The challenges facing the UK residential housing market are complex and require solutions, but the recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) entitled ‘Affordable Capital -Housing in London’ is a very useful analysis of the uniqueness of the housing challenges affecting our capital city.
Currently the UK’s population is c7.9m people, but according to the report this is set to grow by c12% over the next 20 years. We will require therefore around 32,600 new homes every year just to keep up. The report highlighted nine factors that make the London housing market unique: tenure, type of home, housing need, population churn, inequality, diversity, international influence and the office and powers of the Mayor of London. Its recomendation included the exploring of some more novel roles for Registered Social Landlords (RSL’s) in the provision of new properties. Traditional housing models are either under stress or broken and we need a paradigm shift in thinking that will bring new investment in innovative housing solutions.
The re-election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London surely is an opportunity to push Housing to the top of Londons political agenda.
At Mill Group our focus is currently on innovation in housing supply leading to long term sustainable change, and we continue to work on launching our Investors in Housing programme which allows institutional investors to benefit from a sound investment proposition, whilst helping the UK Housing market.
Do get in touch to find out more.
