Responding to the Government’s housing package announced today, Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the HBF, said:
“We welcome today’s package as a positive set of measures to assist the housing market – and particularly the hard-pressed first-time buyer. We have consistently called for a stamp duty holiday to assist market confidence and for action to help those seeking to get on to the property ladder, including a new shared equity scheme involving developers. Advancing investment in social and affordable housing will help maintain house building activity and capacity and a new shared equity scheme in which developers can be more directly involved is something the industry has previously shown its ability to implement successfully.
“However, we still also need action to tackle the current constraints on mortgage funding. This remains a critical part of the overall picture on which the ultimate success of today’s measures depends. We urge the Government to continue to advance work on this issue as a matter of urgency. The case for such action remains to avoid undue damage to the wider economy and to safeguard housing industry capacity for when conditions improve.”
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Notes to Editors:
1. The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the principal representative body for private sector home builders and voice of the home building industry in England and Wales. The HBF's 300 member firms account for some 80% of all new homes built in England and Wales in any one year, and include companies of all sizes, ranging from multi-national, household names through regionally based businesses to small local companies: www.hbf.co.uk
2. The Federation has been calling for the Government to introduce a co-ordinated and comprehensive set of measures to assist the housing market – including a stamp duty holiday, action to encourage mortgage funding liquidity, help for first-time buyers and the positive use of public funding to maintain house building activity.
For media enquiries, or to arrange an interview, please contact
Steve Turner
020 7960 1606
07919 307 760
steve.turner@hbf.co.uk
or
Rosie Hinchliffe
020 7960 1607
rosie.hinchliffe@hbf.co.uk