British housebuilders : history & analysis / Fred Wellings.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wellings, Fred.

Contributor:

RICS Research.

Series:

Real estate issues (Oxford, England)

Real estate issues

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Construction industry--History--Great Britain--20th century.

Construction industry.

History.

Housing.

Housing development.

Great Britain.

Housing development--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Housing--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

xiii, 290 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, UK ; Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2006.

Summary:

British Housebuilders is the first comprehensive account of the corporate history of the twentieth-century speculative housebuilding industry - the firms that "supplied" those houses and the entrepreneurs who created those firms. The transition from the local housebuilders of the 1930s, through the regional diversification of the 1960s, to the national housebuilders of today, is charted via a series of industry league tables.

The rationale for the growth in national firms is analysed. The conventional explanation of economies of scale is rejected; instead, the stock market is found to play a key role both in facilitating acquisitions and in demanding growth from its constituent companies. The supply-side analysis also addresses the frequent corporate failures: succession issues, lack of focus and the 1974 and 1990 recessions have played their part in equal measure. British Housebuilders provides the first opportunity to review the evidence drawn from a century of speculative housebuilding; it is only with this historical perspective that sound judgements can be made on the corporate role in housebuilding.

Contents:

The supply side. Introduction. What is the speculative housebuilding industry?

Sources of information. Published literature

Company and accounting data

Unpublished information

Interviews

Methodology. Measuring corporate size

Houses are not homogeneous

Social housing is included in the more recent unit numbers ; The pre-war housebuilders. Introduction

The private housing market. A pre-World War I background

Industry context

Building to rent

Which firms built the houses?

Inclusivity of the data

A local business

The influence of local authority housebuilding ; War and building controls. Introduction

The collapse of speculative housebuilding

Wartime construction

Peacetime controls

The response of the 1930s housebuilders to post-war controls ; The post-war housing boom 1955-1973. Introduction

The private housing market

Which firms built the houses? The period around 1960

Mid-1960s

Pre-1974

The emergence of the regional housebuilder ; Recession and recovery, 1973-1988. Introduction

The private housing market - the collapse

The private housing market - recovery

The emergence of the national housebuilder ; Recession and recovery again, 1989-2004. Introduction

The era of the national housebuilder ; Market share through the century: a summary. A note on the NHBC data

A note on overseas comparisons ; Analysis. Who were the builders? Introduction

The dominant individual within the housebuilding firm

The housebuilders - pre-war

The housebuilders - the post-war boom

The housebuilders in the late 1980s

The housebuilders in the 1990s ; The rationale for growth: the economies that accrue to size. Introduction

Ease of entry

Scale - the economies of the large site. Technological change

Scope - the economies of the large firm. Land acquisition and finance

Marketing economies

Purchasing

Diseconomies of scale

Do large companies earn superior rewards? A statistical comparison ; The decline of the private housebuilder: a chronology. Introduction

The pre-war housebuilders

The early 1970s

The late 1980s ; Decline: an overview. Introduction

Succession. Family succession

Managerial succession

Relay succession

Focus versus diversification. Housebuilding and construction

Housebuilding and commercial property

Housing and conglomerates

Overseas housing

Demand and the housing cycle ; An alternative explanation of growth. Introduction

The financial incentive

Because it is there

The importance of not making mistakes: the pool of survivors ; Appendix: quoted company departures, 1937-2004.

Notes:

"RICS Research"--Cover.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [270]-279) and index.

ISBN:

1405149183

OCLC:

62878654

Publisher Number:

9781405149181