There is not a lot of good news on the house selling front this week. An article on the BBC website reported on Tuesday that the countries surveyors recorded the lowest house sales in 31 years.
The article does point out that in the last four consecutive months there has been a significant rise in people enquiring about buying into the property market. This is said to be because the public are starting to view houses as more affordable, unfortunately that does not seem to have translated into actual sales or at least not yet.
In more bad news the article reports that house builders are expecting to hit an 88 year low in actual construction of new houses. A 50% drop to 70 000 this financial year is certainly a kick in the pants for the already beleaguered building industry.
“After years of boom, the housebuilding industry is lurching towards bust,” said Ruth Davison, director of the National Housing Federation.
It seems the Federation wants the government to take a more hands on approach to this crisis. It is actually calling for the government to commit to building at least 100 000 new social homes over the next two years.
“We are facing one of the worst housing crises this country has ever seen – doing nothing is not an option,” said Mrs Davison.
And without being too gloomy about it, it does seem hard to argue with that. Though I have a feeling the government will try.
