John Stewart

John Stewart

John Stewart is Director of Economic Affairs at the Home Builders Federation (HBF)., HBF

John Stewart is Director of Economic Affairs at the Home Builders Federation (HBF).

His policy responsibilities include the economy, the housing and mortgage markets, mortgage regulation, NewBuy, demographic trends, housing supply, Affordable Housing, new home valuation, the private rented sector, customer satisfaction and the industry's Consumer Code, the Cumulative Impact of Regulation on viability and supply and Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) initiatives (FirstBuy, Get Britain Building, public land disposal). He maintains close contact with a wide range of housing experts, including officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG), the HCA, HM Treasury and the Bank of England.

Before joining HBF in 2003 he was an independent housing consultant for over ten years, and previously divisional Sales & Marketing Director for house builder Wates. His publications included a monthly Viewpoint column in Housebuilder and Building a Crisis (2002) which highlighted the growing housing supply crisis in England and began to consider its social and economic consequences.

He has an MA in English from Auckland University and an MSc in Economics from Birkbeck College, London.

An inconvenient truth

Oct. 1, 2009

The planning system has failed to perform for nearly two decades. Plans have not been produced, and housing supply has been rationed. Why should it be any different over the next decade?

Home building upturn

Sept. 1, 2009

Housing starts have staged a surprising recovery since the turn of the year, but there are many obstacles in the way of a full recovery

Rental demand and supply

July 1, 2009

Britain lacks a professional, institutionally-funded private rented sector for the same reason it has a long-term affordability crisis: severe rationing of permissioned land for residential development. The solution to both lies in our planning system

Conservative housebuilding policies

June 1, 2009

The Conservatives want housebuilding to be higher under their leadership than under Labour. The higher levels achieved under the Conservatives from 1979 – 97 were entirely down to public housebuilding. So the challenge for a new Conservative government will be how to boost private sector housebuilding

The virtual developer

May 1, 2009

Richard Jones, head of residential and regeneration at EC Harris, argues that no one stakeholder can successfully deliver housing on their own in this market. They need to get together to form…

Rethinking the future

May 1, 2009

The housing policy delivery model that evolved over the last two decades can no longer be funded out of residential land values. It requires radical rethinking. The housebuilders’ fundamental businessmodel is not broken, but funding requirements are likely to lead to more development partnerships in future

Mortgage regulation dangers

April 1, 2009

Mortgage regulation must not be used to overcome the inflationary consequences of long-term housing undersupply, caused primarily by our restrictive and inefficient planning system

A seat at the table

March 1, 2009

In the laborious process of policy formation, home builders try to have at least one seat at the table, but young people and the 90% of the population who live in urban areas usually have no seat at all

Recovery trajectory – John Stewart’s take on the market challenges

Feb. 1, 2009

To maximise the rate of growth of housebuilding once the recovery finally begins, some major obstacles will have to be removed

Economic recovery scenario

Dec. 1, 2008

Are we doomed? Is 2011 the earliest we are likely to see any recovery in the housing market? Or are there grounds, however conditional, for believing the economy and the housing market might recover earlier than many commentators expect?