New housing registrations fall 9%

Aaron Morby 8 years ago

New housing registrations fell in the first three months of 2016 as last year’s slowdown in starts in London seemed to ripple out to the Midlands and East of England.

According to NHBC’s latest new home registration statistics for the UK, the overall number of homes registered fell 9% to 36,566 in the first quarter compared with the same time last year.

Private sector home registrations decreased 7% to 28,398 homes, while the public and affordable sector fell 15% with 8,168 new homes registered compared to the first quarter in 2015.

Year-on-year first quarter falls were seen in London (-15%), the east of England (-17%) and the Midlands (-10%).

For the financial year 2015/16, registrations were disappointingly static at 152,329 new home registrations, marginally ahead of the 152,262 registered in 2014/15.

NHBC new registrations and completions
Region/country	Q1 2016	Q1 2015	Registrations 2015/16	Registrations 2014/15	Completions 2015/16	Completions 2014/15
North East	1,131	1,180	5,775	5,213	5,059	5,178
North West	3,732	3,198	14,086	11,775	12,262	11,290
Yorkshire & the Humber	1,889	2,223	7,299	9,339	7,588	7,281
West Midlands	3,490	3,832	13,163	13,166	11,922	10,708
East Midlands	3,114	3,572	12,756	12,665	11,829	10,725
Eastern	3,582	4,317	16,134	15,444	13,486	13,352
South West	4,057	4,422	15,356	15,564	13,683	13,117
Greater London	4,751	5,620	25,122	26,237	22,207	17,972
South East	6,117	6,670	22,443	23,550	20,653	17,822
Totals for England	31,863	35,034	132,134	132,953	118,579	107,455
Scotland – Councils	2,910	3,187	12,463	11,548	11,145	10,918
Wales – Unitary Authorities	1,142	1,146	4,635	5,045	4,661	4,246
Northern Ireland – Counties	651	777	3,097	2,716	2,831	2,598
Totals for UK	36,566	40,144	152,329	152,262	137,396	125,217

More welcoming for the Government, which has rolled out a raft of initiatives to encourage house builder to up delivery rates, completions were up 10% to 137,396.

NHBC Chief Executive Mike Quinton said: “Our latest statistics show that the industry is consolidating on the strong growth in registrations seen in recent years.

“Because of the increase in registrations we are now also seeing the resulting completions come through, as reflected in the 10% rise in the number of new homes completed in the financial year.”