“Every brick we can make has already been sold up to three months in advance – the UK brickmakers can't supply demand at the moment,” exclaims the CEO of one of Britain's largest brickmakers. With the UK's housing bubble spreading from London, The Telegraph reports that stocks of bricks have reached the lowest levels on record as homebuilders rush to take advantage of the surging demand for British property (which has seen realtors and economists worry is getting out of hand).
The Telegraph reports
Stockpiles of the vital building blocks dipped to 323m at the end of October, down almost a third from 500m in 2012, after stocks of more than 1bn were recorded in 2009, according to monthly reports from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, and the Office for National Statistics.
The UK brick sector has seen a flurry of deals recently.
Martin Warner, chief executive of Michelmersh Brick, said: “Every brick we can make has already been sold up to three months in advance – the UK brickmakers can't supply demand at the moment.”
The strong demand from housebuilders has seen brickmakers rush to bring back facilities. Weinerberger, Europe's largest brickmaker, is reinstating two mothballed factories that will produce 200m-plus bricks a year.
“This capacity increase shows our absolute commitment to ensuring that enough new housing is built to meet the requirements of the market,” said Harald Schwarzmayr, managing director of Wienerberger.
Brick prices have increased by 8.8% year-on-year to the end of September. This follows a four-year period from 2009, when the price increased by an average of 2% a year.
As even in the summer…
A respected group of economists, the OECD, has called on the British authorities to rein in house price growth. It is the latest in a series of warnings which suggest that house price inflation poses a threat to Britain's economic recovery.
The “heat” effect clearly spills out of the capital towards the South and West, into affluent commuter areas in Surrey and Kent, where prices are between 5% and 10% higher than in 2007-08. Other “thawing” is visible along the M40 and also to the north of the capital.
