Government to tackle affordability

Posted: 08 Jun 2007 11:02:22 GMT

The government has set up a new unit charged with tackling the increasing affordability problems affecting the UK's housing market.

The government has set up a new unit charged with tackling the increasing affordability problems affecting the UK's housing market.

The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) will be responsible for investigating ways to improve the prospects of struggling first-time buyers, who are facing rising house prices and increased mortgage costs.

"The job of the NHPAU is to help make market housing more affordable and hence to slow down, and even to reverse, the apparently inexorable rise in the number of people locked out of the housing market," explained NHPAU's chairman Stephen Nickell.

"Our role is to advise regional and national decision makers on the consequences of any given set of house building plans for trends in affordability going forward."

The establishment of the new unit has been greeting with mixed responses, however, with many within the property industry questioning whether it is the best way to tackle rising house prices.


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