The suggested principles are: active promotion of home ownership, help for those on the cusp of affordability, greater tenure flexibility to allow easier movement up or down the housing ladder, reform of the support and subsidy system, and the development of a cross-party consensus.
Michael Coogan, CML director general, said: “For too long, UK housing market policy has seemed disjointed and lacking in long-term vision. This has resulted in some schizophrenic effects, where policies designed to help the market are directly contradicted by others that hinder it.”
Colin Dale, head of lending at the Skipton Building Society welcomed the findings but expressed some concerns. “Helping people on the cusp of affordability is a good thing as long as the burden does not fall to the industry,” he cautioned.
Julian Wells, head of marketing at Mortgages plc, said: “There are some sound and sensible proposals in the report.”
