. Main Contractors and House Builders will certainly be on the lookout for sub-contractors in the years ahead, so building relationships to showcase your products to these companies are key”.

The manifesto briefly goes onto talk about providing “environmentally friendly homes” and “homes for the future” but there is certainly a lack of detail as to how this will be achieved. Reducing our carbon footprint and being more environmentally friendly is a pressing issue across the UK currently and will need to be radically addressed, sooner rather than later.

For more information contact Insight Data on 01934 808293 or via email at hello@insightdata.co.uk.