It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Oliver Bottomley, Associate Director, Land and Development at Vivly Living, the Yorkshire-based residential property builder and developer.
With mortgage rates falling, this will increase the number of buyers in the market. This will help with the ‘next step’ buyers, who have been put off since Liz Truss’s disastrous budget. With the New Labour Government’s decision to scrap stamp duty reduction for first time buyers, we should see a lot of sales in the first three months of the year.
The new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has told local councils to play their part to meet housing need, with new immediate mandatory housing targets for councils to ramp up housebuilding and deliver growth across the country. Hopefully this will break the over-complicated planning system which is geared in favour of objectors and not development.
As we look at 2025, we are planning to do 60 sales, up from the 38 of last year. We have planning permission for over 100 homes and we intend to have spades in the ground at new sites in Yorkshire from Q3 2025. Overall, despite the stagnant economy and the unpopular Budget, the outlook for 2025, for residential property developers at least, isn’t too gloomy. There is a real need for new homes, which the new Government recognises, and the planning reforms are a major step forward.
