Regulator: UK builders and the government need to take care of the housing shortfall

The competition regulator said on Monday that after a year-long investigation, British housebuilders need to build more, better-quality houses, and the government has to simplify a convoluted planning system to address a persistent shortage that drives up costs.

The CMA stated that it will look into whether or not housebuilders exchange commercially sensitive information and whether or not it hurts competition.

Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley, Bloor Homes, Persimmon, Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, and Vistry are some of the largest home builders in Britain. Early trade saw a 2% decline in the UK housebuilders' stock index, with the largest businesses' shares seeing the highest losses.

In Britain, housing has long been an emotive political topic due to a lack of available houses, which has raised prices and alienated many younger voters who faced with expensive rents, do not see a path to becoming homeowners.

With some MPs from rural areas trying to stop housebuilding and others from more metropolitan areas wanting more homes constructed rapidly, it has frequently caused division within the ruling Conservative Party, which has been in power for over 14 years.

37.3% of households in England and Wales rented their home in 2021, up from 34.4% in 2011, according to the official census.

The government will fall short of its target of constructing 300,000 net new houses annually in England by the middle of the 2020s, but it is on course to produce one million new homes by the election that is anticipated later this year.

(Sources: investing.com, reuters.com)