Around the country especially in the hotspots there is a shortage of rented accommodation. There are reports of high and rising rents and little orĀ no choice of homes for people needing them. There are demands for further changes to the law to give tenants more rights, as tenants worry about the affordability and lack of choice.
There are also lobbies from landlords. Many smaller landlords are thinking of giving up. They have to pay more tax following changes. Their mortgages and loans to finance the properties are now much dearer. Many are finding it difficult to make theĀ numbers work, with cost escalation over finance, maintenance, management and tax . If they sell to another landlord the home remains available, but if they sell to an owner occupier the property is no longer helping ease the rental market.
There are many who say second homes need to be made dearer. Some communities report too many second homes, which can be bad news if the people who own them do not spend much time in those communities. They help drive up the price of homes making it more difficult for local people to afford them, whilst they do not spend enough in local shops or join in with local life and services as people would who live there all the time. In such conditions the wish is to see restrictions on purchase.
Others say that second home owners can provide additional spending power coming in with higher incomes and wealth, and may stimulate demand for additional services and goods. Some people with jobs in two places may need modest accommodation in the place they visit less, as with MPs.
Where ever rent controls and strict regulation have been tried the supply of rented accommodation has fallen and things have got worse for tenants.
September 4, 2023
There are too many people in the country.
September 4, 2023
That is too difficult a concept for our political classes to understand, they have no comprehension of a link between their mass immigration driven population increase and a shortage of housing and other resources, and even if a thought on it did creep into their grey matter it would probably dismissed as racist .
September 4, 2023
Good grief, first comment of the day, and you have got it in one !
How come the 650 people who sit at great time and expense in a very large house, which we are informed needs extensive renovation, have not thought of that one yet !
They allow 500,000 people a year come here, some invited others not, and then complain about a housing shortage and cost, when we are already one of the most densely populated countries in the World with a failing infrastructure.
September 4, 2023
Spot on.
Raising details about rental homes in hotspots is simply a distraction from the millions of migrants that are forcing British people into lower and lower standards of living.
The Government treat people as no more than bits and bytes in a computer model. Whether it is economic modelling, demographic modelling, climate modelling or covid modelling. The technocratic classes are trying to kill off democracy to push through their dystopian vision that we are all living a political matrix programmed by third rate Government software programmers.
September 4, 2023
There are three possible solutions to just about every problem faced by this country.
Stop the boats.
Burn the red tape.
Drop the climate nonsense. ( Apparently those air-filled bricks are considered eco friendly. What? Even if they fall on your head? Oh yes! I forgotā¦WE are the real environmental problem. Ah Ha!)
September 4, 2023
The utter cruelty of the way landlords have been treated!
People whose pensions had failed in some govt-caused way, encouraged to take on one and then two or more houses.
Then legislated into the ground.
Now terrified their houses will be requisitioned by Labour.
Socialist legislation destroys the rental marketā¦how could it not?
September 4, 2023
Indeed and it not just harms landlords it harms tenants too by pushing up rents and decreasing supply and choice for them. Destroys job mobility and damages the economy hugely too.
September 4, 2023
The tories, the party of less regulation and less tax ….NOT
September 5, 2023
glen, you’re going to be sorry when the real regulators and tax-happy people take over!
September 5, 2023
Regulation: Then over regulation or perhaps insufficient regulation has perhaps brought about the situation and stats reported from the 2021 census recently just as one city’s example, show that overcrowding in Nottingham is a problem. 7535 homes judged as overcrowded. 3860 households with dependent children suffering from a lack of space in Nottingham. One particular section of the community were reportedly 5 times as likely to be overcrowded. London though had a far higher rate of overcrowded housing than any other region in England & Wales. The campaign group mentioned, cited slow housebuilding & sky high rents.
Not failing to mention too our miserly Welfare system !!
September 7, 2023
How much does the UK spend on Welfare in Nottingham or the UK each year, Diane that you define as ‘miserly’. Personally, I believe our welfare system is very generous.
People need to start to remember what life was like in the UK in the 1970s before we unleased a pro-enterprise growth economy. We should look how much welfare people get in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania and perhaps we can see why those people still have a work ethic and our new generation just want to play and get someone else to pay.
September 4, 2023
How many reservoirs built in 14 years to cope with the ten million extra people your party imported against promises to the opposite? You cannot build that many houses to keep up with your partyās mass immigration. Same for waste, same for energy, same for food, same for congestion, same for hospitals, same for schools etc. JR, what is your party thinking? Just lie and blame everyone else?
People should own as many houses as they like or can afford. What business is it of Govt.?
September 4, 2023
Reduce taxes and halve the size of the very largely parasitic and unproductive state sector.
September 5, 2023
How can they reduce taxes when:
Immigrants need supporting,
Schools need rebuilding.
Hospitals need rebuilding and more staff hiring.
Public sector workers want more bank holidays, 4 day weeks, unsupportable pensions supporting by taxpayers, and more pay.
Roads need filling,
Railways need improving,
and on and on
September 4, 2023
‘Landlords will be blocked from letting properties unless they upgrade them to meet net zero energy efficiency targets within five years. Ministers are poised to announce that landlords will have to spend thousands of pounds increasing the energy performance of their properties by 2028 ā or face a fine of up to Ā£30,000 28 Mar 2023’ Telegraph
September 4, 2023
There isn’t a shortage of accommodation.
There’s an over-supply of people – caused by 20 years of legal mass immigration, including the one million the Government waved in last year and the 100,000 criminal migrants they’ve shipped here in the past 3 years.
September 4, 2023
Donna:
There is no mention of the fact that the Government have been putting pressure on local Councils, to try to acquire social housing, to accommodate migrants coming in, thereby pushing those, who have been on the housing list for many years, further down the list.
This is not, I believe, widely known.
Apparently, over 800 came over the Channel yesterday, and over 700 on Saturday. The Government have entirely lost control, and are trying to hide the fact. Our own people come a very poor second. A disgraceful state of affairs that I never dreamt that I would see, especially under a Conservative government.
September 4, 2023
A bit of both in reality. Fewer people or more housing, schools, policing, roads… is the simple choice.
September 4, 2023
Sunak is now reducing the interview time for asylum seekers from 7 hours to 45 minutes. This is an amnesty in all but name and still, the boats come. For every asylum claim accepted how many family members follow under reunification? It will lose him the next election. This country is full and immigration needs to be drastically cut.
September 5, 2023
The Treacherous Tories deserve to be annihilated, not just lose the next election.
September 4, 2023
You are so right – this is the root cause of the housing shortage which will only get worse until we control the numbers of legal immigrants substantially. For instance If universities want large numbers of foreign students then they should make accommodation provision on campus for all students for the length of their course, This would eliminate one of the sores in university towns – roads of family houses turned into student accommodation.
September 4, 2023
Correct. Most of the legal immigrants head for the rental market: HMOs for the near half million students admitted last year, and most of the rest are young, in lowish wage employment with no basis to take on a mortgage: besides they start out without indefinite leave to remain. Many choose to share accommodation to lower their housing cost and increase their remittance savings. The housing crisis would be much worse if they didn’t do this. But eventually as they settle and establish family they add to demand for more housing.
September 5, 2023
+10000000
September 4, 2023
Good Morning
And the main reason for the shortage of homes?
The unobstructed passage of illegal immigrants across the English Channel!
Which the government has no intention of preventing
It could be prevented at the stroke of a pen but the WEF wouldnāt allow that, the whole purpose of voting Leave in the Referendum was to regain our sovereignty, a slap in the face for the 17.4 million voters
The largest ever democratic vote in the history of the country
Of course Cameron never thought that the vote would end up that way, and thatās precisely why we wonāt have a Referendum on et Zero
September 4, 2023
Indeed legal and illegal immigration out of control indeed not even an attempt to control it.
Sunak say he will not give a referendum on net zero as it is well supported by the public. If so he would clearly win the referendum so might as well give one. In reality he will not have a referendum as he know he would lose. This as no one wants to be forced to spend circa Ā£100K (that they do not have) on less efficient more inconvenience heat pumps and electric cars etc. Not that we have any spare low carbon electricity to drive them with anyway! Nor is man made CO2 a real climate emergency problem anyway.
September 4, 2023
More expensive to run and maintain too. Plus after about 8 years the EV will be written off as it will not be worth changing the now duff battery.
September 4, 2023
Both legal and illegal and used to suppress wages in the UK to benefit big business.
September 5, 2023
+100000
September 4, 2023
I remember the wrecking balls of ( I think) Harold Wilsonās āWhite heat of technologyā.
All those exquisite Georgian town centres reduced to rubble and replaced by brutal horror.
These last few governments have finished off the job.
Their wrecking ball has squashed the very fabric of this country to an evil pulp.
Why do I have to feel like this on a beautiful autumn day?
Never mind the eco-futureā¦what about our lives here and now?
September 4, 2023
Autumn? We’ve been having beautiful summer days as usual when the kids are about to return to school, that is those who feel school has something to offer them!
September 4, 2023
Indeed āNever mind the eco-futureā¦what about our lives here and now?ā
Nothing remotely āecoā about the pointless/counterproductive war on a little more plant, tree and crop food. CO2, water, sunlight, plants, trees and seaweed are the vital source of the O2 we and other lifeforms all need to live & breath. There is no manmade CO2 caused climate emergency it is a fraud.
September 4, 2023
Well the UK should encourage large reputable companies to enter the market and operate as landlords, as they do in other countries. Offer long term stable tenancies, where tenants have enough time to justify decorating, and be allowed to do so by the tenancy terms. Companies which will ensure prompt and efficient repairs, and a far better service to tenants. There are reasons the companies which do this successfully in other countries wont enter the market here:
1 Too much risk that the state will pull the rug from under the value of their properties. Much of the value of UK property is really in the catchment area, the quality of schools any particular postcode are allowed to attend, the quality of healthcare any particular postcode are allowed to attend. So, for a big company they can see they have no control over the state arbitrarily deciding to move their properties into less valuable catchment areas with no warning, no negotiation, no appeal mechanism, no real justice. Or the state causing the quality of the local schools to nosedive and in doing so crashing the value of their properties. It is the horrible way state services are allocated and run, schools & healthcare primarily, which causes such massive risks for potential landlords that they donāt enter the market.
2 Too much risk of unfair competition from the state. Social housing can appear randomly out of nowhere, extort properties out of other housebuilders as a condition of gaining planning permission, and offer well below economically viable rents. Social housing can move problem tenants into your area without notice, such as recently released prisoners, drugs users, illegal immigrants, and so on. So, the way social housing is allowed to operate is far too big a risk for a commercial large decent landlord to operate in the UK. Social housing can be given lots of hidden perks with large financial value, like shortcut planning process which significantly cuts their costs versus any potential commercial landlords.
3 Too much risk in the way the state manipulates the values of properties. The UK state has manipulated house prices massively, playing with interest rates, mortgage deals, flooding the market with new potential tenants, etc.
The UK private landlords are largely lots of small operators. That could be fine. But the UK market has never really operated properly, potential tenants have no real way of assessing the quality of a landlord before moving in, very few safeguards against landlords which donāt repair their property properly, or who act in strange ways like wanting to visit unpredictably. For the small operators many have made massive amounts of money over the decades, mainly due to the way the state has manipulated house prices ever higher, simply sitting on an asset class which the state has seen fit to inflate has luckily been a winner for many. Those large profits are often little to do with the quality of tenancy services they have offered. So, the market is broken. And in recent times the state has seen fit to penalise small landlords, with expensive to adhere to rules, ever changing tax rules, and so on, none of which has done anything to improve the service to tenants, and much of which has been too much hassle for many landlords to tolerate so they have moved out of the market.
A healthy market in small landlords could emerge, but its not there really at the moment. Its way too much of a risk for potential landlords and tenants. It is like the wild west out there.
We need a flexible labour market, and a percentage of workers are needed who are able to move address quickly and simply. Or are able to live away from home with the tax regime taking account of their issues (which it doesnāt in the UK). So we need a healthy rental market.
A lot of the issue is the way the political class has promoted home ownership. While allowing poor quality houses to be built, allowed poor quality planning departments and building control departments to be routine. All of these state inadequacies are a far larger part of the problem than people realise. Rubbish house builders can make lots of money in the UK, and have little fear of ever being brought to book. New build warranties underwritten by insurance companies are often a disgrace which donāt pay out when they should, and the FCA has been asleep at the wheel and done nothing to keep things working properly.
Many āsecond home ownersā are simply people with kids in school in one area, with an education they donāt want to disrupt by moving them, who are in a line of work which involves frequently working in different parts of the country. So they have a family home where the wife and kids live (and they do base themselves around), and they have a second smaller home in another part of the country where they work (and frequently buy and sell these as they move jobs, or sometimes just become a landlord themselves and rent a property out when they move onto their next job themselves). Again a lot of the problems are due to the state failing to deal with the reality than many people can not, and do not, work close to their nominal home address.
Other āsecond home ownersā are people who have inherited their parents house, and are invested emotionally in keeping that house in their home town, that their parents often physicaly worked hard to build or renovate. Often themselves living mainly in another part of the country. But often planning to retire back to their home town. I see no harm in this kind of stuff. And really the incentives for people to ādo the right thingā build and renovate houses to allow their children to inherit should be there, it does the right kinds of things for society.
What we need far less of is the poor quality state manipulation, regulation, enforcement, moving goalposts, this is mostly the cause of the problems and not the solution. If any of these things were done simply, efficiently, openly, predictablyā¦ then yes they would be useful. But the reality is that they cost the country a fortune but delivery very poor quality. These are big issues which should be looked at.
September 4, 2023
Good Morning,
Sorry, Off Topic. New Term, large issues to address. Sir J. what is the government doing about energy provision for the winter months? What are the storage capacities, in days, for gas, oil and electricity? Has storage capacity improved from last year? What was the split between gas and electricity for heating during the months October to March last season, and is it expected to change? Are we contracting for gas from the most reliable sources, ie from the North Sea? Has the National Grid made/got any Grid Level electricity storage capacity and what is planned?
I’m sure you can think of more. Who is the Energy secretary anyway?
September 4, 2023
The best and by far the cheapest “grid level energy storage system” is just a pile of coal or a reservoir of gas that can be burned as and when needed.
September 4, 2023
UK has nine days of gas storage, warns Centrica
This compares to Franceās 103 days and Germanyās 89 days
https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/10/31/uk-has-nine-days-of-gas-storage-warns-centrica/
Nb. Interconnectors as at 12:00hrs 15.2% ā¦the new norm, yesterday we relied upon Russia for energy, today we rely upon France (thatās why we canāt send the boats back)
September 5, 2023
Our gas storage can be added to with a flotilla of LNG ships awaiting discharge or en route. Such temporary storage is of course costly, but all forms of storage have significant costs when handling gas. Volumes lost to cushion storage – the lower pressure initial fill – and to energy for pumping during storage injection add to the capital cost of the facility for cavern or depleted field storage.
In practice most of the volume we need to handle higher winter demand has come direct from very big stores: North Sea fields – originally our own, but in recent years from Norway.
September 5, 2023
PW – OUR PUPPET GOVERNMENT HAS NOT A CLUE AND DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE.
September 4, 2023
It is very simple you need more homes or fewer people. Rental housing is vital for job mobility not everyone want to buy often jobs are short terms or seasonal often they only need or can afford a room in a shared house. Even many junior doctors can only afford a room on NHS salary levels. With stamp duty so high there is little point in buying for a short term anyway. This government has idiotically chosen to have a war against landlords which is also obviously also a war against tenants. They even charge an extra 3% VAT when buying to rent out.
In particular Osborneās double taxation of landlord interest is purecevil (once on the landlord then again at the bank means high taxes on profits that have not even been made) as does 28% CGT on gains without inflation indexation. Attacking landlords obviously attacks tenants. Nothing remotely Conservative (or rational) about these con-socialists. Now they want to lock landlords up in jail if the do not (or perhaps often cannot afford to ) meet insulation standards. Insulating older houses cost effectively and without causing damp issues is not easy and often it makes no economic sense.
Gove it seems in the Sunday times wants more taxation of Capital while Labour assure us they will not have wealth taxes. Gove also wanted VAT on private school fees he is clearly another deluded Con-Socialist.
As I have said before all taxes remove capital or prevent you building up capital. All the very many UK taxes combined can easily steal 90%+ of your capital off you in just circa 20 years. Especially the rip off 40% IHT over just Ā£325k but you return might be reduced from say 10% to 6% through income tax, CT, VAT, NI, IPTā¦taxation and that does not even keep up with the Sunak QE caused inflation currently. You have to work hard even to keep your money worth the same in real terms as when you started. Like swimming against a government caused steam going about as as fast or even faster than you can swim in the reverse direction.
September 4, 2023
Bear in mind also that folk can breeze in from abroad with cash earned but untaxed in this brutal way and compete the pants off UK based property buyers, who religiously paid income taxes etc up to 60 odd percent. Non-doms too. No UK income tax and CGT on earnings means they can pay cash.
Between them and poorer incomers who eat into lower end accommodation paid for again by our taxes, UK resident workers are caught in the sandwich.
September 4, 2023
We have a friend who, with a few friends, built all the massive warehouses at critical logistical points. Then sells to Amazon and the like.
He could do it because he and his friends live in Jersey and were not subject to CGT as non residents, so it had to be a sell not a let. Itās not that foreigners are more able than British people, itās that we canāt compete out of our taxed income.
Anyway this genius Government spotted the loophole and closed it – so donāt expect any more infrastructure, now even foreigners canāt afford to be active in the U.K.
Maybe those exempt from tax in the U.K., the Monarch and the COfE will fill the gap š¤£š
September 5, 2023
Are all religions exempt from tax? I didn’t know that.
September 4, 2023
Labour decided in 1997 to import from selected nations a different vision for Britain as part of their social and cultural restructuring agenda. Since then rents have been on the rise and show no sign of easing. The Tories response? More of the same though their reasons for endorsing Labour’s treachery are of driven by self-interest rather than a deep seated hatred of the UK
September 4, 2023
The Tory response was to go to war with landlords and tax them to death – thus causing many to quit & further restricting supply for tenants this pushing up rents even more.
September 4, 2023
+++
I do get that argumentā¦your good analysis.
But I never have understood why politicians are so happy to foul their own doorsteps.
I know that for a short while they are and will be elevated like Forsterās island of wealth idea.
But that just can not last much longerā¦not at the present rate of boats.
September 5, 2023
Well, it’s working Dom.
Todays headline “Royal wedding cellist would prefer ‘folk tunes’ over Rule, Britannia! at the Proms, Sheku Kanneh-Mason ‘doesn’t quite see’ why the patriotic anthem is so important to people”
We aren’t able to be proud patriotic Brits in our own country any more.
September 4, 2023
In the Teleegraph. āRISHI SUNAK is set to overturn the ban on building new onshore wind farms to stave off a rebellion from Tory MPs, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
Ministers are poised to unveil changes to planning rules that will free up councils to back proposed turbines where there is broad public support.ā
Well there will never be much broad support. Building housing would make far more sense. How many houses could have been build for the cost of HS2, the pointless net harm lockdown, the mad net zero lunacy, all the woke lunacy, test and trace and the net harm Covid vaccine programme? About 7 million three bed houses I estimate. It is all about priorities and this government gets them nearly all wrong nearly all of the time.
September 4, 2023
Put a different way – what did they get right?
September 4, 2023
Governments don’t build houses, construction firms do.
If the government ever gets into the construction business it would be a disaster. What happens when the property has been built?…
Do they rent it? So – council houses? Belonging to the local authority, or to central govt?
Do they sell it? To whom? At what price? Any undercutting would destroy the house market, which is much less desirable than the green-eyed would have us believe.
The discussion has always been about regulation. Reducing regs that disincentivise building, while adding regs that force timelimits on land use. I suspect neither is viable – when govt gets into skewing markets, it doesn’t end well.
P.S. I usually “post and go”, so I won’t be around to read any reply.
September 4, 2023
We don’t need more houses. We need less people.
September 4, 2023
+1
September 4, 2023
We are already in a major downturn of building, though I notice housing start figures were not released when due last month. In Q1 starts in England were down 12% compared with 2022 Q1. With house prices falling and new mortgages at much higher interest rates being unaffordable builders will cut back much further, only building where they were already largely committed. They will let options on building land expire before looking to reenter the market at much lower land prices.
September 4, 2023
āIf they sell to an owner occupier the property is no longer helping ease the rental marketā. This seems to infer you now regret the Right to Buy which your government championed in the 1980s.
Reply Of course not. Selling to the tenant helped as the capital paid to the public sector could be used to build another home to rent.
September 4, 2023
It seem to me (I meant).
September 4, 2023
‘Could be used’ but it wasn’t!
September 4, 2023
Reply to reply.
It was a mistake of Margaret Thatcher not to put the capital gained from selling council houses back into building more council houses. A good RTB scheme with a poor finish. Like the poll tax , good in concept but poorly thought through.
Reply Councils were to build more when they had repaid any outstanding debts
September 4, 2023
Reply to reply.
I think your memory is faulty. The problem was not letting councils use the money to replace council housing, but to lower their debt if they had any. Pure Tory dogma, that’s all it was and look where we are now.
September 4, 2023
I seem to remember quite a few councils getting in hot water, reinvesting that ācapital paidā in some offshore lunacy projects and dodgy banks ā¦.history repeating itself with councils using taxpayer funds to invest in renewable projects
September 4, 2023
I must remind Sir John, the councils were then banned from using that capital to build more rental properties
Reply Untrue
September 4, 2023
The problem for landlords will be finding buyers who can afford to buy given high mortgage costs and high interest rates thanks to BoE mismanagement. The numbers of housing transactions has fallen already. ONS report the provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of the number of UK residential transactions in July 2023 is 86,510, 16% lower than July 2022 and 1% higher than June 2023. With prices visibly falling, buyers have an incentive to hold off, while landlords adding to supply will only increase price pressure.
September 5, 2023
John, they didn’t rebuild though, our housing stock went from 7500 30 years ago to only 6100 now I wonder if there’s 20% less staff and managers to look after 20% less housing stock I bet there isn’t.
September 4, 2023
Also in the Telegraph āFeckless councils are ripping taxpayers off
Our bloated, unaccountable public sector has a total disregard for the money it wastes and misery it wreaksā
Isabel Oakeshott
Not just councils but government in general through taxes and vast over regulation and much time wasting of valuable peopleās time too.
September 4, 2023
LL,
Local government spends in excess of Ā£14 billion on employee pensions. Why, most people have to make their own pension provision. It is the self funding pension providers who pay for the LGPS via their rate bill, scandalous.
September 4, 2023
Every day the Telegraph runs stories intended to distract your attention from 13 years of Conservative failures. You donāt have to fall for it, Lifelogic
September 5, 2023
No, Emma, there are success stories: successful business people, investors and growth providers. Tories must remind people to look at their own families’ progress. Their own situation. Have their wages risen in line with the NMW? Are their children progressing educationally and socially compared to them (often leaving school at 16 straight into apprenticeships and YTS programs?)
Did they pay their mortgage off? Are they now living rent-free because of their hard work, sacrifices to buy and endeavouring to pay that down even through times of 14 and 17% mortgage rates and poorly performing endowment mortgages? Have they improved their homes? Are they enjoying a foreign holiday or weekends away and a holiday in the UK? Are they eating well? I live in a poor area I see the shopping baskets, the nail salons, the busy hairdressers, the booming local takeaways, and the busy booze shops, but not everyone and everything has failed. All this down talk and negativity relentlessly pushed by our press is bad for people’s mental health and stability.
Not everyone has come into this Country with nothing and expects long-standing British families who have progressed through the ranks from the bottom of the working class rung to pay for their keep we had to earn our own progress. We haven’t all made bad decisions on spending, debt and who to have a family with (having Dads absent on our child’s birth certificate and expecting everyone else to pay for their entire life without wanting to do a stitch to contribute even when the kids are at school).
This government is going wrong to expect these self-starters, the motivated people to pay a lot more to pay for all this current largesse.
September 4, 2023
a big problem which should be looked at is the way the UK housing system traps people in one housing location when the local dominant employer shuts. when mines, shipyards, steelworks etc have shut the normal course of events would be for many people to move address to closer to where the current and evolving jobs market is. the rental price of housing near the large closed employers would collapse, allowing people to live there for far less, and incentivising new employers to move there to use workers who can afford to work for less as the housing is cheaper… these virtuous cycles would fix things themselves. and yes often some areas houses would be left deserted as people move away when there are no jobs in that area. instead we have people kept trapped in social housing next to long closed mines, shipyards, steelworks etc… the social housing providers keep their rents high funded by the benefits system, and there are no virtuous cycles to fix anything. so the state itself creates sink estates, and allows new generations to be brought up there. this would be so easy to fix, but its not due to the failures of the political process.
September 4, 2023
The same goes for homeowners. HMRC only allows Ā£8k of moving expenses if a person needs to move for a new job and a promotion. If you include the costs of moving furniture, temporary accommodation whilst selling your house, agent fees and stamp duty, this amount is woefully short.
Before they introduced the tax, firms used to pay staff relocation packages. It stopped after its introduction.
The result is a less mobile workforce and a weaker economy.
September 4, 2023
These problems are going to be made much worse by the requirement for new lettings to be in properties that meet EPC C. There are many rental properties that cannot be upgraded at sensible cost, so they become unlettable, narrowing the market. At the same time it will be very hard to sell these properties. The government is engineering a major homelessness crisis unless it U turns. When it applies to existing tenancies as well the crisis will be extreme, with mass evictions from non compliant homes and nowhere to go.
September 5, 2023
Yes, Iain, and they should also look at the worst performing areas like Hartlepool and Blackpool and consider siting the large government employment sites there. Are there suitable locations for prisons with a tram link to the nearest railway station?
If they are holiday destinations only open March to October, then how can those people get work in November to February, are there peak cover in other industries, services that could be done by homeworkers in Blackpool? Could old people bed blocking in hospitals be sent to these B&B owners November to February to recuperate and free up beds so operations can be done?
September 4, 2023
if only we had a government that could address such problems! Crazy idea, I know
September 4, 2023
You haven’t mentioned the real problem, it is that in UK NIMBYs object to any and all infrastructure projects including new housing and frequently get their way. That includes every single MP who will object to every single development in their constituency to appease the locals. It is a particular problem with Conservative MPs who have a policy of almost unlimited immigration (700,000 in a year) but who then object to any plan to build more houses. The issue of second homes is trivial compared to this.
September 4, 2023
Goodness!
I wish I lived in such an area!
This constituency, nominally conservative ( I guess we DO still have someone calling themselves our MP?) is a rip down and concrete overer. Not to mention ship āem in and stack āem up high.
Horrible place.
September 5, 2023
I wish I lived in a protected area like that, mine seems to be getting all the new high density homes, everywhere in every ward.
September 4, 2023
I own two homes because I work from two places. I have been thinking about renting one home to a person I know whose relative is selling her home which they currently rent but it will depend on what the government brings in in terms of conditions under which landlords (of which I will become if I choose to rent out) will have to fulfil. Second home owners in the main add to the community by paying 100% council tax, shopping in the area (I buy more in my second home area than I do in my urban one as the food is better quality from farms). They also participate in community events and use restaurants/coffee bars probably more than the ordinary inhabitants. I remember Wales in my childhood when we used to visit the seaside from our Midlands home and what a mess it was. No one did the gardens and the houses needed painting. Then people from outside areas bought into the derelict cottages which the ordinary Welsh did not want as they wanted all the mod cons, more so now I believe. Outside people spent a lot of money for them to enjoy the area in holiday time and to rent out to others, like us, to make the property pay for keeping it in pristine order. You should stop always thinking of the small number of wealthy who buy into property and think of the less well off who have saved hard all their lives (not like a good number of people in this country now) and use that accumulated wealth to buy into their own country and not spend it in other countries. Reward those who invest in their own country and stop letting envy and nastiness from those who should be working hard to do the same get in the way. I bet a lot of those who criticise take their holidays abroad every year. I don’t. I spend my money and time in my own lovely country.
September 4, 2023
Good morning.
I traveled into London yesterday for work related purposes. This was the first time in 30 years I have had to work in London on a weekend.
Back in the late 80’s early 90’s one could stand in the middle of the road around Borough and the London Bridge area (including on the bridge itself) and not be bothered by cars, bikes and even people. It was back then, a ghost town. Yesterday it felt like a weekday and was suffering packed.
What this country will be like in say another 30 years God only knows, but I bet it won’t be an inprovement.
September 4, 2023
There’s a need for a sensible mix of housing – especially in those areas plagued by second-home owners. (Fowey is in the news today.) The mix needs to include some council houses – 20%? – and it makes sense that those tenants should NOT be allowed to destroy the mix by having an unrestricted ‘right to buy’ (RTB). And it also follows that once the tenants reach retirement-age they should have to move into something smaller.
Elsewhere, I’m more in favour of RTB as long as the properties are sold at market-value. RTB shouldn’t be at the expense of the council tax-payer.
September 5, 2023
No, not retirement age, at the age when their kids leave home, people are young enough to take a move then (as private home-owners do if they can’t afford to stay in family homes any longer or want to save money), and their kids aren’t contributing to the bigger house if the State picks up the tab for the rent.
September 4, 2023
“Where ever rent controls and strict regulation have been tried the supply of rented accommodation has fallen and things have got worse for tenants.”
That says it all, really. I was toying with the idea of splitting my home into two (it’s bigger than I currently need) and renting part out. I’ve been put off by all the new regulations coming in, which the Labour Party will only make worse. The insulation costs…gas heating changes…inability to easily get my property back if I need more space in the future, or renting becomes uneconomic.
So then I thought I might Airbnb part of my house. I keep control and get some money to help pay for the upkeep. But now the Tories are planning to put restrictions on holiday letting.
Take a lodger, perhaps? Goodness knows what rights they’d be given before I was even aware of it. I think I’ll stay put and just have empty rooms.
September 5, 2023
You can have one lodger under the Government’s Rent a Room scheme and you won’t pay any tax on the income (although you’ll lose the 25% Council Tax discount if you’re claiming it). Info here:
https://www.gov.uk/rent-room-in-your-home/the-rent-a-room-scheme
September 4, 2023
Second home buyers should be prohibited from owning property in an area belt anywhere say five miles from the sea coast or scenic inland areas – If they have to buy in cities for work then they should buy only modest type property in the suburbs away from areas of activity.
For anyone not concerned about the amount of illegals crossing the channel just look at the news coming from Israel with the thousands of Eritreans rioting in the streets and think that this could not happen here – well think again. So now watch how the authorities there are going to deal with the situation and learn.
September 5, 2023
Would all those folks who claim their main home is 5 miles from the sea coast or scenic inland area also be prohibited from owning a home elsewhere? Its only fair.
September 4, 2023
Off topic, this is amusing:
https://www.aforceforgood.uk/single-post/3989-edinburgh
“3,989 at SNP Pro-EU March and Rally in Edinburgh”
“Pro-UK campaign group and think tank, A Force For Good (AFFG) has filmed and counted the SNP-endorsed march in Edinburgh on Saturday 2nd September 2023.”
“Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, the organiser of “Believe in Scotland”, stated from the stage, after the event, that “25,000 marched today”..
Good work by this unionist group.
September 4, 2023
This is a perfect demonstration of the law of unintended (but easily foreseen) consequences of government policy.
Make renting to tenants more risky and less profitable and landlords will leave the arena. Second homes, holiday rentals, Air BNB all offer better returns for the owner than long term rentals which need upkeep and give the tenant rights. Long term rental needs a rebalance on risk v reward sharpish.
The only way to make homes easier to buy is to make them more affordable. With foreign money flooding into our country and the need to house immigrants that is never going to happen so the attack on landlords is pointless.
September 4, 2023
We looked to move from our rented house this Summer. We were offered a very reasonable renewal rate by our landlord but wanted to move to a property which suited us better. Rentals on the market were snapped up in a few days and would have required us to pay up to Ā£650 a month more to rent for smaller space.
We were fortunate enough to be able to stay where we were but others would not have been so fortunate. Until more properties become available the price hikes and shortages will continue.
September 4, 2023
Of course SERCO are employed by the government to buy up rented accommodation to house the Replacement Population. New records for illegal immigration being set over the last few days but it is still (for now) a fraction of the numbers being ushered in legally. The UN target population for this country is 18 million.
September 4, 2023
Off message , but as someone who used to ‘Speak for England’ it might concern you as I see your suicidal colleges in the Conservative party are pushing to litter the English countryside with wind turbines. Having destroyed our ethnic identity and our cultural identity, they now seek to lay waste to the last remaining shred of identity we had….our once green and pleasant land …there will be no where left for us to escape to to recharge our batteries for the fight, for everything we hold dear to will have been destroyed, and that is probably the driving force behind it.
September 4, 2023
Taxation and the high cost of living is the problem!
This government has made basic living far too expensive in order to create more negative equity. It is said that more people than ever are in debt – now why would any government create such a situation?
We are being squeezed from every angle, economically, morally and mentally – we can only ask why our own government would turn on us in this way!
The answer to the lack of affordable homes for rent is simple – reduce the taxation and absurd legislation – allow the market to open up.
September 4, 2023
Repurpose empty offices and shops into apartments.
Still plenty of brownfield sites to be used, build up.
Net immigration of half a million a year places a massive demand on rental homes.
Stop the boats, raise the min wage for legal migration and stop fraudulent activity like sham marriages.
If governments don’t want private landlords then uplift councils to provide rental homes… of course one expects a Tory government to be private landlord friendly… not the current shower!
September 4, 2023
The housing market has changed so much in the last 75 years that solutions need to start with a clean sheet of paper.
1. Population due to immigration has exploded.
2. Big builders are reputed to be sitting on one million permissions, playing the market to maximise their profit.
3. Shortage of supply has led to higher prices. Prices therefore mortgage repayments as a percentage of income have increased astronomically.
4. Poor control of the economy means the mortgage payer suffers.
5. Planning regulation has led to unnecessary cost and shortage of permissions.
In 1-5 you will find many of the solutions through their correction. I also think the whole mortgage business is in need of a better plan that would make more purchase of housing possible. How about a hundred year fixed interest mortgage that only changes if and when you move house. A reversion to real building societies lacking the predatory nature of our banks would be a step in the right direction.
Last but not least the whole tax regime in the UK has to change and not just for home owners. You can only change it if you accept that government must stop spending it. Consocialism has had its day. Serial incompetence will hopefully see it off.
September 4, 2023
The government policy of taxing homes does not help affordability.
Stamp duty when you buy, inheritance tax when you die.
VAT when you improve, more stamp duty when you move.
Perhaps if there were not so many taxes on purchase and improvement, and the residential family home was excluded from the inheritance tax, then families may be able to cope with the expense a little better, as the so called family wealth would cascade downwards (where did I hear that before) helping families rather than going into the governments coffers.
What you need is the opportunity of flexibility so that people can move about, relocate, down size, etc without the added expense of paying for the privilege in extra tax, which deters those thoughts.
Whilst most people understand you cannot get blood out of a stone, the government think they can continually extract more and more money from housing.
September 4, 2023
The rental sector is not helped by a growing UK population.
It is all well and good the Government allowing many 100’s of thousands to come to the UK each year, however these people need somewhere to live, which places huge pressure on an already strained rental market.
It is also not helped when the likes of SERCO Court Landlords with promises of guaranteed rent payments and repairs in order to house illegal migrants.
The situation is an utter farce.
I do not see why we should continue to destroy the countryside and valuable farmland to build ever more properties, just because the Government is utterly incompetent at controlling migration numbers – both legal and illegal.
There would be adequate properties of the population was a few million less. There will never be enough properties if we continue to have an open door to migration.
September 4, 2023
The establishment is trying to get ahead of their target of a hundred million people living on the Island by 2100.
September 4, 2023
Gove in the FT “suggested money would have to be raised from those acting in a “rentier fashion” ā extracting income from assets, rather than working.”
What about all the HAs who act in a “rentier fashion” for the benefit of the rentier staff? Just who is your government expecting to “invest” in housing? Our HA has lost 1000 homes in the 30 years they took over the council housing at only Ā£7000 for each home; they got shops and land thrown in for free. All the money is spent on themselves and “charitable work” in the housing association community, which the government tops up from the UK shared prosperity fund, investments are only around Ā£275k pa out of a turnover of around Ā£34 million.
Why weren’t they forced to reinvest in new builds and fix up dilapidated stock instead of leaving it in ruins over shops for 30 years? Why have they been allowed to turn bungalows that could be used for disabled residents into teaching rooms rather than those teaching rooms being in the empty shop stock or above those shops? They’d be done up sharpish if they had to live or work near those sites.
I’ve never rented out properties even though I could have done. I can’t entirely agree with buying up the cheapest, lowest housing rung, which stops our children from investing in their own properties, but your government encouraged it John; politicians smash and grab from private pension savers (whilst protecting your own), Ā£100,000 pension pot was buying private sector workers an annual salary of Ā£4k to Ā£4.5k for years when people could purchase homes under 2% rates, so people chose to use their pots to buy homes to get a better return. Now Gove et al. and the whole labour party want to smash and grab off them. Why don’t you look at your pension protections and the actual size of the pots you have to get Ā£40k per annum and more?
September 4, 2023
Starmer āNo. We will do nothing to increase the burden on working people, whether it comes to tax or anything else.ā source Mirror
Your renters should think about getting out, they’re going to be gunning for you. Pensioners don’t “work” either and we all know Labour think you’re loaded.
September 4, 2023
You make it sound so clear, when it is the NIMBY’s that are at the centre of the problem!
So, stop talking about it, and start building houses (New Towns), including Social Housing for those being left behind from the de-industrialisation of the 80’s!
Stop allowing Pensioners putting any of their capital into ‘Portfolios’ or even one house, if they are not going to live in it!
All Capital needs to going into Productive Capacity, and stop the lairs telling Pensioners, renting houses generates wealth! It does not, a house is just a store of wealth, and the rent, is unearned Income!
FACT! Ask Adam Smith!
All Income, or Gain, from Renting should have an Income Tax or/and Capital Gains (80%..90%) on it, and not on Investment in Productive Capacity (No tax)!
Devolution can’t work because it is allowing Nationalist to separate, and block, the development of Regional Integration along the Industrial corridors!
Taxing of second homes (how can they be Homes, if they don’t live there, full time) will be needed, to relief the pressure on Regional housing! The answer is to build Houses where the are many Second homes! (Not going to be allowed because of Devolution)! The Tax used would be a Capital Gains Tax, but nationally on all Second houses or renter!
The longer you NIMBY’s delay it, the long the new Taxes will last!
You should have started building new Towns, a long time ago!
The Truth; We have far too much wealth held by too few, because of this!
It’s Our Economy, and it needs to be run to give Opportunity to all, not just the selfish few!
September 4, 2023
Shortage of accomodation and the high cost of housing coupled with over population does not add up or make sense ; as a result mayhem exists . A single person I know has 3 properties ; she visits one of them once a year for 10 days , lets her daughter live in another rent free and has just moved in to her new home shortly after selling the very large house and property she resided in a few miles away . There must be other situations like this elsewhere all of which highlights some of the problems Sir John refers to . Illegal migration is another tip of the iceberg as is congested roads and pollution . For goodness sakes !!! !!.
September 4, 2023
Make people unwelcome, they leave. Landlords are.
September 4, 2023
I guess the message you are putting out John is, the government always makes the situation worse when they interfere in areas they should keep out of. The areas they should stay out of are all those involving commerce and free trade.
It is only state interference that causes any issue with free trade. It is always ‘free trade’ until state rules decide to make it no longer free.
September 4, 2023
Removing the ability of private landlords to offset mortgage interest against tax is yet another example of governments interfering in markets – and ruining them.
There’s a suspicion that they are trying to bring down house prices by pushing landlords to sell up, with the resulting tsunami of property-for-sale dampening prices, but they fail (as ever) to see that any such effect would at best be temporary.
There’s a supply-demand aspect in play where there are too many people chasing too little accommodation and infrastructure, so sooner rather than later that dynamic will re-assert itself and prices will align with those market forces.
All they are doing is forcing some unfortunate individuals to sell up at a loss – and losing votes for their party in the process.
I suspect many will simply incorporate their assets into a Ltd Co, since they haven’t legislated to fiddle with corporate taxation yet (and corporation tax won’t stay at 26% forever).
The solution to lack of housing is fewer people. The inaction of our feeble government has been noted and will be acted upon. Leave the ECHR, legislate.
September 4, 2023
There is no situation or problem that the Government cannot make worse!
September 4, 2023
Fewer private landlords are coming into the sector and more are selling up. This results in a reduction in rental properties at a time when the UK population is expanding with the resultant higher demand. Itās that simple. In many areas, investors can get a better return by putting their money in a savings account without the hassle of tenants. This government and the parasitic charities have a war against landlords. Itās always their fault if they have to raise rents to cover costs but nobody puts the blame where it should be which is on the banks, the government, and local councils.
The totally bonkers energy performance certificate (EPC) rules that Michael Gove wants to bring in will be another nail in the private rental market. Much of the older housing stock cannot get to a C rating without exorbitant expense. This nonsense wonāt stop with the rental market as there is already talk about expanding it to all home ownership so you canāt sell your house unless it meets their EPC rules. All part of the āyou will own nothingā agenda I expect.
Politicians will be the death of our country.
September 4, 2023
Perhaps the Government will consider the plight of many British families and subsidise their full board stay in hotels until a permanent home can be found?
It’s working for the illegal immigrants so why can it not also apply to our own citizens? I believe we give away too much to too many foreigners, ignoring those British citizens who have to pay for it. Surely, that cannot be the right thing to do?
September 4, 2023
This will surely make life a whole lot worse for anybody with a home to live in, to rent or to aspire to:
The Energy Bill
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0340/220340.pdf
September 4, 2023
The obvious and most urgent thing to do is to drastically reduce immigration
September 4, 2023
My poor window cleaner is still unable to find a two bedroom flat. Thereās too many people looking for too few dwellings. His landlord is hanging on for a further two months, presumably because he canāt bear the thoughts of his tenants becoming homeless. But presumably with all the ridiculous rules and regulations that have prompted him to sell, he canāt hold off forever.
This socialist approach to running our country is so destructive. I know thatās the intention by some, to destroy our culture and economy, but itās still horrid to see.
September 4, 2023
The housing market has been and continues to be deliberately destroyed by the Conservative ( Destroyer of England ) party in government with the deliberate importation of hundreds of thousands of people. Vast numbers especially the illegal ones are intent on demanding change in our country for their benefit and are being helped.
This is not mentioned – all we get are what are in effect comments on irrelevancies as all are in one form or another reactons to the big destruction of our society and would not occur much if we did not have millions of importations.
September 4, 2023
Another issue with rental property availablity is that many houses and flats have been turned into holiday let’s. So many hotels are full of immigrants who arrived across the channel that there is a shortage of holiday accommodation for locals, so many houses are being taken off the residential home sector and turned into holiday let’s. It’s lucrative and far less risk for the landlord as damage is easily insured against, and tenants never acquire any rights whatsoever.
September 4, 2023
There is a private development near me on a nine acre brownfield site consisting of 564 build-to-rent homes, 260 care community homes with public gardens and a main road to a large public square with office accommodation, workspaces, shops and cafes. In other words not piecemeal buy-to-let flats from converted private houses; a for profit organisation adding to the availability of housing instead of bidding up the price of properties beyond what would-be purchasers can afford in order to rent to them.
September 4, 2023
Perhaps the Government will consider the plight of many British families and subsidise their full board stay in hotels until a permanent home can be found? It is done for others in the country.
September 4, 2023
Today my petrol station has put up the price of E10 petrol by another 2p to Ā£1.50p per litre (thatās Ā£6.82 per gallon) ā¦.its rising every fortnight, why isnāt the cabinet resigning
September 4, 2023
While second or holiday homes are very important factors in areas like Devon and Cornwall or parts of Wales, they are not a widespread cause of shortage. London has a different problem with foreign investors buying relatively upmarket property as an investment, kept as a bolt hole if they have to flee where they live. It seems this even extends to large riverside homes in Sonning. Since our hotels are being repurposed perhaps more second homes will be used more for holidays via airbnb.
September 4, 2023
Increasing and often expensive regulations upon landlords and other legislation, especially the notion of abolishing section 21 (the so-called ‘no fault eviction’ but mostly the quickest and least expensive way of evicting non-paying tenants in serious rent arrears) is causing small landlords and especially ‘fill-in landlords’ not to rent out. It needs to be understood that for most small landlords the one or two rental properties they own are too big a proportion of their wealth to risk if they cannot repossess and reclaim it easily – so they will not risk renting. By ‘fill-in landlords’ (my new term) I mean those homeowners who are working elsewhere for several years or even months and those who have bought their intended retirement home early and those who are waiting for the market to improve to sell their surplus home. That is a very significant minority of the rental market that either can no longer (think minimum epc E or EICRs needing electrical rewires to rent) rent or is no longer renting due to recent governmental actions. That is exacerbated because while other prices are inflating, home values are deflating. So very many buyers and investors are thinking why buy now when properties will be significantly cheaper if I wait a year? In the meantime homes that were rented are now occupied by neither owner occupiers nor renters!
Suella Braverman has proposed the suspension of regulations for two years for those housing asylum seekers. It would help get homes occupied if that applied to all short term landlords. Better still would be permanently exempting all small landlords (renting no more than two properties) from all landlord legislation.
September 4, 2023
The Tories have selected Nigel Gardner as the candidate for the new constituency of Harpenden & Berkhamsted.
Nigel Gardner must have forgotten to mention his Labour past ā he was the Labour candidate for Tory Suffolk Coastal 2001 & Lichfield in 2005, and Brussels in 2004 and 2009
Just another leap to the left
September 4, 2023
āWhere ever rent controls and strict regulation have been tried the supply of rented accommodation has fallen and things have got worse for tenants.ā
Anything that interferes with flexibility within the rental market is to the detriment of both Tenants and Landlords as a whole, and I might suggest that recent interference is proving that point painfully, certainly in the short term.
September 5, 2023
The way many here go on, one could be forgiven for thinking that you regard being a landlord as some sort of noble public service. But it isnāt. Landlords are people whose sense of entitlement means they believe it is their right go buy a house – with a modest deposit – and have someone else pay them rent so they can pay the landlordās mortgage. Quite why landlords feel so special eludes me.
Many of the organisations exhorting people to ābuild your own property portfolioā back in the mad days of the late 1990s and early 2000s, suggested the ambition should be a portfolio of 50 properties. Famously a former teacher built a portfolio of 800 properties in Ashford, Kent. The logical conclusion of your inane support for this nonsense is that only 1 person in a 100 could own property and the rest would be forced t rent in perpetuity.
September 5, 2023
1) Would it be fair to say that good Tenants deserve security of tenure, bad Tenants, less so?
In real life letting, there is the whole gamut between the two extremes of good and bad experience. Sec 21 enabled Landlords the discretion to choose the level of behavioural acceptability versus reward, and reclaim property if necessary in order to protect their position (on account of, eg, rapidly deteriorating property fittings, antisocial behaviour, rent falling behind or not being paid at all.)
The Rentersā Reform Bill is attempting to address this, but RRB must be properly resourced and hit the ground running to avoid a period, however short, of Tenant and/or Landlord anarchy.
2) There appears to be little differentiation generally between short term lets (say a year or less) eg for students, work contracts, sale and purchase contracts, and longer term lets (say three years or more) eg for those wanting to settle for family, school, careers.
The needs differ. The former require a high degree of flexibility, the latter, much less so. Different letting types require different approaches, eg all inclusive fully furnished lettings or all exclusive, unfurnished. (Geoffrey Bergās comment above about āfill-inā landlords is very pertinent).
There are differing risks versus rewards.
It would be helpful if the politicians in both chambers could appreciate the difference in letting types and therefore the different management needs required by both Tenants and Landlords.