Down Turn Issues June 2009
Many of us have our heads down recently looking for solutions to our local problems. This note gives you a quick update on some of the relevant work we're doing, as a lot of people have been asking ecently and we can make better progress by sharing experiences.
Keeping development going
Most exciting at present is work with BNG where we are exploring options for use of financial products, rent to purchase and revised financial deals with developers to "keep development going", and it's looking very positive. This work builds on our economic viability reviews and has evolved into the re-vitalisation and restructure of partnerships alongside the negotiation of revised funding packages.
Tailored Rent to Purchase/HomeBuy model
We’ve been working for some time on a range of financial products for relocation, renewal, tenure diversification and other equity based loans. Part of our work at BNG has been building on this extensive experience and helping us keep the developments going forward. Over 2008/9 we have been developing a detailed Rent to Purchase/HomeBuy model with a group of RSLs that complements loan and grant products in the intermediate market.
Mortgage rescue
At the same time, we are very concerned about mortgage rescue,which has been frustratingly slow to get into gear. We provided training for potential providers and are now working with Y & H region to develop a stronger regional approach, and work to implement a complementary regional scheme. We have the benefit of Graham Martin on our team, who led the biggest mortgage rescue scheme in the 1990's.
Economic viability of affordable housing
A recurring issue is the impact on the Economic Viability of affordable housing provision. We have now been getting to grips with this in 3 viability studies and can now model how the land market reacts and how values fall much more sharply than house prices. This is a good basis for a practical discussion about how affordable housing policies should adapt in the recession. This is an area of our work you probably know least about: Helen Baxter has been working for us for some time and has now increased her capacity to cover a variety of economic modelling areas.