Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 17 January 2018.
I thank you for the question, and almost any discussion I ever have in this portfolio does include the important role of making sure that we hit our 20,000 target for affordable homes. But I'm also really keen to ensure that we do increase the speed and the amount of the development of homes for market sale as well, because we know that we need the whole diverse package in Wales to meet different people's needs for different types of housing. It's difficult to understand at the moment what the impact might be in the longer term on house prices in the area, but we're certainly keeping a very close watching brief on that. Were there to be increases in house prices, that would obviously be good for the local housing market and existing home owners. However, I do recognise that it could potentially have a big impact on the ability of local first-time buyers to access properties in high demand areas, which is why it's so important that we continue our housebuilding right across Wales, but particularly in this part of Wales, and why we look at what different kind of packages we can put together to support people to buy a home.
I'm really excited about the development work we're doing on the rent to own project. So, that will be a package available for people who can afford a market rent but haven't been able to save up a deposit for a home, and that will be able to allow them to buy a home under a new package that we're currently developing, and I hope to say more about that in the very near future.