LVT will help resolve the housing crisis

The huge increase in house prices in recent years–which is putting home ownership beyond the reach of many young people, or forcing them to borrow far beyond their means–is almost entirely due to the escalating price of land in the places where people want to live and work. The cost of building homes has changed hardly at all.

With LVT in place, as noted already, because potential buyers would take into account the LVT they would have to pay in the future, the price of land would tend to fall–the more so as the rate of LVT was raised. This would make homes increasingly affordable, and reduce the costs of acquiring land for the building of new homes.

Furthermore, LVT would encourage the building of homes on brownfield sites, and discourage the hoarding of land by speculators, because all land would be subject to LVT according to its permitted use as determined by planning regulations, irrespective of how it was currently being used. This would help boost the supply of land for housing, and keep land prices under control.

Meanwhile, lower land prices would not only benefit those seeking to buy homes, but also make it more affordable for local authorities and housing associations to acquire land for social housing, thus increasing the supply of homes at affordable rents.

A more detailed discussion of the Labour Land Campaign’s proposals for resolving Britain’s housing crisis is available in our LVT Research section.