AMA have published the Eighth Edition of the report “Housebuilders Market - UK 2009” . There has been a major decline in the housing market in 2008 / early 2009, with housebuilding volumes in severe decline as a result of the credit crunch and falling consumer confidence. However, mid-2009 is seeing some tentative signs of recovery and this report reviews current market developments and provides a balanced overview of activity levels, highlighting variations in sector and regional performance.
Key areas in the report:
Review of Housebuilders - analysis of major housebuilders, volumes, market shares, positioning, key housebuilding indicators, recent corporate activity, changes in 2008, and forecasts of future trends.
Detailed Assessment of the Housebuilding
Market - housing starts & completions, forecast completions up to 2013, analysis by sector (private/public), mix of houses/apartments, house prices, house-moving market, urban regeneration, forecasts of future trends.
Focus on Net Additional Dwellings - major growth of conversions / change of use, analysis of confusion in relation to target of 240,000 new dwellings,
Future Prospects - outlook for 2009-10. Medium term prospects, barriers to growth.
Areas of particular interest:
Focus on major changes in housebuilding - forecasts up to 2013.
Government housing targets - confusion over targets (new building / net additional housing) - significant impact of conversions, just how realistic are Government targets??.
Growth of affordable housing.
The shift towards apartments and smaller dwellings.
Low activity levels in early 2009 - prospects for recovery - timing and scale of upturn - starts, completions, unsold stock.
Impact of Sustainable Communities Plan, Affordable Housing Programme and Code for Sustainable Homes and the growth of MMC and OSM.
Contractors included:
A & J Stephen (Holdings) Ltd , Abbey New Homes, Argent, AWG Property, Balfour Beatty, Barratt Developments Plc, Bellway Plc, Berkeley Group Plc, Bewley Homes Plc, Bloor Homes, Bovis Homes Group Plc, Britannia Developments, CALA Group, Canary Wharf Group, Connolly Homes plc Countryside Properties Plc, Crest Nicholson Plc, Croudace Group, David Payne Homes Ltd, Durkan Ltd, Elan Homes, Fairview New Homes, Galliford Try Plc, Gladedale Group, Goldcrest Land plc Haslam Homes, Hopkins Homes, Inspace Partnerships (Willmott Dixon), Jelson Homes, Keepmoat Group, Kendrick Homes, Kier Group, Land Securities, Lang O’Rourke, Lend Lease, MacTaggart & Mickel, McCarthy & Stone Plc, McInerney Group, MJ Gleeson, Morgan Sindall, Morris Group, Norfolk Homes, Oakdene Homes Plc, Persimmon Plc, Quintain, Raven Property Group, Redrow Group, Scotia Homes, Shepherd Homes, Stewart Milne, Strata Homes, Taylor Wimpey Plc, Telford Homes The Miller Group Ltd, Tulloch Homes, Wain Homes, Weston Homes Plc
Key areas of coverage in the report include:-
HOUSE-BUILDERS
Overall market size, number of builders, analysis of key changes in recent years.
Analysis of market shares of leading housebuilders, comparisons of changing shares in 2008/09.
Major review of leading national housebuilders - analysis of key indicators for UK housebuilding (completions, turnover, pre-tax profits and average selling price), recent trends, current market position.
Rationalisation of industry structure, mergers & acquisitions, review of leading commercial developers in housebuilding, impact of new entrants, future prospects etc.
Review of the leading regional and local housebuilders, recent corporate activity. Analysis covering turnover, pre-tax profit, completions etc.
HOUSE-BUILDING MARKET
Overview of construction sector, output levels by sector and impact on housebuilding, future trends.
Current market conditions, overview of the market during 2008/09.
Analysis by sector - Private, public, self build - volumes, changing market mix, factors influencing the market, future trends, value of housebuilding output by sector.
New housing starts and completions -trends since 2000, review of market volatility in recent years, forecasts up to 2013, analysis of completions for public/ private sectors by region, impact of affordable housing market.
Focus on growth of flats - rapid growth in volumes, share changes 2000-2008, future prospects (market saturation?)
Market structure - stock of buildings in UK, ownership structure, housing stock by age of dwelling, average property prices, residential property transactions, land banks, increasing influence of mixed-use developments on “brown-field” sites.
Factors influencing the housing market - the Sustainable Communities Plan and the Affordable Housing Programme, review of planning system, household projections, net immigration, etc.
Overview of factors influencing use of MMC - Product review of OSM / MMC -, timber, steel frames, concrete - market volumes, mix (private / affordable) and trends etc
FORECASTS - SHORTER & LONGER TERM PROSPECTS
Forecasts of completions 2009-2013 - market volatility, short term prospects for 2009/10 - length and severity of downturn? Long term prospects for sector - rate of market recovery from downturn.
Review of key factors influencing prospects - Population growth, age of housing stock, changing household formations, affordable housing, planning system, ‘Eco towns’ etc.
Impact of downturn, role of Government / affordable housing.
Net Additional Housing - review of housing targets in England, review of confusion over new housebuilding and net additional housing (including conversions and change of use ) - comparison of forecasts against targets - scale of shortfall?
Factors influencing timing and scale of recovery - completions, unsold stock, starts.
Additional Information
Housebuilders have had an extremely difficult year as the housing recession deepened towards the latter part of 2008 with many needing to reschedule their debt position, drastically reducing staffing levels, closing regional offices and renegotiating material and labour supply contracts and stopping any further land purchasing. Given the seriousness of the housing market decline and uncertainty it is surprising that there has not been some consolidation to date, however the picture may change depending upon how long the market takes to recover. The new housing completions underperformance is underpinned by the fact that UK housing starts are estimated to have declined by 36% in 2008 to 140,000 - which is the lowest level of new housebuilding since 1924. Sales of new housing in England and Wales have declined considerably as is highlighted later in the report. Sales in the private sector plummeted to a level of 72,000 in 2008 - almost half of their level of 136,000 in 2006.
The public sector, whilst exceeding their targets for social and affordable housing completions, are struggling to sell low cost home ownership housing units. In addition, they will find it difficult to instigate the planned mixed-use regeneration schemes and to attract private sector investment - at least in the short term.
Sales of new housing in England and Wales have declined considerably as is highlighted later in the report. Sales in the private sector plummeted to a level of 72,000 in 2008 - almost half of their level of 136,000 in 2006. The public sector, whilst exceeding their targets for social and affordable housing completions, are struggling to sell low cost home ownership housing units. In addition, they will find it difficult to instigate the planned mixed-use regeneration schemes and to attract private sector investment - at least in the short term.
As a result of this substantial decline in housing sales, the volume housebuilders have focused their 2008 / early 2009 effort on preserving cash, through major cutbacks in land buying and introducing a variety of incentives to reduce their housing stock and work in progress. As a result, many have reduced their new site developments to an absolute minimum and are selling from stock to generate cash.
Conditions in early-mid 2008 have deteriorated rapidly with housing starts and completions well down on the previous year, followed by a series of increasingly pessimistic announcements from builders indicating severe problems in the sector.
Forecasting housing completions in such a volatile and declining market is difficult given that the industry has experienced a period of steady underlying growth for many years. Prospects are changing rapidly and, whilst 2007 was a good year with completions up around 4% in the UK, 2008 was a very different picture with completions declining to an estimated 176,400 as shown in the chart above. Forecasts for 2009 indicate further decline with levels reaching 113,000 completions in the UK. Given that the market starts to recover in late 2009 or early 2010, housing completions would start to rise a level of 140,000 in 2010 slowly increasing towards their previous level in 2007 of 221,000 by 2013.
Prospects for the housebuilding industry in the longer term are optimistic and a general under-supply of housing, relatively low interest rates and high employment are likely to increase demand once the current downturn has passed. In addition, the annual average rate of increase in the number of households in England is projected to be 223,000 per year until 2026, well above predicted levels of housebuilding.
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