This paper investigates how speculative housebuilders determine the speed at which approved housing sites are developed. It finds that where competition for land is intense, housebuilders must assume the highest possible sale prices to make winning bids for sites. Such bids are viable only because the release of land is restricted by the planning system, while the release of homes is managed on a site-by-site basis by builders to achieve the target sales rates underpinning earlier land bids. These factors have combined to encourage caution about the capacity of local housing markets to 'absorb' new-build supply. Even if the planning system released substantially more land, it may take some time before housebuilders responded by building out faster. While the research predates the recent collapse in speculative housebuilding, it is argued that these findings are likely still to be valid once the development of homes for owner-occupation recovers from the current recession.

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Project AIR FORCE (PAF), a division of the RAND Corporation, is the U.S. Air Force's federally funded research and development center for studies and analyses. PAF provides the Air Force with independent analyses of policy alternatives affecting the development, employment, combat readiness, and support of current and future air, space, and cyber forces. Research is conducted in four programs: Force Modernization and Employment; Manpower, Personnel, and Training; Resource Management; and Strategy and Doctrine.Additional information about PAF is available on our website: http://www.rand.org/paf/ v Many people inside and outside of the Air Force provided valuable assistance and support to our work. 1 We thank Major General Judith Fedder, AF/A4L, the original sponsor of our analysis of maintenance manpower and support equipment, along with Major General John Cooper, AF/A4L, our subsequent sponsor, for their support. We also thank General Philip Breedlove, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, for requesting that we expand these initial analyses of logistics resources to consider a broader set of USAF resources and requirements; and Major General Brett Williams, Director of Operations, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force (AF/A3O), for his assistance in defining the research directions and briefing our work to the F-35 Executive Review Board.On their staffs, we extend a special thanks to Colonel Kyle Matyi, Lieutenant Colonel David Seitz, and Guy Fowl from AF/A4L; and to Colonel Jamie Crowhurst, Colonel James Jinnette, Colonel Steven Robinson, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Beales, Lieutenant Colonel Casey Tidgewell, and Major James Caplinger from AF/A3O for all of their assistance.Staff from the Directorate of Studies and Analyses, Assessments and Lessons Learned, Headquarters U.S. Air Force (AF/A9) were extremely helpful in providing us with deployment requirements for the F-35; in particular we thank David Hickman, Maria Hayden and Michael Cusack for their assistance to our analysis.This analysis brought together a Total Force team to ensure that the unique perspectives of the Active Component, Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) and Air National Guard were represented. We received outstanding support from a very large number of participants at the Air Staff, Headquarters Air Combat Command, Headquarters AFRC, and the National Guard Bureau. We greatly appreciate the time and effort that all of the team members spent to provide us with the data-and the background understanding necessary to properly use those data-for our analysis.At the Joint Program Office, we received assistance and data from Kimberly Fuller, Enass Saad-Pappas, and Sal Baglio. We thank Jennifer Bowles at the Air Force Cost Analysis Agency and Thomas Lies at the Directorate of Cost Analysis, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Cost and Economics (SAF/FMC), for providing us with cost data.1 All office symbols and military ranks are listed as of the time of this research.