Guernsey needs between 97 and 157 additional local market homes each year from 2017 to 2021, according to the newly released Guernsey Housing Market Review.
The review – conducted by KPMG and commissioned by Guernsey’s Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure, the Committee for Employment & Social Security and the Policy & Resources Committee – suggests that between 486 and 783 additional local market units are required by the end of 2021 to meet the island's housing needs.
The island needs between 146 and 209 affordable housing units and between 340 and 574 private housing units over the same period.
The report makes a number of recommendations:
• Working with the Guernsey Housing Association to develop a secondary partial ownership scheme to help first-time buyers who can afford ongoing mortgage costs but cannot meet transaction costs and deposits
• Identifying areas of land suitable for first-time buyer housing and applying relevant zoning or planning conditions to help encourage first home developments
• Considering the removal of document duty and bond fees for first-time buyers
• Forming a working party to monitor the mortgage market and approaching potential new lenders to better understand their appetite for lending and their needs to operate successfully in Guernsey
• Assessing future key worker definitions and accommodation needs, and if desirable liaising with the private sector to better understand their appetite for developing housing for this need.
The full report can be found here
Jim Coupe, Managing Director at Skipton International, commented: “We welcome the Guernsey report, and in particular its recommendations for bringing new lenders to the market.
“Guernsey’s housing market needs more liquidity if more islanders are to be able to get onto the housing ladder, and to be able to move up it in accordance with their housing needs. Diversification of lending is in the interests of customers, and should help long term growth and stability of the housing market in the island.”