Affordable Housing in the UK - Essay Example

One of the prime reasons for undertaking this research is because the sector of affordable housing caters to the needs of low-income families such as small-time workers, military personnel, etc. Therefore, an inefficient manner of development would imply a deep impact on the denial of effective facilities to them. Secondly, there has not been much of a concerted effort toward outlining the causes of such a decline and there is also a need to highlight the problems being faced by the companies involved, which ultimately affects the development of the ultimate end users.

Though there have not been many efforts directed in the proposed direction, there is a lot of scattered information given the topic that can be found in the existing literature. In addition, there have been quite several case studies that have at least tried to understand and highlight the plight of the housing sector and its stunted development in the United Kingdom. Some consultancies such as Jones Lang LaSalle, CB Richard Ellis, and Cushman have been working in this direction. Therefore, given the availability of information from the above-mentioned sources, it is deemed appropriate to rely on data from existing literature and also consider the existing case studies for arriving at the appropriate conclusions given the topic under consideration.

The principal sources of data in this regard will be the British property federation’s response to Barker’s review on Housing. In addition, as has been previously mentioned, this will also take into account the existing information that has been obtained from different real estate companies namely Jones Lang LaSalle, CB Richard Ellis, Cushman, ATISREAL, and Invest property databank (IPD). There are also several other pieces of literature, portions of which are deemed appropriate for discussion of the topic under discussion such as the ones listed below:
- Oxford City Council’s paper on Affordable and key worker housing, 2004.
- Greater London Authority’s Thresholds for applications of affordable housing requirements.
- Barker’s review of Housing supply, 2004, etc.

The data sourced from these references listed above would be compared and analyzed thoroughly both for quantitative and qualitative aspects, wherein the former would be applied to determine certain points such as the percentage of the sector affected by the legislation as also the portion of the total population affected due to such unavailability, the period and the pattern in which the changes took place resulting in the present situation. In addition to determining what could have been done from time to time to avoid the sequence of changes, it is also deemed necessary to discuss elaborately how changes need to bring in so that the desired changes can be affected.

Upon having conducted a previous study on the relevant literature, certain facts have come to light that needs a mention here. Firstly, it must be mentioned that the growth of the housing sector in the United Kingdom, in general, has been slow due to fear among the industry regarding the fact that the government may exert influence on the returns in the sector by enacting related legislation. The government has also reduced the tax benefits that can be obtained as a result of home ownership. This has resulted in people facing additional hardships while pooling their financial resources to aid in building a home. Secondly, it is deemed necessary that the government understand the importance of the individual investor and aid and encourage them to invest effectively by understanding their concerns and constraints and aiding them in a requisite manner. On the institutional side, there is widespread concern that the sector would be plagued by the risk of a sudden change in government policy given the fact that the government has no clear-cut strategy in place at the moment. A very important point here is also the fact that the government has virtually been increasing the cost of stamp duties for the past 3 years that need to be paid at the time of purchase of the property and this has added to the burden on the low-income purchaser. When it comes to buying large properties, companies find it very difficult to agree on a price as there are glaring variations in the pricing indices available with various institutions including the governmental ones. Thus, it can be seen that there are several areas in that the government needs to work in close cooperation and coordination with the investors in the housing sector before one can expect to see any substantial progress and growth in this sector. Read More