New Homes Construction Survey 2018:
The report provides an annual snapshot of the state of the new homes construction market by surveying the nation’s top residential developers. By directly canvassing those responsible for the delivery of new supply, the survey shines a light on the opportunities and challenges faced by developers in meeting market demand.
With the report now in its third year, we have been able to create indexes on a number of topics to track how developer sentiment is evolving. For example, the results show that developer activity expanded for the third successive year in 2017, and is expected to strengthen further for 80% of our developers in 2018.
The increase in sentiment has been driven largely by the growth in house prices. In ranking the biggest obstacles to construction, low residential prices have fallen from first position in last year’s report to fifth this year. This key result is evidence that prices have now risen to a level that makes construction viable again, shifting the focus to other factors. With the lack of suitable sites now ranked as the largest obstacle to construction, the religious orders may have a significant role to play with recent estimates suggesting that they have 30 sites with the potential to deliver 6,500 homes on their lands.
Obstacles:
With the high cost of construction cited as another major obstacle, policy changes to the car parking requirements along key transport nodes will remove a major cost for developers in the delivery of apartments. Similarly, three quarters of survey respondents believe that relaxing height restrictions will also help increase the viability of apartment delivery. One of the more interesting findings is the gathering in positive sentiment behind Brexit. Driven by the continued resilience of domestic economic growth coupled with high-profile office relocation announcements, 44% now believe Brexit will boost new homes construction activity, double the number of last year’s report.
Click the link below to download your copy of the New Homes Construction Survey 2018.