Infrastructure spending good for housebuilders, contractors, bad for letting agents

In the mini-budget on Wednesday, Chancellor Philip Hammond said there will be an additional £3.7bn in funding to build new housing and £1.1bn for roads, which could boost contractors and housing providers.

But the ban on letting agents charging fees to tenants put estate agents on the back foot on Wednesday as he announced the proposal. This would save 4.3m households hundreds of pounds a year.

The Chancellor set out a £2.3bn housing infrastructure fund to build 100,000 homes and an £1.4bn grant for 40,000 affordable homes in areas in need. Before the statement, the government also set out a £3bn home building fund and a £2bn accelerated construction scheme, in addition to the new measures.

The broker said housebuilders Galliford Try and Kier could benefit as well as material producers, especially brick makers, such as Forterra.

Whereas the letting fee ban could affect estate agent Foxtons, whose share price fell 14% on Wednesday, and Countrywide, which dipped 6%, while M Winkworth would only have a “modest exposure” to the policy.

AIM-listed Belvoir Lettings said on Thursday that it could not predict the effect of not charging letting fees yet, but it “anticipates that mitigating action should be possible over time”.

Stockdale said there was also a lift for roads, rail and telecommunication firms with £1.1bn for roadbuilding, £140m for the Oxford-Cambridge link and £290m for an acceleration of broadband roll-out across the UK.

Roads focused contractors such as Kier and Costain could stand to gain.