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UK new house building in critical state

The National House Building Council has revised its predictions for the number of new home starts for the financial year 2008/09 from 85,000 down to 80,000. This is well under half the number of new homes started in the financial year 2007/08.

'Year to date figures for the financial year 2008/09 show NHBC has received just 73,807 applications from builders in the combined private and public sectors to build new homes and we anticipate a total of just 80,000 new home starts for the financial year,' said Imtiaz Farookhi, NHBC Chief Executive.

'In light of these figures, which once again underline the critical state of the industry, we remain of the view that Government intervention, both on commissioning new starts and improving liquidity in the mortgage market, is vital,' Farookhi added.

NHBC statistics for the rolling quarter ending January 2009 reveal the second largest decrease in the number of applications from builders to start new homes in the private sector to date, although this fall was exaggerated by the break in house building activity during December.

NHBC statistics for the three months to the end of January 2009 also revealed that applications to start new homes from the combined private and public sectors in the UK during the three-month period from November to January 2009 were 62% lower than the same three-month period a year ago.

New build completions totalled 31,104 in the three months to the end of November, that was 33% lower than the same period a year ago and the average number of daily sales of new homes in the UK from November to January 2009 was 364, down 32%.

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