The government’s housebuilding target is ambitious by any measure. As a statement of intent, it resonates with a public frustrated by affordability constraints and chronic undersupply.
However, behind the headline figure lies a delivery chain under considerable strain – and land valuation sits at its heart.
Official figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government show net additional dwellings reached 208,600 in 2024-25, a 6% decline on the previous year, and the Chartered Institute of Housing has warned the government is likely to fall around 25% short of its 1.5 million target, with construction capacity constraints preventing output from reaching the required levels.
Any stimulus to housebuilding should be welcomed, but hitting those numbers requires land to come forward, and land only comes forward when the economics work. This is where surveyors come in, and where the bottleneck begins.
A CHANGED LANDSCAPE
Development appraisals are inherently complex but the variables facing valuers today bear little resemblance to those of a decade ago.
LRG Surveyors works closely with our New Homes’ team and its head, Tim Foreman, who sees this daily.
“Some of the sites we’re working on were purchased 10 years ago,” he explains.
“Developers bought land based on assumptions that have completely changed. Planning has taken far longer than expected, interest costs have mounted, build costs and labour have increased substantially and the prices achievable simply haven’t kept pace.”
The result is a viability squeeze that fundamentally changes the valuation process. Where appraisals once worked from relatively stable assumptions – predictable build costs, manageable planning timescales and steady absorption rates – today’s assessments must factor in extended delivery schedules, increased contingencies and tighter margins. As such, the amount developers can viably pay for land has fallen.
For landowners, this creates a disincentive to sell. Why accept a fraction of what land was worth five years ago when you can wait for conditions to improve?
As a result, the supply of development-ready land tightens and the pipeline slows before a single home is built.
PLANNING POLICY AND PRACTICAL PROBLEMS
The Planning and Infrastructure Act represents genuine progress. Measures to streamline major decisions, limit repeated judicial challenges and establish a Nature Restoration Fund should help unlock stalled projects over time.
On this, Lawrence Turner, of our planning consultancy Boyer, offers a view, welcoming the direction of travel: “In policy terms, we arguably couldn’t be in a stronger position to deliver more homes,” he says.
“The latest reforms go some way towards correcting the long-standing imbalance where objectors often carried disproportionate weight.”
Still, Turner identifies challenges that planning reform alone cannot fix. “There are two other critical strands – restoring consumer confidence, particularly for first-time buyers, and addressing the lag in construction supply chains and labour. We may be moving towards a more positive planning environment, but homes will only be built at scale if people feel able and willing to buy them.”
The statistics underline this. Government data shows just 19% of major planning applications were decided within the 13-week statutory timeframe in the third quarter of 2025. It seems extension of time agreements have become routine, masking delays rather than resolving them.
For surveyors preparing development appraisals, each month of planning delay changes the calculation: finance costs accumulate, market conditions shift and assumptions require revisiting. By the time consent arrives, a valuation prepared at submission may look very different.
THE MISSING STEP ON THE HOUSING LADDER
The end of Help to Buy in 2023 removed a significant source of support for first-time buyers. Three Budgets later, and there’s still no replacement.
Shared ownership continues to offer a route onto the ladder for those who cannot purchase outright; however, the scheme isn’t reaching everyone who needs it.
Peter Hawley, Director of SOWN, sees daily evidence of this demand: “Shared ownership has filled some of the gap left by Help to Buy, but not enough.
“There is now a growing ‘missing middle’; households earning just above the threshold who can’t buy outright yet no longer qualify for shared ownership.”
He also believes the sector has untapped potential: “Helping first-time buyers onto the property ladder is vital not only for the individuals involved but for the country’s social and financial prospects. We have a great product and great demand for it, but more needs to be done to fully realise this potential.”
Lower financing costs should ease pressure on scheme viability, which in turn feeds back into land values, but the relationship isn’t instant.
Developers and landowners need confidence that improved conditions will hold before adjusting their expectations, and valuers must judge how much weight to give today’s rates versus longer-term uncertainty.
For valuers, this uncertainty over buyer demand makes land appraisals even harder to pin down.
KEEPING PACE
Delivering 1.5 million new homes within the current Parliament places unprecedented pressure on the surveying profession.
The challenge is twofold: an ageing workforce means capacity is already stretched and the work itself has become more complex. Each development appraisal requires deeper analysis, more sensitivity testing and greater understanding of a planning system in flux.
The government’s £625m commitment to construction skills, announced in the 2025 Spring Statement, is welcome and will help build site-level capacity over time.
However, surveyors are trained through different routes and the blend of technical skill, market knowledge and professional judgement required for land valuation takes years to develop.
In the meantime, the profession must adapt. While technology can help – with better data, more efficient workflows and improved modelling tools – there’s no substitute for experienced professionals who understand local markets and can exercise sound judgement when the inputs are uncertain.
CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM
None of this is to suggest the picture is bleak, though. The direction of policy is positive. For surveying, 2026 should be a year of recovery, with increased activity across valuations and lending.
The government’s proposed reforms to the homebuying process could also reshape demand for our services. If property condition assessments become a standard upfront requirement, the role of surveyors in the transaction chain will grow significantly.
The government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes is a powerful signal of intent, but ambition alone will not unlock delivery.
Land must be viable, planning must function efficiently and buyers must have confidence in the market. At every stage, surveyors play a pivotal role, providing the land valuations and development appraisals that underpin investment decisions.
The profession has the expertise to keep pace, but capacity is not limitless. Without greater certainty across planning, funding and demand, land valuation will remain a bottleneck, and the risk is that the pace of appraisal – rather than the pace of construction – becomes the constraint on delivery.
