At a recent meeting of the Chamber Planning & Development Group, members advised that there has been a small improvement in the development market. Although some development projects were underway, the housing market showed more signs of improvement than the commercial property market. Commercial developers were being very cautious and had little appetite for development without guaranteed end users.
A robust mortgage market is required if further improvements further in the house building market is to be achieved, which at present does not appear to be happening on a large scale, despite Government initiatives. There is however optimism within the Housing industry with respect to the Governments new Mortgage funding initiative NewBuy. The NewBuy scheme helps people bridge the deposit gap, allowing people who only have a 5% deposit purchase a new house, it is proposed that NewBuy will be rolled out to existing houses in 2004. It was felt however whilst this may stimulate the market in the short term care should be taken that it did not artificially raise prices and create more of a problem in the mortgage market long term.
Jonathan Cage, Chair of the Chamber Planning & Development Group and Managing Director of Create Consulting Engineers said: “The market is still very challenging, however there does appear to be some small improvement in the house building sector. Clearly we need a focussed effort to ensure that Norfolk makes the most of the opportunities for inward investment, both in terms of housing and the commercial sector.”
