Cameron hates poverty; Cameron loves property
Prime Minister David Cameron makes a statement on the Government's plans to re-settle thousands of refugees fleeing the bloody Syrian civil war in the House of Commons, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday September 7, 2015. See PA story POLITICS Migrants. Photo credit should read: PA/PA Wire - Credit: PA
The Prime Minister has vowed to eradicate Generation Rent and re-install Generation Buy
Part of David Cameron’s remit at the Conservative Party Conference this week has been to address the state of the property market.
Seemingly part of his swan song plans as Prime Minister, Cameron has declared “an all-out assault on poverty”, notably the situation that sweeps the country in terms of home ownership.
It would appear that he is still aiming to leave the country in a better state than it currently is. He has announced his intentions to define his decade in power as “the time when the tide turned...when people no longer felt the current going against them, but working with them.”
He commented on Generation Rent - the ongoing situation in which twenty and thirty-somethings are struggling to buy their own home.
“When a generation of hard-working men and women in their 20s and 30s are waking up each morning in their childhood bedrooms - that should be a wake-up call for us,” Mr Cameron told the audience.
His plans will enforce builders in England to no longer be under the obligation to offer low-cost rented homes in new developments. Instead, those under 40 will be offered “starter homes” if they are a first-time buyer - at discounted prices.
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The price of the “starter homes” after the discount is applied will be capped at £250,000 (and £450,000 in London) - and those who buy them will be prevented from selling them for a quick profit under the new policy, which aides say will provide 200,000 new homes by 2020. Buyers will also be prevented from selling them on for up to five years.
But will the scheme lead to a “buy-to-let” boom? Cameron says no, claiming that first-time buyers would not be able to obtain the kind of mortgage needed for property speculation.
But the chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter, Campbell Robb, said the plan will be enforced “at the expense of the genuinely affordable homes this country desperately needs”.
When the Herts Advertiser asked BBC property commentator and Hertfordshire resident Henry Pryor for his take on the announcement, he said:
“Great politics, poor planning. Changing emphasis from renting to owning won’t get more homes built.”
