Thoughts from our Property Experts

Use it or lose it

Recently I had dinner with one MP and breakfast with another - both from the same party.



Having become an estate agent in 2007, from being Head of Technology Development at Goldman Sachs, I'm very interested and focussed on doing what I can to improve the property industry and make more homes available in the UK.



I like the labour party idea of making developers use land or lose their planning permissions - I'm not going to talk about political bent but let’s consider some logic:



- Homes are in short supply



- Socially and economically it’s good for people to own homes



- Interest rates are at an all-time low due to QE - which is really a (correct) massive government subsidy to get the economy going



- The government own a lot of the banks



- Developers own a lot of land



- Developers borrow a lot of money from the banks to support their carried interest in land



......then surely developers are being subsidised by the government - and the government should be doing all it can to get developers to build for the greater good.



The reaction I received from one MP was totally disagree - this is not at all free enterprise - where is the risk reward?



The reaction from the other was - very sensible, let’s talk more.



Let’s certainly talk more - we are in highly subsidised, highly unusual times where we have to work hard to balance the economy - in a commercial way - for the benefit of all so we are motivated, productive and fair - and building homes is a big part of this.