John Stewart is Director of Economic Affairs at the Home Builders Federation (HBF).
His policy responsibilities include the economy, the housing and mortgage markets, mortgage regulation, NewBuy, demographic trends, housing supply, Affordable Housing, new home valuation, the private rented sector, customer satisfaction and the industry's Consumer Code, the Cumulative Impact of Regulation on viability and supply and Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) initiatives (FirstBuy, Get Britain Building, public land disposal). He maintains close contact with a wide range of housing experts, including officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG), the HCA, HM Treasury and the Bank of England.
Before joining HBF in 2003 he was an independent housing consultant for over ten years, and previously divisional Sales & Marketing Director for house builder Wates. His publications included a monthly Viewpoint column in Housebuilder and Building a Crisis (2002) which highlighted the growing housing supply crisis in England and began to consider its social and economic consequences.
He has an MA in English from Auckland University and an MSc in Economics from Birkbeck College, London.
Asking the right question
Government must recognise the industry’s need to respond to demand: attempts to implement utopian visions against the grain do not work, and the market will suffer
Brexit will change the shape of UK economy
Britain’s vote to leave the EU will have profound longterm implications for the UK economy, the housing market and the new homes industry, says John
Planning permissions key to increased sales
Larger housebuilders have significantly increased their sales per site since the trough, but active site numbers have remained almost static. Further increases in sales and production will require increases in planning permissions, says John Stewart
Housebuilding needs solutions, not threats
If the private sector is to build enough homes to help solve our long-term housing crisis, it needs positive incentives and the right demand and supply policies. Threats to force faster building will lead to sharply lower housebuilding levels, argues John Stewart
Lies, damned lies and statistics
To judge whether we are on track to meet the government's 1 million housebuilding target, we need accurate statistics. The current situation is far from satisfactory, argues John Stewart
Delivering the PM's 1 million housing target
With a fair economic wind, the industry should be able to achieve the prime minister's 1 million housing target by 2020, provided we solve a number of major barriers to supply, particularly industry skills and local authority planning resources, says John Stewart
Historic shift in new housing's economic role
John Stewart looks back at the shift in attitude towards the economic role of new housing over the past four decades
Brexit will not diminish need for new homes
Cuts to inward migration following Britain's exit from the EU in 2019 will not reduce the need for much higher levels of new home building over a sustained period, says John Stewart
Post-Brexit migration controls
John Stewart revisits the ongoing arguments surrounding immigration levels post Brexit, looks at the challenge of getting household projections right and focuses on the affordability crisis facing the young
