Much has been written about the lot of the first-time buyer and the increasing difficulty in stepping on to that first rung of the property ladder. The problems facing those wanting to get their own place are compounded by the volatile mortgage market and the rate of house price inflation outstripping the rise in the average wage.
One of the key problems for anyone wanting to buy a home for the first time - or those who want to return to the purchase of bricks and mortar after a period away from it - is being able to save up the amount of money required for the deposit in order to qualify for any of the variety of mortgage products that are available.
This is because, while squirrelling away any spare money might seem a straightforward activity, the plain fact is that day-to-day living expenses need to be factored into the financial equation.
On top of that, there have been many stories about the ridiculous prices that some management companies are charging to look after leasehold properties. When buying a leasehold property, or, more generally speaking, renting a property, part of the contract will probably cover signing up to paying a share of the management company costs.
This is designed to ensure that the standards and condition of the buildings are kept high but, since there are no regulations in place about how much can be charged for the service, the management companies can theoretically decide to charge thousands of pounds for doing comparatively little in return.
And then it's easy to see how the dwindling residual monthly cash for the mortgage deposit makes it a huge task to undertake that may require years to achieve.
Government takes action on property management reform
This is the nub of the matter, and the Government has always been keen to address the issues that it presents. To this end, a one-off evidence-gathering session was held on Tuesday morning (17 June) at the Houses of Parliament.
Specifically, those attending wanted to look into the high charges for property management, particularly in cases where maintenance problems have not been addressed or haven't been satisfactorily resolved. In addition, concerns about lack of transparency regarding the charges and general poor communication and how that is handled were assessed. Other topics included understanding how the costs paid to the management companies are spent (and how much is apportioned to the properties under their care), and the management of the restrictions that have been applied on the property title deeds.
The cross-party session only sat for the one day, hearing input and evidence from a broad selection of representation across the leasehold community and business. The machinations of government are notoriously slow as they grind through the detail, so we shouldn't expect anything immediately to change or policy ideas to evolve quickly from the discussions.
But at least the discussions are being had and it's a subject that we'll be monitoring and will return to as soon as there is any movement or major headlines to report.
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