Comment: Ami’s message to ministers on housing – Mortgage Strategy
The new prime minister has made one housing commitment that is impossible to miss, pledging the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period.
These will mainly be homes to rent, which should ease pressure on the private rental sector, where rising rents have stretched affordability and made it harder for aspiring first-time buyers to save a deposit.
Beyond that headline pledge, the government has yet to set out its wider housing plans. I see that not as a worry but as an opportunity, and my plea to ministers is a simple one: listen to the people who work in this market, and to the issues the industry has been raising for years without ever quite being heard.
We must build the right homes as well as more of them
Here is Ami’s wishlist for the new government.
First, place homeownership firmly alongside affordable renting as a central objective.
Owning a home remains one of the most effective ways for families to build long-term financial security, offering stability and an asset that can support future generations.
The economic case is just as compelling. Homeownership builds household wealth, underpins financial resilience and generates activity that ripples well beyond the housing market itself.
Second, recognise the vital role mortgage advisers play in turning housing policy into good consumer outcomes.
The best housing policy will be written not by government, regulators or industry alone but by all three together
Whether introducing new homeownership schemes or encouraging more flexible lending, the answer should never be to strip out safeguards in pursuit of a faster journey. Today’s borrowers face a far more complex market than previous generations, with shared ownership, family-assisted mortgages, complex income and more varied repayment structures creating opportunity alongside complexity.
As choice grows, professional advice becomes more valuable, not less. It provides the explanation, constructive challenge and long-term planning that help consumers make informed decisions. It sits at the heart of an advice ecosystem built around the customer.
Rightsizing new homes
Third, build the right homes as well as more of them.
Meeting housebuilding targets is essential, but so is rightsizing what is built, with more starter homes and more attractive options for older owners to downsize into, freeing up family homes and improving movement across the chain. If a successor to Help to Buy is being considered, it should be carefully targeted at first-time buyers purchasing entry-level properties, learning from the lessons of the original scheme.
Acknowledge the continuing importance of private landlords
Stamp duty deserves a review too, as first-time buyer relief ends at £300,000, well below the £450,000 Lifetime Isa cap, leaving buyers in more expensive areas facing a tax bill on the very purchase their Lisa was designed to support.
Delivering on reform
Fourth, deliver on homebuying and homeselling reform, where Ami has been actively engaged with the Home Buying and Selling Council for several years.
June’s publication of the government’s reform roadmap, setting out plans for upfront sales packs, digital property logbooks and binding conditional contracts, gave the industry the clarity it had been calling for.
Pilot schemes using shared digital property data have already cut the time from mortgage offer to exchange to as little as four weeks. Yet the average transaction still takes around four months, and roughly one in three falls through. Much of the roadmap requires legislation, and our request is that the necessary bills are prioritised when parliament reconvenes after the summer, because firms will invest only in change they trust will be seen through.
Recognise the vital role mortgage advisers play in turning housing policy into good consumer outcomes
Fifth, recognise the continuing importance of private landlords.
Recent governments have often treated buy-to-let as an easy target, yet private landlords provide homes for millions who cannot yet buy or who value the flexibility renting offers. Measures that push landlords out of the market before replacement housing exists risk making a difficult rental market worse.
Finally, housing policy must become more joined up. A coherent strategy requires ministers, regulators and industry working together, and success should be measured not just in homes built but in people housed, whether through social housing, private renting or homeownership.
The best housing policy will be written not by government, regulators or industry alone but by all three together.
Stephanie Charman is chief executive of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries
This article featured in the September 2026 edition of Mortgage Strategy.
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