London and the north east of England are the newbuild hotspots of the UK, according to a number of recent reports from national housebuilders including Persimmon and Barratt Homes.
According to market analysis by Hometrack, the north east of England has the highest concentration of newbuild starts as a proportion of housing sales, at 15%. This is followed by London (14.3%) and then the East Midlands (13.9%).
Currently, newbuild housing starts account for 11% of all property sales across the UK.
Data from the Department for Communities & Local Government (DCLG) shows new private housing starts were up by 3.1% in the last year and by 33% over the last three years as housebuilders increase their output. Specific support for new home buyers has come from the Help to Buy scheme, which has been used for 27% of all housing completions in the last year.
London has seen a major increase in housing supply in the last five years, particularly in inner London boroughs such as Newham, Southwark and Lambeth, where regeneration schemes have been a key source of new housing supply.
Alex Rose, managing director of data and analytics at Hometrack, said: "These figures show how the delivery of new housing is not evenly distributed across the country as developers balance the relative strength of local housing markets and demand for new housing against land availability and planning constraints.
"The challenge for housebuilders is that some local markets are more newbuild reliant than others, which will impact assumptions on sales rates and assessment of demand for housing. This is particularly important given the proposed transition from Help to Buy to Starter Homes in 2016, where there is overlap between the two schemes."
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