The documents looks at home ownership, private renting, and social renting through the eyes of the young, the old, and the in-betweeners, and concludes that strategic public policy is needed to address the needs of all these groups.
For the young, the main issue is the sheer cost of housing. For this group, the CML wants the government to focus on measures that increase the supply of housing in all tenures, enabling more young people to gain a housing foothold.
It also calls for the reform stamp duty to reduce its burdens, distorting effects, and unintended consequences and recognition that, for many, shared equity/shared ownership is becoming a permanent tenure, rather than a stepping stone to full ownership.
For the old, the main issue is how to balance the competing considerations of income, the potential to release housing wealth, and care/housing need. For this group, the CML wants the government to address the regulatory stumbling blocks that relate to lending into retirement.
It also believes there should be better pathways between the mainstream mortgage market, lifetime mortgages, and downsizing and opportunities for older households to downsize, promoting more efficient use of the housing stock as well as ensuring that new housing supply fully reflects the needs and aspirations of an ageing population.
As for the in-betweeners, this group is finding it increasingly difficult to achieve home ownership and financial security, or to move up the ladder if they do achieve it. The CML wants the government to reduce affordability barriers to transacting by reforming the application of stamp duty.
It also says there should be an eye out for any unintended consequences of regulation on credit worthy mortgage holders and the government should work with industry to develop a more effective safety net against the risk of change in household circumstances.
Overall the CML says that the government should recognise that while the UK housing market is really a whole set of local markets, most finance is provided by national lenders who need standard operating frameworks.
It also urges the next government to ensure that neither localism nor European regulation hinder rather than help the effective delivery of housing and housing finance. And it exhorts politicians to ensure that the practicalities of regulation are in line with government policy, and support the long term health of the economy.
‘There are many things that the mortgage industry can and will do to promote a healthy housing market. But it is also crucial to have strategic public policy for housing that is clear, deliverable, and long term,’ said Paul Smee, CML director general.
‘We hope our thoughts will help to stimulate political thinking about practical ways to deliver the right types of housing, supported by the necessary finance, in the right locations. This is the only sustainable and permanent solution to housing affordability,’ he added.
