Housing Market Intelligence Conference 2017

Industry comes together at HMI conference

The annual Housing Market Intelligence conference was held in London this week (October 5^th), bringing the industry together to look at the strategic issues facing the industry.

Opening the conference, HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley said that the spotlight is on the housing industry and it is set to intensify with the government reiterating its commitment to housing as a key priority.

Baseley highlighted prime minister Theresa May’s willingness to stake her legacy on fixing the housing market, as stated in her party conference speech.

Also speaking at the conference, Nick Walkley, ceo of the Homes and Communities Agency, outlined the key roles of the new Homes England which will launch at the end of this month.

“These are opportune but challenging times,” Walkley said. “It’s about identifying where the opportunities are, flexing the tools we have and making the case for new tools.

“Creating Homes England gives us a chance to review our relationships to tackle the broken housing market.”

Later in the day housing minister Alok Sharma called for the "diversification of the housebuilding project" in order to tackle the "broken housing market". "We need all types of builders - the private sector, social housing, local authorities, custom builders, SMEs, build to rent and MMC. We need to build for sale, for rent and for shared ownership."

Sharma called on the larger builders to do more in terms of supply and said that it was imperative to reverse the reduction in the numbers of SMEs. "The housebuilding industry is less productive than the main economy." he said. "It has been slow to modernise and make use of new techniques - modern methods of construction can help ease the skills crisis."

The conference, chaired by NHBC ceo Steve Wood,  also staged an expert panel debate on “The challenges facing the industry” as well as presentations from Sunday Times economics editor David Smith, Douglas Cochrane, head of housing development at Lloyds Banking Group, Grainne Gilmore, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank and HBF’s planning director Andrew Whitaker.

HMI REPORT - included in the ticket price or available to purchase

Housing Market Intelligence 2017

Essential reading for everyone with an interest in the UK housebuilding industry

The 2017 Housing Market Intelligence Report includes:

• TOP 75 housebuilders

• Industry analysis

• Expert papers

• Statistics

• Key information

Additional purchased copies will be posted out after the HMI event on 5 October