- £14.67m to help social landlords build more homes in Wales
- Home Group secures a £350m bond issue
- Chancellor's Spring Statement includes some cheer for housing
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Posted 29.03.19
GOV.WALES: Article link
Minister for Housing and Local Government, Julie James, has announced that £14.67m has been allocated to social landlords to help them buy land to build more homes across Wales.
The money has been made available through the Land for Housing scheme, which allows Registered Social Landlords to borrow money to buy land to build on.
As the scheme provides loans, the money is recycled as loans are repaid.
Seventeen schemes will be supported in this second round of funding for 2018-19, bringing the total invested this financial year to more than £32 million.
Since the start of the scheme in 2015, £52 million has been invested - resulting in delivery of more than 4,100 homes across Wales. 84% of these are affordable homes.
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Posted 28.03.19
Home Group: Article link
Home Group, one of the UK's largest housing associations, has secured a £350 million bond issue to build a wide range of new homes.
The 24-year bond, at an effective fixed rate of 3.24%, is one of the lowest overall rates achieved in recent comparable housing association transactions.
The bond is structured as £250 million to be received from investors now with an option for a further £100 million at a future point.
It will support Home Group's aim to build homes for social and affordable rent, shared ownership, homes in the supported area and for outright sale.
Investor feedback on the deal, which was over oversubscribed two and half times, was extremely positive - with many citing Home Group's strong management and governance record and geographic diversification.
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Posted 14.03.19
WIREDGOV: Article link
Chancellor Philip Hammond Spring Statement included several announcements that will bring some cheer to the housing sectors.
A key announcement was that through the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme, the government will guarantee up to £3 billion of borrowing by housing associations in England to support delivery of around 30,000 affordable homes.
He also advised that there will be £717 million from the £5.5 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund to unlock up to 37,000 homes at sites - including Old Oak Common in London, the Oxford-Cambridge Arc and Cheshire.
Commenting on the Chancellor's Spring statement, Terrie Alafat, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) said:
"We welcome the Chancellor's £3 billion affordable homes guarantee scheme to support the delivery of 30,000 new homes.
"A previous scheme that allowed the government to underwrite borrowing by housing associations to fund affordable housing delivery worked well.
We need to see the details of the scheme, but the key question is whether the homes being funded are genuinely affordable, especially considering that we need 90,000 new homes per year at the lowest social rent."
