Section 24 HQ

Even if the govt could remove the retrospective S24 it would be so helpful

The Govt wont listen till it sees the evidence until then we are singing into the wind.

They’ve ignored everybody else, including several extremely respected bodies. Sadly, they’ll ignore this too. I’d love to be proved wrong, of course!

The AMI’s latest economic bulletin has criticized the speed at which some developers build houses.

The association points to Sir Oliver Letwin MP’s recent review of the development market, which stated that it takes over 15 years to complete home building on some UK sites, and discovered that 270,000 residential planning permissions in London are still not built.

Alongside this, the review showed that the large the site, the smaller the percentage of houses are built each year.

Despite this critical tone and housing minister James Brokenshire MP responding that this is “frankly, not good enough,” the government review stated that there was no evidence of developers landbanking.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/develo...roken-ami/

The govt's aim of getting some people out of the PRS into property ownership needs to be balanced.

The sledgehammer approach of S.24 looks like it will take too many rented properties off the market but, meanwhile, the affordability criteria for FTBs is too stringent, which means that even if property prices fall a bit, people still won't be able to afford to buy them.

I'd suggest that S.24 needs to be limited, maybe to 70% of loan interest allowable, and there should be a more workable solution for FTBs.

By doing something like this it might help prevent the perceived drama that we might well be facing; and it should keeping the market moving.

This is a segment of an article by David Smith Economics Editor of the Sunday Times  in today's Times.  I've posted the full article on the Stamp Duty thread.

As big a tax effect appears to have come from Mr Osborne’s assault on buy-to-let landlords, driven by the political goal of tilting the balance away from them and in favour of first-time buyers. I have no axe to grind on the part of landlords, but a tilt does not do justice to it. Tories went from celebrating the revival of the private rented sector after decades of socialist control to knocking it on the head. Buy-to-let landlords face higher stamp duty, a drastic change in the tax treatment of mortgage interest and other changes that make buy-to-let significantly less attractive, even no longer viable. When Mr Osborne made these tax changes, he did not want and did not expect Brexit and no doubt in his quieter moments David Cameron wishes that he had listened to his old ally. Add Brexit to the mix, however, and it has been a triple whammy for the housing market in and around the capital.