Ultimately the government need to be doing more for SME builders and developers who are facing what is already an uphill struggle. We regularly hear complaints from our clients about the rising costs of building new houses; anything from labour to supplies have been on a steady increase of late. When this is twinned with a flat property market all that leads to is a squeeze on margins, making opportunities for developers scarcer.
There needs to be a bigger push from the government to incentivise people to build homes again. We all know we’re a long way away from the targets that we are supposed to meet and this is not going to improve without drastic changes to both the demand and the supply side.
I was a big fan of help-to-buy when it was first introduced however this was only supposed to be a temporary short-term fix, and not long term dependency as it appears to have morphed into. There is a distinct lack of dynamism and forward thinking from our government when it comes to housebuilding and sadly I don’t see this changing anytime soon.
