Here’s our quick round-up:
The Government is making £130 billion available in mortgage guarantees from 2014 to help people who are struggling to get deposits together to buy a new home. This means that deposits of up to 25% of a home’s value can be achieved with just 5% £ from the homeowner (the government guarantees the other 20%). This should be good news for developers of new homes and the result will cascade down to trades. The industry can be a bit more confident that more people – not just first time buyers- will be able to buy homes.- The Government is investing £4.5 billion in housing to build affordable housing, again good news for the sector.
- Fuel tax increases frozen. This is good news for all the vans and lorries the industry runs!
- Everyone’s personal tax allowance has increased to £10,000. This has been brought forward so everyone should have a bit more cash in their pocket.
- The Bank of England can now commit to longer term interest rates and communicate these to the industry so that housing developers can make judgements on taking longer low interest loans to get building.
The Government is writing off the first £2000 of national insurance payments by companies, making them £2k better off. A little bit of good news.
Plus there was more good news for planning and self-build. The Government is providing a £30 million fund to help with self-build. This should slowly filter down to tradesmen and project managers…
