Says Iain Wright, Under-Secretary of State
As suspected, Yvette Cooper shuffled-in her "right-hand-man", Iain Wright - parliamentary under-secretary of state for housing and planning - in her place to face the crowds today at the PCS-Expo 2007 event.
In his speech, he apparently blamed the ongoing credit-crunch and volatility in the housing market for the (long) delay in rolling-out HIPs to the full-market.
Not much more detail than that really but MortgageStrategy has a bit more: Credit crunch blamed for delayed HIP roll-out.
Although LMS is quoted as seeing this apparent declaration as "welcome", I have to ask: Why?
As far as I can see, it is an open-ended excuse for maintaining this current half-cocked implementation, if anything.
OK, RightMove (yesterday) announced a 2.7% rise in asking prices for houses during September... but they are only asking prices.
According to a Bloomberg report :
Today's report provided further evidence the U.K.'s decade- long housing boom is cooling. The average time for a home to stay on the market rose to 85 days in October, the most in five years, and the number of unsold properties on real estate agents' books increased to the highest since 2004, Rightmove said.
I don't see the above state-of-affairs undergoing a miraculous turn-around overnight, do you?
Sooo... just how long will this credit crunch and housing market volatility hold-back the full roll-out of Home Information Packs then?
Tags: hips, government
