Living sector reacts to ‘disappointing’ Autumn Budget

While there was no Help to Buy-style policy announcement, the government did promise a consultation in early 2026 on a “new, simpler” ISA product to support first-time buyers, replacing the Lifetime ISA.

The chancellor confirmed a new levy on higher education providers’ income from international students, of £925 per student per year from 2028. Providers will not have to pay the charge for their first 220 international students each year.

Planning reforms are estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to increase housebuilding to 300,000 homes a year by 2029-30. However, the OBR warned housing additions would fall to a new low of 215,000 next financial year.

The government will provide £48m over three years to boost capacity in the planning system and recruit an extra 350 planners. New town locations will be announced in the spring, each of which will have at least 10,000 homes.

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) retrofit scheme, which is currently funded through energy bills, will be ended. The £13.2bn Warm Homes Plan remains, with an additional £1.5bn investment to tackle fuel poverty.

‘Unlikely to shift the dial’

Marcus Dixon, head of UK living and residential research at JLL, said the “greatest value this Budget was always going to deliver was clarity”. Knowing what is and is not changing could provide buyers and sellers with the confidence to re-enter the market in the new year, he said. However, “layering further costs on the top end does little to address the pressure point of affordability for first-time buyers”.

Helen Collins, head of UK living and affordable housing at Avison Young, said the so-called mansion tax on expensive properties may encourage downsizing, but is “unlikely to shift the dial” on housing market activity in the short term.

She predicted the tax rise on landlords would lead many more ‘part-time’ landlords, such as those who have inherited a property, to sell up. But Clare Andrews, partner at Moore Barlow law firm, noted that this may bring new homes to the market for first-time buyers.

Jennet Siebrits, head of research at Ringley Group, said implementing the mansion tax will be “fraught with difficulty”, with homeowners “inevitably” contesting their revaluations. Placing a property just above a threshold could itself depress its market value, which risks “destabilising the very top end of the housing market” and could “ripple through to wider market stability”.

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said the tax rises for landlords will “drive up rents” and “clobber tenants with higher costs”. However, Ben Twomey, chief executive of Generation Rent, said the measures mean “those with the broadest shoulders [will] start to pay their fair share”.

‘Little to cheer from an investor perspective’

For housing investors and developers, the reaction was muted. Melanie Leech, chief executive of the British Property Federation, said “the lack of surprises doesn’t hide the disappointment that many in the development industry will feel after today”.

There was “little to cheer from an investor perspective”, she said, adding it was “disappointing that there was nothing introduced to alleviate acute development viability issues”.

Brendan Geraghty, chief executive of the Association for Rental Living, agreed that the Budget was “disappointing” for the build-to-rent sector. The government has “not yet grasped how, from an investor’s perspective, to make the UK a more attractive destination, and to make housing, and in turn build-to-rent, an attractive sector to invest in”, he said.

DJ Dhananjai, chief investment officer (UK) at Edmond de Rothschild REIM, said: “More than anything, investors will be glad the Budget has been and gone. Nothing halts investment activity more than uncertainty, and we’ve had months of it.”

He said the Budget was a missed opportunity to reinstate multiple dwellings relief, a stamp duty tax break on bulk purchases of flats that “supported large-scale institutional investment”. Since its abolition in June 2024, build-to-rent investment has slowed down, he said.

Housing market ‘condemned to stagnation’

Later living developers felt the chancellor could have done more to encourage older people to downsize into homes better suited to their needs.

Spencer McCarthy, chair and chief executive of Churchill Living, said: “Stamp duty is a major barrier to homeownership and house moves and the lack of action to change that in today’s Budget will condemn Britain’s housing market to further stagnation. 

“If the government is serious about growth it needs to urgently reform property taxes so that people can once again move to housing that better serves their needs.”

Paul Teverson, chair of the Retirement Housing Group, agreed: “Not reducing or reforming stamp duty blocks those in later life from moving and limits the release of family homes for younger people.”