THE REAL COST OF REGULATION

摘要

According to the government, providing homebuyers with a plentiful supply of new homes has been an important goal for most of the past decade. No argument there; apart from the obvious benefits of making property more widely available, the lack of houses was bending the whole economy out of shape. So why has it made building homes so incredibly difficult? During the boom, when housebuilders commonly ran on 20% margins, it was plausible to make them pay for everything from transport infrastructure and power generation to social housing. These days any kind of profit is a cause for celebration, so if we want more homes built, we have to make that our top priority - and arrange the rest of our policy accordingly.