THE Housing Minister has dismissed calls for “urgent intervention” in Jersey’s housing market, arguing instead that current policies were working to correct years of “unsustainable” price increases.
During question time in the States Assembly this week, Deputy Philip Ozouf challenged Housing Minister Sam Mézec on the slowdown in property transactions, particularly in the buy-to-let sector.
This comes after the latest House Price Index revealed that turnover in Jersey’s housing market last year was at its lowest for over two decades.
Property turnover overall was 16% lower than the previous year – driven by a huge drop in the sale of flats (42%). It is the lowest level of turnover since at least 2002.
Deputy Ozouf asked: “Given the decline in property transactions, affordability issues for first-time buyers and challenges for Islanders aspiring to upsize to family homes, alongside the prolonged stagnation across the wider housing market, is it the minister’s assessment that urgent interventions are necessary to stimulate housing activity?”
The backbench politician also suggested that the government’s 3% stamp duty surcharge on buy-to-let purchases was having an adverse effect on renters by reducing the supply of rental properties.
“Does the minister not accept that there is maybe an unintended consequence of the 3% surcharge on buy-to-let, which is completely stagnating the rental market, and is having detrimental effects on renters, who are seeing rents rising?”
Responding, Deputy Mézec argued “the statistics prove no such thing” and pointed out that advertised rental prices, as collected by Statistics Jersey, had fallen.
He defended the stamp duty surcharge as a deliberate policy designed to shift the balance in favour of first-time buyers and argued that the policy was doing what it was meant to do.
He said: “The proportion of buy-to-let purchases has gone down, while the proportion of first-time buyers has gone up, which is exactly the direction I wanted this policy to influence.”
At the conclusion of the exchange, Deputy Mézec agreed to meet the people in the industry and affected homeowners whom Deputy Ozouf claimed to be representing.
