NHBC provides warranties for around 80% of new builds in the UK and its figures show that over the ten-year period of 2010 to 2019, a total of 1,405,771 new homes were registered to be built.

New home registrations were the highest in 2019 since 2007 before the financial crash struck. There were 161,022 homes registered with NHBC, an 81% increase on the 88,849 homes registered a decade ago (2009).

Over the same period, the West Midlands (169%) and North West (148%) have seen the highest percentage increase of new homes registered.

Compared to the previous year, the number of homes registered in 2019 was up 1% (2019:161,022 v 2018: 158,878). Growth was driven by London, where new home registrations increased by 37%, with both the capital’s affordable and rental (+42%) and private housing markets (+33%) performing strongly.

Build to Rent 

The Build to Rent sector had another positive year with registrations up 57% in 2019 compared to 2018 and now represents around 10% of the private rented sector’s new build homes.

But the sector is growing fast with a 281% increase in five years – in 2015 there were 1,257 Build to Rent registrations compared to 4,788 in 2019. This emerging market is being driven by new investors such as Goldman Sachs. The top cities for investment are Manchester, London, Birmingham and Leeds.

Completions

New home completions in 2019 reached 150,436 – also marginally up on the previous year by 0.5% from 149,702. Completions have been growing over the decade from around 100,000 in 2010.

Comment

NHBC Chief Executive Steve Wood said: “It is great to see the resilience of house builders over the 2019 year.  This momentum needs to be maintained as we enter a new decade, with the industry ever-more focused on quality and fire safety.

“At NHBC we remain committed to our purpose of giving homeowners confidence in the quality of the nation’s new homes and working with house builders as the industry faces into the skills, supply chain and environmental challenges in front of us.”

Full regional breakdown of total new homes registered for 2019 compared to 2018