This week’s exclusive interview with a senior figure from the UK new homes industry looks towards the affordable home market in the south of England with housing association Radian, and poses the questions to its assistant director of land and new homes, Tim Willcocks.
Hi Tim, please tell us about yourself and Radian.
Radian is a large organisation based in Hampshire, but with a housing reach covering much of central southern England. We own and manage over 21,000 homes, and have a growing development programme of 600 new homes per year, together with a pipeline in excess of 3,000 new homes.
We develop from Dorset across to Sussex, and Hampshire to Buckinghamshire. We also manage the government’s Help to Buy Agency for the south, extending our reach as far as Somerset in the west.
I joined Radian in 2007, working on a range of low-cost homeownership schemes including Open Market HomeBuy, MyChoice HomeBuy and the Armed Forces Home Ownership Scheme. After a spell working for the Homes and Communities Agency as a policy and strategy manager, I returned to Radian in 2011, firstly as assistant director of our sales and marketing function, and latterly our development team. I’ve been working in property for over 20 years now, in sales, consultancy and development. There’s little time left for anything else, but I’m also a rugby coach and run the minis section at Fordingbridge Rugby Club. I live on the edge of the New Forest with my wife and son, a cat and a horse!
There's huge demand for new homes across the country - how has Radian been coping?
It’s an interesting element of working in this sector: whether the market is up or down, we experience demand for our homes. We have a very supportive board with great ambitions for growth, and we are very robust financially. Our Vision 2025 sets out a plan to double in size, and the delivery of more new homes is of course the key to that ambition. As part of this we plan to extend our development focus more to the west. It’s never been easy, but we are expanding our development plans and for the past year or so have been actively buying land for our own development, alongside the traditional route of acquiring homes through Section 106 delivery. We have also established our own in-house building contractor.
Do you specialise in particular kinds of homes for people to buy, or is your portfolio varied?
Variety is definitely the key at Radian and we appreciate the market need to provide a range of homes across a variety of tenures we provide homes for social and affordable rent as well as supported housing. We also have a significant Shared Ownership programme, and over the years have also provided equity loans to thousands of buyers to help them realise their dream of buying their first home. We now also offer homes for sale outright, and have a growing private rented sector business, livelikeSMART, providing quality homes for that part of the market.
What are some of the current developments you are working on?
We are on site in Bordon, East Hampshire where having acquired the former Quebec Barracks site from the MoD, we are developing 100 new homes for sale and rent, as well as open space, a café and office space. In Bournemouth we are working with the Bournemouth Development Company, a joint venture between the council and Morgan Sindall, developing 113 new flats for the private rented sector. This is a landmark scheme in the town, and will be complete in summer 2018.
Radian also has a fledgling construction arm, and we see this as important to our future growth ambitions. We are currently on site in Farnborough, where we are redeveloping a former pub site to provide ten new homes for Shared Ownership, designed and constructed by Radian teams.
We also have a number of large Section 106 affordable housing schemes across our region, including in Southampton, Winchester, Portsmouth and Salisbury.
Is there anything currently for sale that you are especially proud of?
The new homes at Quebec Park in Bordon have proven very popular. In order to secure the site we had to prove sustainability and design credentials, and this has certainly been well received by buyers, with all bar one of the first phase sold. On the same topic, we are working with HAB, the organisation set up by Kevin McCloud on a scheme in Kings Worthy near Winchester. We have 14 homes for affordable rent, and six which will be sold as Shared Ownership.
How does Radian's approach to housebuilding differ from a typical private regional developer?
We are proud of the fact that we have a long legacy and a commitment to long-term stewardship. We do not just build, sell and leave. In Bordon for example we already own and manage hundreds of homes, and once Quebec Park is finished, we will still retain 35 homes on the site, as well as the offices, café and open space. We therefore feel it is so important to create great places and communities, as we are a part of that community for many years to come.
Our other point of difference is the range of tenures that we can offer as mentioned above. Rather than just building to sell, we have options to retain homes for the rental market, or deliver as affordable housing, with most of our schemes offering a good mix. This flexibility is important to us in a changing market, meaning that we can move tenures to suit the market, something that a traditional housebuilder is not able to do.
Are there hotspots in the regions you cover that are getting exceptional buyer attention and why is that?
Well everywhere seems to be in demand! We work in a number of ‘commuter hotspots’ such as Reading, Guildford, Woking etc, and of course demand there is very high. But we are also seeing great demand across the region. Shared Ownership schemes in East Hampshire, Salisbury and Romsey have been selling really well so far this year.
Are Help to Buy and Shared Ownership sufficient assistance for people trying to get on the property ladder?
I would say so. There is no one silver bullet that fixes everything. Help to Buy offers help for those who can afford a mortgage, but may struggle with high lender deposit requirements. Shared Ownership has been around for many years, and offers an affordable and sustainable route into home ownership for a much wider range of people who may not otherwise have had that opportunity. The average household salary of Shared Ownership buyers in our region is around £28,000, and we have schemes where deposits can be as low as just a few thousand pounds.
Is enough being done to let potential buyers know about how these schemes can help them?
Recent government national promotional campaigns have certainly played a part in raising awareness of the schemes. The National Housing Group is an industry body representing housing associations across the country delivering Shared Ownership. They have done some fantastic work with members to promote the scheme, and also with policy makers and other influencers, such as attracting new mortgage lenders in to the sector. On a local level, our agency Help to Buy South has over 26,000 potential buyers registered for the schemes and helped over 5,500 people buy with Help to Buy equity loan last year. We hold regular events where people can come along and find out more about the schemes, and meet housing associations and housebuilders, as well as solicitors and financial advisers. Last year close to 7,500 people attended a show with us, and just last week, 1.000 people came to our event in Reading.
Are there other ways you'd like to see people helped into buying their first home?
It’s back to that silver bullet. I think the current schemes work well. One possibility is perhaps a planning use class for Shared Ownership. This would potentially free up new sites for development at a smaller scale, particularly on redundant urban sites, and small sites in rural towns and villages. This would allow housing associations access to more sites to deliver these homes and meet the ever growing need. The other thing which is important is educating future buyers about their finances. Knowing about managing a household budget and saving for a deposit is a life skill that can always be improved! The issue around government policy is an interesting debate. In an ideal world, we would like to see a long term and consistent approach to affordable housing, and all housing delivery, rather than lots of short-term measures. This provides certainty to us and enables us to make plans to keep up our delivery of new homes.