Neal Hudson
@resi-analyst
UK housing market analyst. Personal account. Analysis and commentary at Visiting Fellow at Henley Business School. Columnist for FT Weekend’s Money.
Interesting impact of the renters' rights act noted in Foxtons trading update yesterday, with students using it to end their tenancies early.
Though always worth keeping this GLA chart in mind when using Molior data - their stats don't cover the whole market.
Latest Molior research on the London new build market www.moliorlondon.com/molior-resid... "Whilst demand-side problems exist, the impact of supply-side reforms will be muted"
Data is now a bit old but we had an excess of bedrooms relative to population back in 2015 builtplace.com/digging-deep...
I don't have more recent data but here's achieved price per sq. ft from last year. www.ft.com/content/e4e4...
If there’s no one buying new homes, then they don’t get planned for or built. www.ft.com/content/2881...
How do we save the wilting new homes market? My latest for the FT: www.ft.com/content/2881...
I'm also a bit nervous about the high proportion of students living in the build-to-rent sector. How exposed are individual developments to students? Chart source: 2025 report thearl.org.uk/who-lives-in...
Bottom image looks like AI crap, which is a shame because the actual imagery does make the same point earth.google.com/web/search/3...
My Scottish example of a moving chain from 2015. (I found out a lot more about the people and properties involved than I could share!)
RICS residential market survey for April not looking great - tends to be weighted to top-end of the market, especially in London "Sales market activity indicators remain firmly negative" www.rics.org/content/dam/...
I assume it depends on whether the sites are bought pre or post planning Accounts suggest slightly higher cost to assumed revenue ratio for those with planning (13.4%) to those without (12.1%).
Been a while so thought I'd check out the Persimmon costs and operating profit per housing plot data. Big rise in build costs and operating costs since 2022. Current operating profit is effectively just the house price inflation since 2021. Land costs flat for a decade.
A quick search shows a tender for an AI decision tool last year but the key point is it’s for “householder developments”- see image for definition. Looks like it’s got nothing to do with new housing developments or the 1.5m (yet).
Help to Buy equity loan redemptions for less than the original purchase price by flat/house (from the bottom of here builtplace.com/weekly-summa...)
Income distribution of Help to Buy equity loan scheme borrowers. (from my old slide deck full of charts, last updated in 2023 when the scheme ended builtplace.com/digging-deep...)
And “co-living” is now the popular tenure for developers. Effectively student housing for everyone. Lots in London but also happening in urban areas across the country.
Inspired by you, I just got around to buying some of their latest flavour. Actually quite like it, more than the Nessie nectar/unicorn tears flavours from last summer.
What is also worrying me is that new mortgage buyers have coped with higher rates by increasing repayments as % of income. As rates have eased over last couple of years, any benefit has been captured by rising prices rather than reducing repayments.
Really not sure what to do with the MHCLG quarterly housebuilding stats now. We've always known they massively undercount, especially in urban areas, but from Q4 2024 they're been including data from the Building Safety Regulator (data from Q3 2023). In theory that's great but in practice...
Managed to briefly catch up with my friend Angus earlier today before he tackled the Severn crossing in strong winds as part of Doddie’s Triple Crown 800 mile cycle from Melrose to Dublin
An example of grant funding of affordable homes to speed up delivery in London www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/News_events/...
Old chart but the declining plot cost is something that's always intrigued me with respect to the wider narrative about constrained land supply/planning barriers etc. (something that is probably, as you noted, specific to the volume housebuilder suburban development market)