Today, Paul explains why he thinks Kevin McCloud was wrong about the reasons behind the UK homebuilding market and model being broken. He breaks down the article paragraph by paragraph, sharing what he agrees with and what he doesn´t, including why.

Paul has built 7,000+ homes, won 3 Evening Standard House Building Awards and started his career working for one of the big PLC building firms. He has hands-on experience with what it takes to build houses in the UK, including passive housing. So, you can be sure he knows what he is talking about.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

·       House builders and developers are not the bad guys.

·       Costs have not remained the same, they have gone up at least 30% in just 3 years.

·       Without smaller housebuilders the UK´s housing crisis is never going to be solved.

·       Building homes is super complicated and high-risk. If things go wrong your profit is wiped out, which is why there are very few small house builders left.

·       In 1988, there were circa 12,500 smaller SME house builders, by 2017 only 2,500 remained.

·       Housing associations are not for profit, which gives them the latitude to take more risks and experiment.

·       Letting local councils add their standards to those that already exist will make things even more complex.

·       Land prices are the main issue.

·       Housing associations are not for profit and often have access to cheap or free land, which is why they can provide more for their home occupiers.

BEST MOMENTS

“Whilst I do agree with some of the stuff that Kevin says … a lot of it is just wrong.”

“We do need to make a profit. This is a super-risky, hard business.”

“Even if you abolished planning tomorrow and anyone could build anything, anywhere you would still never meet demand .”

RESOURCES

https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/kevin-mccloud-the-whole-housebuilding-market-and-model-is-broken-b1186346.html

https://www.hbf.co.uk/documents/6879/HBF_SME_Report_2017_Web.pdf

The Cobweb Model - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165188915000044

ABOUT THE HOST 

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know! 

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment