Housing crisis: UK house prices expected to rise 6% in 2016
Growth could be as much as 8% in places like East Anglia
House prices in the UK will rise by 6 per cent next year despite the government’s efforts to address Britain’s housing crisis and solve a supply shortage, the Royal Institute of Chartered of Surveyors (RCIS) has said.
According to the RCIS, the scale of the rise will be larger than that anticipated for household incomes.
Growth could be as much as 8 per cent in places like East Anglia thanks to its transport links to London and a strong jobs market in Cambridge.
Supply falling behind demand will also force rents up by an estimated 3 per cent in the next 12 months, RICS said.
The issue may also be exacerbated by efforts to keep affordable rents down, which will boost demand but discourage landlords from making social housing available.
In its latest Housing Market Forecast, RICS acknowledged that Government had moved housing up its agenda, with policies like Help to Buy and the fund to unlock brownfield sites, but said more needs to be done.
"We still, however, need to help councils, housing associations and community land trusts get building in order to get anywhere close to a co-ordinated and coherent strategy across all tenures," said head of UK policy Jeremy Blackburn.
"Homeownership should not be the only game in town given the amount of private rented accommodation we need.
"A mix of market and rented housing is required and Starter Homes should not be seen as the panacea to solving the housing crisis, but as forming part of a larger mix to meet the wide range of housing need the country is crying out for."
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