Housebuilders are building bigger homes and more bedrooms says HBF

New analysis from the Home Builders Federation (HBF) reveals that the housebuilding industry is building bigger homes with more bedrooms - and that the number of houses built last year was higher than that ten years ago. This is good for the the building products industry and bigger and move houses means more building products are required!

The new report called "Goodness Spacious Me", finds that the number of bedrooms built increased from 385,000 in 2008/09 to 478,000 in 2015/16.

The report says that this is largely as a result of the shift to building more family homes. Over the same period the percentage of flats built dropped from 50% of the new homes in 2008/9 to just 25%, whilst the number of houses increased from, 80,000 to 120,000. The average size of a new build homes increased by nearly 15% from an estimated 801 sq. ft. to 918 sq. ft.

HBF says that the report underlines how housing supply has rebounded since the financial crash of 2008/09 that saw many housebuilders disappear and others shedding up to 50% of their staff. “As a result of a more positive economic and policy environment the industry has rapidly increased the number and type of homes it has built to better match demand,” says HBF. “Indeed, whilst more dwellings were built in 2006/7, the number of houses produced last year far outstripped that of a decade ago.”

Stewart Baseley, executive chairman of the Home Builders Federation, said:

“The report illustrates the huge increase we have seen in housebuilding since the devastating economic crash of 2008/09 but this is more than just a numbers game. We have an acute housing crisis that can only be solved by building more of the right homes in the right places. Government policy has allowed the industry to focus on responding to the needs of buyers in this regard and, as a result, the industry has delivered huge increases in supply over the last three years. The industry is planning to deliver further increases in output. By addressing the entrenched problems with planning and developing further positive policies to promote development the government can help maintain this momentum.”

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