Housing white paper just tinkers around the edges

摘要

Editor: This white paper is far from the radical overhaul of housing policy that was promised (p29,10.02,17). The 'use it or lose it' rules designed to prevent developers land banking are too black and white and completely fail to consider other key factors preventing the building out of sites, such as finance. Banks in most cases will not fund the development of a scheme until 50% pre-sales have been secured. In an active market this isn't a problem, but in a more challenging market such as the one we currently face, this is a major barrier to development. The idea that developers are just sitting on land waiting for prices to go up is ludicrous. If they can't sell half the scheme in advance, they simply can't build it. Where is the proposed legislation tackling this fundamental problem?