Albert Edwards, a strategist at Societe Generale with a reputation for pessimism, has released a strategy note excoriating the Chancellor for the Help to Buy scheme, which will subsidise mortgages for buyers of new-build house. Via Business Insider and FT Alphaville, some of the choicest quotes:
George Osborne in his March budget proposed an unusually misguided piece of government interference in the housing market. The measures will see government provide lenders with a guarantee of up to 20 per cent of a mortgage in an attempt to encourage lending to borrowers with small deposits. This means that if a borrower defaults on a loan, the taxpayer will be liable for a proportion of the losses. Numerous critics of George Osborne’s scheme range from the IMF to the outgoing Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, who said “We do not want what the US has, which is a government-guaranteed mortgage market, and they are desperately trying to find a way out of that position.”
…What makes me genuinely really angry is that burdening our children with more debt (on top of their student loans) to buy ridiculously expensive houses is seen as a solution to the problem of excessively expensive housing. I would have thought the lack of purchasing power should contribute to house prices declining or stagnating (relative to incomes), hence becoming affordable once again…
Why are houses too expensive in the UK? Too much debt. So what is George Osborne’s solution for first time buyers unable to afford housing? Why, arrange for a government guaranteed scheme to burden our young people with even more debt! Why don’t we call this policy by the name it really is, namely the indentured servitude of our young people…
I don’t think Andrew Bridgen at Fathom Consulting was strong enough when he described George Osborne’s scheme as “reckless”. I believe it truly is a moronic policy that stands head and shoulders above most of the stupid economic policies I have seen implemented during my 30 years in this business. It ranks above some of Alan Greenspan’s very worst blunders. And when so many highly regarded commentators speak out against it, only to be totally ignored by George ‘I know better’ Osborne, he may really deserve to be called a moron.
Hell hath no fury like a strategist scorned.
The debate around Help to Buy appears to be settling, and the consensus coming out of it hews close to Edwards’ conclusion: Help to Buy will help people who want to own a new house buy one (including as a second home, although thankfully, even Osborn was warned off extending the scheme to buy-to-let landlords). But it will do so by putting the government balance sheet to work, increasing house prices without meaningfully changing the number of houses being built.
Housing supply, particularly in the South East and London, where the largest effects of the policy will be felt, is constrained by land, planning rules and construction times; overheating demand will do little to solve that.
So prices rise, household debt rises, and government debt rises – off-balance-sheet, of course. The question which remains is whether this is malice or incompetence. Was the plan genuinely, if ineptly, aimed at increasing the quantity of housing? Or was it designed to prop up house prices for another five years, keeping homeowners onside into the next election at the expense of the young and the poor?
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