Housebuilders’ landbanks: Inventory, asset or hoard?

Pat McAllister

Land Use Policy, 2025, vol. 152, issue C

Abstract: In the context of longstanding allegations of land hoarding and/or speculation, this paper examines the land holdings of major housebuilders. The paper discusses the concept of landbanking and potential motives for and consequences of holding land inventories. Through a descriptive analysis of quantitative, temporal data of the landbanks of leading, listed housebuilders, the paper analyses the land holdings of residential developers in both the US and UK. The analysis encompasses various aspects including the relative scale of their land holdings, the extent of land ownership compared to control (typically through options) and the evolution of these patterns over time. It is found that the main motives for holding significant land inventories could be operational, investment or anti-competitive but that holding land also comes with opportunity costs and risks. Despite operating in a highly imperfect land market and restrictive planning regime, the large UK housebuilders have been able to maintain significant and relatively stable landbanks. In comparison, the US has seen a major shift towards land-light strategies. US housebuilders increasingly rely upon relatively short-term options, rather than outright land ownership, to secure their pipeline of development plots. The shift primarily aims to hedge risks associated with holding land. Although the comparative evidence is limited and imperfect, it generally indicates that UK housebuilders tend to maintain smaller land inventories compared to their counterparts in the US, Australia, and Ireland.

Keywords: Landbanking; Housebuilder; Option agreement; Strategic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837725000365
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:152:y:2025:i:c:s0264837725000365

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2025.107503

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().