3 days ago
The £200 billion landbank that could boost the UK's housing supply
West One Loans is a Business Reporter client
How UK housebuilders are tapping into land to accelerate homebuilding amid rising demand, improved mortgage affordability and government pressure for delivery.
The nation's biggest housebuilders have been using their landbanks, worth a combined value of £200 billion, to deliver more homes to market in the face of growing buyer demand spurred by improving market confidence and greater mortgage affordability.
West One Loans, a leading provider of property finance and specialist mortgages, has analysed the latest company reports for eight of the nation's biggest housebuilders, to see which currently boasts the strongest pipeline with respect to their individual landbanks and the value of these plots in the current market.
The government has been vocal in its demands for the nation's housebuilders to 'roll up their sleeves' to help achieve the ambitious target of 1.5 million new homes by 2029. So much so, it recently announced tough new rules forcing developers to commit to delivery time frames for planning permission, with those caught slacking risking losing their land to local authorities.
However, the latest analysis by West One Loans shows that the majority of the nation's major housebuilders are already rising to the challenge, having reduced their landbank pipelines as a result of delivering more homes.
The analysis shows that, across eight of the nation's biggest housebuilders, some 488,620 landbank plots were recorded within 2024 reports. Based on the current average UK new-build house price of £406,390, this means the total pipeline of these eight developers alone is worth an estimated £198.6 billion.
Bellway currently boasts the most robust pipeline, with 95,292 landbank plots reported in its 2024 figures, holding an estimated market value of £38.7 billion.
Persimmon ranks second, with 82,084 plots in its pipeline, worth an estimated £33.4 billion, whilst Taylor Wimpey sits third at £32 billion in market value across 78,626 landbank plots.
However, while these developers have maintained a robust pipeline of plots, further analysis by West One Loans shows that there has been an increase in development activity on landbanks, no doubt driven by improving market conditions and increasing buyer demand as a result of a stabilising mortgage market.
Across all eight major housebuilders, total landbank volumes have fallen by 3.6 per cent over the last year. In fact, all but one of the developers analysed by West One Loans has reduced the size of its landbank.
Vestry Group has broken the most ground in this respect, with a -7.9 per cent year on year reduction in landbank volume. Berkeley Group has seen a -6.8 per cent reduction, while Crest Nicholson has seen an annual drop of -6 per cent.
Only Miller Homes has seen an increase in this respect, although it's a marginal one, with its landbank volumes up by 0.1 per cent on an annual basis.
'It's clear that, while many of the nation's developers have been sure to maintain a robust pipeline of landbank plots, they have also been pushing forward and breaking ground in order to bring more homes to market to meet growing demand,' says Co-Head of Short-Term Finance at West One Loans, Thomas Cantor.
'This is despite the fact that the current landscape still presents a range of challenges. But, as interest rates have stabilised, we've seen more housebuilders turn to the specialist finance sector to help them facilitate their ambitions
'This has largely taken the form of a greater reliance on bridging in order to help part fund their initial project, as well as utilising development finance in order to exit existing builds in order to push forward with the next.
'We've seen numerous examples over the past 12 months where developers have utilised us to help them in both instances and, finding a finance specialist that can do so will ensure a far smoother process throughout.'
Data tables and sources
Data on landbank volumes sourced from each of the eight housebuilders individual company reports for 2024 - sourced within the data tables linked below.
