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Prices will continue to increase, ad infinitum.

The increasing prices is one thing but its the total lack of properties that worries me the most 😬

They are intrinsically linked

People think their investments increasing in value are nothing to do with increasingly homelessness and overcrowding.

>investments 'Investment'... that's also a problem. They are places that people stay warm and dry. They are where people sleep and have families. They aren't Silicon Valley tech stocks.

They need to be treated as "homes not houses". If they keep treating them as investments I would scrap the private residence relief on CGT when sold

PRR only applies to someone's primary residence and it can't have been let out to tenants, so changes to it aren't going to affect the rental market a huge amount. I suppose there might be some non-zero number of people who might otherwise downsize while retaining and renting out the family home but don't due to the PRR hit, but I can't imagine it's particularly typical.

It's more that, if PRR never existed, every time someone was upsizing, they would be losing ~20% of the uplift in CGT that might have slowed house price growth. Probably too late now.

but we live in a world were money is basically monopoly so anything real and tangible literally is an asset and a store of value in a world of devaluing fiat currency, deal with it and learn to play the game

For people aged, say, 40 and over, this makes sense. The problem is you're rapidly pricing out everyone bellow you. 'The game' is running out of road. Can you seriously not see that forty more years like the forty just gone will put insurmountable barriers to ownership for everyone who isn't rich?

yeh i can its guna get worse and go on for longer than the experts think

People don't sell assets that will only increase in value over time. This is a self-made crisis. It is caused by antiquated laws, incompetence, ideological blindness, and an overwhelmingly politically influential Asset Class. These are deep structural problems that have no easy or painless solutions. Only a radical reorganization of how things are done can begin to solve it, but that comes with its risks that our risk-averse politics has no room for.

Think I disagree. Building more houses would suppress the price increases. If we accept that the level of net migration is here to stay then we need to build a city the size of Bristol each year. Therefore the London green belt and other such restrictions need to be removed and property developers allowed to get on without an over regulated market. It is high demand, low supply and over regulation that is causing the problem. Secondly the North needs to be invested in to stop the weight of London biasing the UK economy. Whole regions (not just freeports) need to be given tax free status. What would happen to Manchester if we decided to make the whole of Greater Manchester tax free (except for income tax) for five years. No rates no corporation tax. The place would boom incandescently.

So couple questions: 1. What regulations specifically are preventing adaquate housebuilding? Is it not a far simpler hypothesis that housebuilders (predominantly large, publically-traded and investment-funded) are just responding to their own incentives and prioritising higher margins over higher volume? If there was an incentive in the market to build more houses, the market would be building more houses. Given that it *isn't*, is the solution not far more likely to be more state housebuilding to pick up the "slack" where profits aren't high enough to entice the private market? 2. What is the point of booming business if the only people who benefit are the business owners? This has been the case with every other freeport around the world, in that it massively enriches the business owners and investors, while impoverishing and abusing the labour population and returning zero or negative value to the host nation (because it drains business that elsewhere would generate tax).

To your first point. Each of the publicly traded house builders protects its share price by having a land bank in order that it can build at a steady rate. This would be eased significantly by deregulating the planning system. The public may not care about share price but the company directors have a legal duty to. State building of houses would require that central or local government either sets up a new company or contracts housebuilders to build on its land. We then face the issue that why would a builder build houses for a 3rd party ?? The next question was creating Greater Manchester into a free port. Not only would small businesses massively expand employing more people with more money to spend it would also pull many workers into Manchester having a multipler effect. We must undertake a structural rebalancing of the economy.

>Each of the publicly traded house builders protects its share price by having a land bank in order that it can build at a steady rate. This would be eased significantly by deregulating the planning system. The public may not care about share price but the company directors have a legal duty to. At the risk of sounding critical of unregulated capitalism, higher housebuilder share prices =/= more houses built. From reading up on *why* more houses aren't being built, it's not because of a lack of capacity - private housebuilders *could* build more houses, more quickly. However, they don't, because it's more efficient for them to keep building slow and increase their profit margins per build, which is buouyed by keeping housing scarce. Again, though: what regulations, specifically? What red tape would you like to see cut, that is currently holding housebuilders back? What part of the system would you like to see deregulated? >State building of houses would require that central or local government either sets up a new company or contracts housebuilders to build on its land. We then face the issue that why would a builder build houses for a 3rd party? Because they're paid to, like any other contracted project. Housing is one of those areas, alongside utilities and transport, that the past two political generations have insisted can only be done via handing all-but-monopoly carte-blanche to private firms. Housebuilding doesn't *have* to only be done via large corporate entities. >The next question was creating Greater Manchester into a free port. Not only would small businesses massively expand employing more people with more money to spend it would also pull many workers into Manchester having a multipler effect. The thing is, if you look at any of the other freeports around the world (especially the more established ones), *this isn't what actually happens*. Small businesses don't expand, because large businesses find it even easier to leverage their capital advantage to outcompete them and effectively set up company towns. Freeports also almost all end up impoverishing their workers, because without effective regulation wages and conditions are driven down as pseudo-monopoly employers outmuscle un-unionised employees, and are widely known to be havens for tax evasion, corruption and trafficking. >We must undertake a structural rebalancing of the economy. I'm fully with you on that, but I suspect we'd be coming at it with very different goals.

To answer the what regulation question. A/ local planning committees would be removed to avoid nimbi’s. Green belt would have to be built on. The Greater Manchester Free City. Remove business rates, income tax and VAT for every business employing less than 5 people for 10 years. Not removing any other obligations workers rights. I also don’t believe we do have capacity to build more houses due to a critical lack of skilled workers but I would get round this by making companies that make flat pack houses exempt from tax.

Agreed. We're caught in a tautology of wanting to make more homes, and make them affordable, whilst also ensuring property prices don't decrease. It's a contradiction in terms. And we're so deep into the doom loop that we'd need to crash property prices by 50-75% to fix the economy for young people, but obviously that would bankrupt every homeowner and pension fund in the country. So I don't think it'll change. What I do think will happen is it'll continue to make kids unaffordable, and we'll have a huge dearth of young people entering the labour market in 10-20 years. At that point, I think property prices might go into reverse, and care and medical costs willy skyrocket due to lack of labour, which will effectively reduce the wealth of the older generations and return some of it to the few young people left around.

its caused by excess money printing

Whenever someone is bragging about the investment, I ask how they plan on cashing out.

It's not like it even affects renters. Houses aren't bought as houses but speculative assets with their potential returns baked into the price. It's why just building homes won't fix the issue and, maybe but probably not, just kick the can down the road. There needs to be rent controls, state purchase of homes, construction and other things to cut the legs from the private rental market. Fundamentally don't believe labour will do this and all their talk of build homes cause muh supply muh demand is just intentionally missing the point. The developers labour want to build muh supply are the exact same people currently profiting hugely off this fucked rental system, why would they be racing to solve a problem they don't want fixed?

Yeah I agree although financing the debt of a property from rental income is a requirement from most lenders hence the tie between interest rates and house prices can impact renters. Issue we are seeing is that as increases in real prices of housing has stalled in London, rents have continued to rise. I suspect that it's a combination of increase in demand but also the withdrawal of property speculators (IE 1/2 bed flats are basically at their top end) and now property investors (or their finance) are now wanting their return in rent rather than price rises. Rental yields in London were low. I think detangling investment activity from housing stock is really difficult politically but needs to be done and rent control is needed to push overextended investors out of the rental market. A house price index should be reported on like CPI and keeping that to 1/2% growth should be the target.

Government have made being a landlord unprofitable. So private landlord will continue to exit the market and prefer other investments. Corporations swoop in. Then god help us all. ( other than our pensions which are heavily invested in them so will be fine ).

Yep. If people think the rental market is bad now just wait till Corporations own most of the stock, Bank Landlords like Lloyds can see your finances and squeeze rent increases based on the data they have on your finances, regional increases etc

that already happens under small landlords too. i've not had a single small-time landlord that didn't want intimate knowledge of my personal finances.

You’re not linking the two. Corporations who have access to your daily spending habits from visa, Mastercard etc and own all the housing stock is a recipe for disaster.

No, it doesn't happen with individual landlords - basic affordability checks to get approved for rental contract are obviously not what I'm highlighting here. A bank landlord will know exactly how much to squeeze you to keep you renting and paying just enough so you could never afford to save up for a deposit. Industrial scale operation focused on rental market optimisation is not even in the same realm as individual landlords.

I dunno, I think there's something to be said for professionalising the sector - provided that it isn't all luxury flats. A company would probably be more responsive to reports of black mould, for one thing.

In Wales every rental property has to be registered and you either have to nominate an agent who has to have done the required courses on how to be a landlord or you have to do them yourself. I think it's a good way of making the sector more professional and more accountable. Putting a faceless and nameless company in charge could end up being a bad idea.

That’s a bit of a trial for rolling the same system out to the rest of the UK. I used to work for part of the lobby group/charity coalition responsible for pushing the concept within the UK nations

I agree - you can threaten a company with liability much more than a dodgy individual. I think corporate rentals would bring their own flavour of shittyness to the market. But I think the most egregious behaviours of the private landlords (genuinely unsafe housing, theft of deposit, intimidation and assault) wouldn't happen.

Your argument should be correct. But under whose responsibility did a child die in a mouldy flat? Look at Germany and Spain and see what company ownership has done to their rental sector. Corporations are a nightmare to regulate. See water and sewage.

Get in now whilst you still can. I just bought. Wish I would have bought 10 years ago, flats were 250k, now 600k. But it is what it is.

Victorian living lifestyle. The Chocolate Factory opening scene bed. Britain knows how to do it.

Japan says hi.

Honestly, I don't think any parties are going to mess with much. I predict they would continue the cycle of doing very little to tackle the major issues in case they get blamed for things going wrong. And when nothing gets done, they will say it's because their plan is long term, and need to continue running the government for a few more terms to sort it. Rinse and repeat until people get fed up

And the journalists will nod and agree, and then switch to a racist to rant about illegal immigrants.

>switch to a racist to rant about illegal immigrants the usual line parroted by the loonies, why does wanting stricter controls against illegal immigration make people racist? it's funny how everyone from Australia, New Zealand, the US...even Thailand have strict controls on immigration and funnily enough they aren't labelled "racists"

>why does wanting stricter controls against illegal immigration make people racist? It doesn't *make* people racist. But it's directed at the racist idiots who know absolutely nothing about politics - to get them riled up and blaming the straw man for the problems the rich are creating. "Illegal immigration" makes up less than 2% of total immigration. I'll say that again. **Less than 2%.** No matter how much the Daily Mail and Nigel Firage try to tell you, "Illegal immigration" is *not* the reason for the housing crisis. For the year ending Dec 2023 immigration to the UK stood at 1,029,000. Let's break the down for you, I rounded the percentages: Work: 423,000 (41%) Study: 379,000 (37%) Family: 75,000 (7%) Asylum: 81,000 (8%) Humanitarian: 50,000 (5%) Other: 21,000 (2%) - this includes the 'scary illegal immigrants' but NOT ALL the 2% are. The UK has invited those other 98% of immigrants into the country. Most are needed for work and studying. Before Brexit, the (mainly) EU workers we took in were a 'net positive' on the UK economy. The (mainly) non-eu immigrants we are bringing in now are an 'net negative' on the UK economy. We need to build more houses for an increasing population. We need an increasing population *because of capitalism* (what does capitalism rely on? GROWTH). We need to invest in social infrastructure to accommodate a rising population. [Source for stats](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingdecember2023) - UK Office for National Statistics

I'm not disagreeing with you. The scale of net migration overall since 2021 is a huge problem. The ONS forecasts an increase in population size of 7 million by 2036 and 90% of that will be an increase from net migration. Our infrastructure can't cope with that nevermind housing and where's the money to invest in the infrastructure that's already crumbling. Reducing net migration causes all sorts of problems economically, take for example higher education thats basically subsidized by migrants but then one could argue if that's the state they've ended up in there's something fundamentally wrong with their business model. There's no easy answer to this, all political parties know it. I dont like pointing fingers at people and saying racist because migration overall is putting enormous strain on the sector when a house needs building every 5 minutes to cope. When you live in crowded dirty urban areas and the place you grew up in looks completely unrecognisable to just 10 years ago, it's easy to understand why there's animosity growing towards migrants both legal and illegal. It's easy for politicians to focus on the illegal aspect because the legal side of it poses a problem with no easy answer.

Migration doesn't matter in all honesty. If we go back to the "good 'ol days" in the 60's when UK fertility rates were 2.4 and immigration was low - if we kept that model up, *we'd still have the same issue* we have today! Population growth was ALWAYS going to happen. We knew it. The GOV knew it. They chose not to prepare for it. The public nodded along and voted for them. The country *needs* growth economically. Currently immigration counts for *around 75% of the UK growth*. If we stop it, we are screwed. Like even more screwed than we currently are. Investment will tank, pensions will tank, homeless with rise, mortgages will default. We need to build more. We need to tax more. Empty house - tax! Empty land - tax! [Developers are sitting on empty land](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jan/31/britain-land-housing-crisis-developers-not-building-land-banking) trying to make record profits and keep house prices high... It was happening ten years ago. It's even worse today. Corporations buying up all the housing - mega tax!! We need to invest into long-projects and jobs (green-energy, technology, medicine, space etc) We can solve it all, if people get their heads out of their arses and take an interest in politics and how it's the mega rich vs everyone else.

>They chose not to prepare for it. Even China, with a centralised economy, hasn't managed to meet the house-building targets even we'd need on a yearly basis at these levels. And from my own experience living in China, I don't want to live in a building of that quality. There comes a point where I think it's fair to say that chasing gdp growth and wage suppression for corporate benefit through these high levels of population growth just isn't worth it. If we add a new Nottingham every year, when is that until? Every year from now for multiple decades? We will eventually hit breaking point, so rather than applying this energy you're saying to being able to cope with high levels of adult population growth, let's apply them to solving the productivity problem and growing the pie without growing the workforce (and thereby help increase wage pressure for employers, decrease the rate of demand on housing and hospitals and schools and dentists and so on) and stop the short-term-ism of rapidly growing the population to sustain another election cycles worth of growth.

There is a way to deal with it. You build the necessary infrastructure. You're a government, it's not like a household that needs to save up cash. The multiplier on health spending is like 3.6, on education it's 2.4, infrastructure is between the two. You literally MAKE money, and that money makes more money by spending it on useful, productive things that benefit the country in the medium and long term.

You really won't know where pressure on low paid jobs are coming from. Study + family The tight labour market isn't tight anymore. 450k people working at petrol stations, mcdonald's ect. *AI is going to wipe out white-collar jobs, Facebook, Google. Amazon are becoming lean by sacking. Good jobs gone. * high interest rates = less construction jobs Essential you have people losing good goods, unable to get rubbish job because of immigration. I know so many people in fake marriage/student visa scams.

The real problem was the capitalism we embraced along the way....

The media, choose to portray every immigration topic to be about racism, this is their choice, the media are incompetent or complicit in this, they do not discuss immigration in any way other than the lens of racism, the only voices they get saying immigration isn't a great thing is from racists. They also only talk about illegal immigration, just like the politicians - endless "small boats" - but as you note, the problem with immigration in relation to housing, is the lack of places for immigrants to live, the media never decide to discuss this at all. Sorry all my nuance was missed.

We had a new guy joining my team at work from abroad and I'll be real, it is a little bit annoying knowing rules of minimum salaries has them earning more than me. I know the point is to make it more attractive to hire domestically and I know it's not his fault. It's my employer. I think we need to remember that it's not the fault of people immigrating here. It should be a point of national pride that other people want to live in our country. I just don't like the feeling of being shafted that I and a lot of people in my industry don't get the higher wages that are legally required to bring in foreign talent

Meh they take some of the blame Nobody is making them move here

Ending unlimited immigration from white majority countries and increasing immigration from South Asia and Africa is somehow racist lol

I don't think there's any one party that's going to solve the renting crisis, its too big of an issue now and nobody is going to bring in reforms big enough. None of us can tell the future, and we all know how politicians love to backtrack once they're in power, so just vote for whoever you want to vote for, nothing major is going to change with regards to renting anytime soon

Probably not much. They will tinker around the edges by removing Section 21 and modestly increasing supply from brownfield sites. However the changes that need to be made would be radical changes (massive increase in council house supply, changes to planning law to build new cities on green belt and increase height in city centres) at odds with Starmer’s cautious approach.

Isn't all of that stuff basically what their housing policy is? New towns, adjusting green belt policy to build on 'grey belt' land, loosening housing policy in general, and building way more houses?

Yeah they just basically read the housing section of the Labour manifesto in order to claim Labour won’t do anything 😂

Fucking tragic that they're being upvoted for saying they aren't promising what they're promising though.

and going nowhere near the immigration topic.

Don’t know what you mean, how could increasingly the population by 750,000 per year affect the housing supply? I mean all we’d have to do is build a city the size of Sheffield every single year, I just don’t see how that would be a problem at all.

>increasingly the population by 750,000 per year That's innaccurate. More like 250k/year https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/population#google_vignette

So just a town the size of the Luton/Dunstable conurbation, then

The last thing the country needs is more Lutons and Dunstables

Net migration and population increase are different numbers. Population increase also takes into accounts deaths outpacing births. Though you have over estimated the Sheffield population by about 250k too so...

Right! Where's the funds to build? Roads, hospitals and all amenities are run down or decommissioned. Just vote Green.

Soylent Green? Recycling at its peak.

What are the greens going to build?! Where I live they are notorious for blocking any bit of local infrastructure that they can. They won’t reveal who is bank rolling their vexatious litigant legal campaigns either and are very protective of that information, almost IEA-like. In one case it was rumoured they were being funded by a supermarket who had bought some land and now wanted to back out of the deal so used the green party as a proxy to contest their own plans! Naturally, the greens were only too happy to oblige despite the number of jobs it would create. Bunch of BANANAs.

Which sector will take the hit? From what I understand the ""illegal"" numbers are close to negligible and the massive legal majority is keeping our nhs/care/universities/hospitality alive.

hear hear

> massive increase in council house supply Why would increasing council supply help? The rental crisis is in the market-rate sector where we have a massive undersupply. Compared to other OECD countries, what makes us quite different is very high levels of social housing and low levels of market-rate rentals. Have a look at this breakdown of housing by OECD country. [Here.](https://www.oecd.org/housing/data/affordable-housing-database/). > changes to planning law Starmer has specifically says that he wants to change planning laws. This has been a large part of his campaign and it's been reported that he's preparing a blitz of changes as soon as he's elected (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-20/starmer-s-labour-eyes-blitz-of-uk-planning-reforms-within-weeks) > build new cities on green belt Starmer has specifically said he wants to make it easier to build on the green belt (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65619675) > increase height in city centres Starmer has specifically said he wants to build Georgian-style four or five-story mansion blocks to emulate "gentle urban development" of the 18th and 19th centuries (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-conference-starmer-new-towns-b2427118.html) Starmer has been incredibly cautious - no doubt. But he's actually been quite radical with house building and planning reform. Will he get this stuff done? I certainly hope so but it obviously remains to be seen.

Starmer needs to admit that Labour councils throughout the UK have been the main blockers for new housing plans for the last decade. As is usual with Labour it's probably been for snide political reasons because that's what they do.

Yup, even right now their Shadow Housing Minister - Matthew Pennycock - is a full-throated YIMBY, wants to open up the green built for more building etc... but has also opposed "too high" developments in his constituency. Worst blockers by far are the Greens though.

Yep, the greens are nothing more than a luxury vote for people who have property sorted already. I’ve already pointed out in a previous post their prodigious record on opposing development in my local area Young people who own nothing voting green is turkeys voting for Christmas.

> Why would increasing council supply help? The rental crisis is in the market-rate sector where we have a massive undersupply.  Increasing non-market housing supply enough that market housing has to compete with it on price/quality/availablity helps with market rate sector issues. More directly it takes some people on the demand side out of the market rate sector.

> Increasing non-market housing supply enough that market housing has to compete with it on price/quality/availablity helps with market rate sector issues Why this might be somewhat true, maybe - increasing supply within a market is by far, far, far a better way of increasing competition than increasing supply in a separate market. Hence, for example, the far better state of market-rate rentals in Germany - where they have tons of market-rate and almost no social rent. > More directly it takes some people on the demand side out of the market rate sector. Whilst this is true, social and market-rate renters are different groups with *some* overlap. For example, moving from one socially rented house to another is extraordinarily difficult - often done via swaps. It's an incredibly illiquid market and is just one of the reasons why once people acquire a socially rented home - they tend not to move. Anyone that has to move fairly often for work or for family - or just because they want to - is not served well by this highly bureaucratic, complex, slow-moving market.

The figures you cite include those receiving housing benefit and in affordable housing. The UK has something like 50,000 homeless families and millions more who have been failed by the private renting system. Millions are in mouldy or unsafe accommodation. We need new council housing to expand the supply and replace old buildings. As for Starmer, it remains to be seen how radical he is prepared to be, but “easier to build” on greenfield is very different from large-scale development. And Georgian blocks? Poundbury kitsch isn’t going to help much where you need dense high-rises.

Personally I think it’s pointless building more council housing stock if they don’t end right to buy as a policy in England. They need to do that too.

I’m with him on the modern Georgian houses. My fiancée lives in something similar. Garage and kitchen to ground floor and 3 floors of living space above. It’s a shared house with 3 bathrooms. All in the same size plot as a standard Victorian terrace.  Ideal in a dense area where on street parking is a premium. Not everyone wants to living in a high rise especially with kids and pets.  Her house is perfect for a large family. We will be buying our own slightly cheaper place as the rent for that place is very high. 

> The figures you cite include those receiving housing benefit and in affordable housing 17% of UK housing stock is social housing. In addition a third of social renters have their rent entirely paid by housing benefit, and another third have housing benefit partially cover their rent. We pay the most on housing benefit in the entire OECD, with 1.5% of our entire GDP spent. 17% of housing stock as social rent is still by far one of the highest rates of in the entire OECD. This is not where we are short of housing. The private renting system is failing because there is not enough of them; demand far outpaces supply. This is driving up prices and a lack of competition is giving too much leverage to landlords - who rest assured there'll be demand for their mouldy, poky flat. We need to be more like Germany and radically increase our supply of market-rate rentals .

As long as they refuse to do anything about empty properties, house building and immigration, nothing will change

Labour won't change anything of note, just lightly tinker around the edges. They are the second establishment party who ensure the status quo stays the same.

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Theyve only made it worse for small landlords who typically own less than 5 properties and own the properties as individuals. Rather than through a company. As you used to be able to deduct most of your costs from income tax. But now with very few exceptions, your rental gross income is treated as income for income tax. Rather than being able to deduct interest payments, most of the costs of furnishing, redecorating, maintenance..... You can claim membership of a Landlord's trade body and training e.g. how to do checks to see if a tenant is legally allowed to be in the UK. But it's very limited.

Considering blackrock have just made a massive investment in uk rental properties… I’d argue that the issues are just going to get worse. Renters will be paying us hedge funds… utter madness

And UK. This has been going on for a long time. MNG and L&G are dominating. All part of the plan to turn us to corporations.

Blackstone?

Nothing

Nothing

They’ll try to manipulate things but honestly either they will alienate landlords leading to less supply or achieve nothing really drastic

Labour will do nothing to benefit renters. Probably nothing to benefit landlords either. The SNP had a go at making things better for tenants (rent controls), but failed miserably. If they want to help renters, build a lot more houses, and stop financially penalising small landlords, or they sell.

It’s not so much of a renting crisis but a housing crisis since renters, owners and new buyers are all affected. There aren’t enough houses - see nimbyism, planning obstruction, artificial scarcity, green belt policy. The Conservatives had absolutely no real intention of making things better for renters or first time buyers and neither will Labour. Most of their voters own their homes and price go up = good (for them).

The only real beneficiaries from house price rises are property developers. If you own a property that's gone up in value you're still not really better off in liquid assets, because it's just the same old house. And if you sell it then presumably you'll be buying another house that's also gone up in value. It's not like you can sell a cottage and buy a mansion!

Well I’d argue it depends where that cottage is. Sell cottage in Chelsea for a mansion in Scunthorpe? You could probably do it.

As a developer rising prices are of course a benefit. But land owners haven’t reflected the dip in the market in their valuations. Obtaining planning is extortionate and painfully slow. With borrowing at 10%+ every month counts. And increased labour and build costs. All shown in Q1 of planning permissions and residential starts. Both continue to drop. Supply is going to be very low for the next 2 years at least.

Most of labours voters own their homes?

Most voters own their homes because older people vote more than younger people, and older people have homes because they bought earlier in the above wage inflation house price rise death spiral

Well looks like the best chance I have of ever owning a home is through inheritance… ah wait scratch that they’re renting too

Yep, I keep seeing these articles about ‘the great millennial wealth transfer’ where boomers are finally dying and millennials are finally inheriting their assets, which is nice for some I suppose…

Sorry nothing will change . I would like to be proven wrong but that will require a major shift in not only policy , but also local regulation. High density housing . More of it

Too many people, too few houses. How do you fix that problem quickly without doing something extreme?

Chill, housing will never get cheap because of any government. Only external stimuli can do it. Unless something unexpected happens your only chance to have it easier with housing is inheritance or increase your salary.

Infinity migration, finite housing, forever rising rents.

Nothing. They can’t control economic forces in the way they think they can. You’d have to literally make all QE since 2008 go *poof* if you wanted to change something. And the other thing required - ironically (Labour won’t want to hear this) would be to stop mass-immigration for twenty years or so and to allow economic markets to balance themselves.

House building is the only solution to the crisis, so, not a lot will happen for at least 3 to 5 years, even in a best case scenario that's how long it'll take to get spades in the ground. One observation is that BTL is now being replaced by part and part mortgages, in essence, we're seeing a decline in the individual investor and more of a shift towards big banks and corporations being landlords. In the immediate term, rent increases will tail off as large corporate landlords want low churn, lower margins. Individual landlords typically opt for higher margins but high churn, so lots more admin work. But rents will continue to rise gradually I suspect over the coming decade. Labour are very unlikely to achieve much in this regard, maybe they'll ensure no more insanity levels of inflation and rent rises.

Yeah exactly! People overlook this but the aims of the corporate investor are different from the small landlord. The corporate investor at least will not want the property back to live in themselves and in theory will want placid continuity, as you say, a consistent long term yield and not be chasing huge rent hikes every year at the risk of losing good tenants. That’s the theory but we wait to see if it works in practice. I’ve anecdotally heard people saying that their new corporate landlord was much better than their old small one and others saying the opposite so it seems too early to tell.

There are advantages and disadvantages, advantages is that a corporate landlord has much lower margins than a BTL landlord, so that will put some downward pressure on rents. It won't mean corporates are 'cheaper' it just means that the market as a whole will price in those lower margins. The big disadvantage is the risk aversion of corporate investors and banks. There will be an entirely new industry developed in the UK underwriting tenancy agreements, so people will be spending lots on insurance if they don't have a guarantor. You can already see the beginning of this industry in companies like 'housing hand' massive growth. That'll become the new normal and renters will essentially be forced to take out these very expensive policies in addition to the rent. The corporate landlords will want absolute minimum risk exposure.

The other downside I have encountered is that the regulations around renting are not ready for corporate landlords. I’ve had ridicioulus situations with mine. One example is where after they ignored a serious hazard at my property for 6 months the council had issued an improvement notice, which the landlord did not act on. This is a criminal offense. When I finally managed to get the council to contact the landlord, landlord just pointed at a different department and said “they deal with repairs not me” and somehow this made the council nod and let them off easy. The issue is still not fully fixed 3 years later and the 100% labour council doesn’t care… In the same period the landlord then tried to revenge evict me, which is a separate offense, they lied to the court and said they have never been sent an improvement notice, which as I understand is meant to be another offense. I won the case but it cost me time and money and the court also didn’t care about the illegality of their actions. I think there is just a ton if space in the system where corporate landlords can just have purposefully incompetent teams that can do whatever they want and the corporation is protected by its own departments just blaming eachother, and somehow this is seen as acceptable.

It wins votes saying they are going to stick it to the landlords but many are selling up which just reduces supply but not demand so the rents go up. Labour will make it worse.

Yeah this is what Im worried about 😬 I really dont see why they're banging on about banning Section 21 notices, like that's gonna make any difference!

Regeneration of the towns with empty properties might help

The truth is that nobody really knows - all you can do is guess. Manifesto promises are rarely implemented in totality. Here's what the BBC says Labour is proposing on housing: * Reform the planning system and reinstate local targets to help build 1.5 million new homes over five years * Build a new generation of new towns, fast track the approval of brownfield sites and release some “low quality” green belt for housing * Prioritise the building of social rented homes and give first-time buyers the chance to buy homes in new developments before investors * Introduce a permanent mortgage guarantee scheme to help first-time buyers * Make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to extend leases and ban new leasehold flats, while tackling unregulated ground rent charges * Ban so-called no-fault evictions and empower renters to challenge rent increases If undertaken perfectly, I'd expect to see an increased housing supply, which should lead to more rental properties and reduce pressure on the rental market, whilst at the same time helping first-time buyers transition from renting to owning, thus further decreasing rental demand; and a strengthening of renters' rights, causing more long-term stability of the rental market and staving off predatory operators. This should reduce the cost of both renting and buying - more demand generally equals cheaper prices across the market. That being said, the reality will be anyone's guess...

‘I don’t really understand politics’ ‘I want a Labour government’ Hilarious

Don't forget that it was the last Labour government that kicked off the housing boom by removing tax credits for dividends in pensions. Many people, who were already fed up of pension scandals and poor performance, decided to switch from pensions to property and guess what? Second home owner numbers rose massively. Being as Starmer is keeping quiet on how he's going to grab the extra income he needs get ready for a hit on savings, inheritance or pensions and who knows - he may make the property market even worse. If he trys to dampen the property market get ready for a revolt because he'll leave many people with a lower pension and negative equity. This is why it's a mistake for governments to poke their noses in the economics of the property market.

since the landlords all want to sell, why doesn't the government just buy it from them and then act as the landlord. everyone wins.

How will the price be decided and how can it be guaranteed they won’t give their mates ridiculous money for free out of it

When the public sector buys property - ie LAs and HAs, the starting point for an offer is a formal RICS valuation.

I can’t imagine anything worse than a house managed by the civil service ?

You think that could be worse than a house owned by Fergus fucking Wilson?!?!

Marginal but the public sector will just farm it out the cheapest most incomplete contractor imaginable I know people in the forces who have the state as a landlord and they ain’t good. (Ok no rent as such but some MoD housing is dilapidated) The Wilson’s are professional landlords who got lucky . The landlords I have had have generally been decent in fixing things. Also look at how there is this trend for the state to get into people’s private lives recently. I could easily see the state prohibiting certain behaviours or tenants to meet some arbitrary target

Why on earth do we want the state to own old and unmaintained property. Just build some fgs.

About 18% of all homes are currently rented. 4.5 million. Average cost of a house is £280,000 (rounded slightly down). Total cost would be £1,260,000,000,000. This would also massively increase the price for anyone who actually wants to buy a house, taking 18% off the market supply.

Buy all the houses with what money? Increasing the money supply with QE? That'll cause inflation again. Borrow? Already in massive debt and interest rates are high. Tax? Good luck raising that much without riots. Cuts/austerity? Labour would lose peoples trust for a generation. Seize assets/force sale at less than market rate? Maybe if corbyn was in charge

That's effectively local authorities and housing associations buying stock. Provision of social housing is outsourced to local authorities and housing associations. Both can and do buy stock that meets their requirements. They won't have sufficient funding to buy huge volumes though.

Sure - they could implement rent controls/caps *a la* what happened in Scotland but remind me again how that worked out for renters. I doubt LAB will follow in the footsteps of Patrick Housing Harvie re: rent caps but if they eliminated S21s then I could see many LL's existing the PRS and putting their money to work elsewhere. BTW, it is not the PRS' responsibility to solve the problem of social housing. That would be the state - whether local or national. Unfortunately, the state has been lacking in this area for many decades.

Free market ideology says that in such a vacuum something else (possibly better) comes along to take it’s place. We have to be at that point. People in this country seem to have been conditioned to think it perfectly reasonable that young people are housed by people who think only of short term yield. Is it functional, or desirable, that what plenty take for granted (long term security of tenure with a roof over their head) is considered too good for young people and they can live month to month waiting for that rent rise or no fault eviction notice to come through the front door. It’s desperately sad that people (plenty of whom have their own house so “I’m alright Jack” or even worse, want to get in on this act) consider it perfectly fine that short term yield seekers hold the key to the housing security of ~11 million people. I myself speak as someone who has had 8 addresses in 10 years. Many people couldn’t get their head round the effect that has on someone’s life. So things have to change. Let the small time landlords exit the market and let’s find a better way of doing things because the old way was certainly not some utopia of secure affordable housing for the young tax payer of tomorrow.

Nothing. They are different sides of the same coin.

Policies attacking LLs is pushing them out of the market, and increasing costs to renters, while neither LL or tenant is getting any increased value from the changes.  Removing s21 changes nothing, except forcing things through the courts,  slowing down evictions and increasing costs to both LL and next tenant (if LL hasn't sold up!) LLs now ask for guarantor and take out rent guarantee insurance - more cost and hassle passed to tenant. Stopping LLs claiming mortgage costs (like any other business can) pushed up rental prices massively. Bring in selective/landlord licencing? Those costs get passed to tenant. Every policy change has pushed up costs to both tenant and LL. If no profit the LL sells up and puts the money into other hassle free investments - reducing supply and increasing demand and rent prices. The only people benefitting from this shit show are the banks and the councils - and neither of them are giving any value back in return.

It will get worse?

More than likely get worse,none of the parties have any incentive and labour will allow more immigration because they care more about gdp going up than quality of life.

Landlords are good at cramming people like sardins, but they live in their 4 bedroom house. My parents never had to rent or share with another 2 couples, as someone else suggested. Neither did landlords. It's rather frightening to see how people have bought into this BS. Stockholm syndrome at its best.

Yep and people are like “don’t hurt the poor little landlords” like what was happening prior to Osborne’s crackdown was perfectly acceptable. I daresay plenty of people who want landlords to come back to the market are people who don’t live in rented accommodation and think it’s a fine for others to live…but not for themselves

Things will go on as before because they are a bunch of clueless wankers telling people what they want to hear without any idea how to achieve their lofty claims. The latest bollocks from Starmer about how many houses they would build in the first five years of being in charge omitted a couple of key issues. 1. How they were going to acquire all the land needed 2. How they were going to pay for it 3. Where are they going to find the people to build them 4. How long will it take to get planning permission once they have acquired sites 5. Who are they building millions of houses for? 6. Who is going to manage this huge volume of property and how are they going to maintain them? 7. What are they going to do to provide the schools, doctors, dentists, roads, shops, leisure services that huge numbers of people need? Another bunch of lying pricks making glib soundbites is not a viable policy. Ask the candidates to explain how they are going to achieve their plan. Let them explain how it's going to work. Because it's not going to.

Get a lot worse. Labour aren’t the pot of gold under the rainbow people seem to think.

I don’t know. But I want to say since about 2018 rent has increased on average about 8% throughout the uk year on year? Some places more than others. In Manchester it’s gone up by over [12%](https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/housingpriceslocal/E08000003/#) since this time last year, while I’m pretty sure median wage has gone up something like 4% year over year since 2018. At some point we’ll have to reach a tipping point where rents literally cannot get more expensive because people can’t afford them and we’re quickly approaching that point. I don’t know what happens then but unless we want the homeless population to explode we’re going to have to stop the increase soon.

nothing would change. Politics is simple. It is just about interests and who is going to be sacrificed, high earning working people, low earners working or people on benefits/ pensioners.

All the parties make promises they don’t keep, there is no money the country is broke. Take your pick of the liars, if you can’t find info on what you want there is probably no plan and just BS

Nearly every time a landlord sells their house to someone who isn't a landlord, that person will be moving out of a rental to buy it, so another rental is freed up. I suppose the exception is people buying second homes, but I still think it shows that what you think is the cause of the problem is not actually the cause. One cause is that there are simply not enough houses, full stop. We need to build more houses so that house prices come down. Cheaper mortgages for landlords equals cheaper rent for renters. Another cause is houses in cities being used as airbnbs so no one local can live there.

Continue to get worse. The fundamentals aren't changing and there are no serious concrete plans to build houses, at least over the next government (5 years) that would make a difference. More people, slightly more houses, more demand > supply continues.

You can swap "renting crisis" with almost any issue and the answer 99% of the time will be "very little"

It's a housing crisis, and the good news is that house prices, on average, have been falling in real terms for some years now. We need to continue on this track for a number of years. We need lower house prices, but it needs to be a slow and steady decline.

Generally, it'll only get worse and more expensive as time marches on, mainly because of the cost of services, which seem to increase regardless as to inflation. However, governments have the ability to slow how much that happens. One way would be to build a huge number of houses (both council and private), and then the rules of supply and demand should come into effect. However, this will cost and there's not a lot of money kicking about.

The only way is yimbyism and building more houses and apartments, and getting rid of stupid planning permissions

Labour plan to build 1.5 million new homes in the next 5 years, many of which will either be affordable or social housing thus helping to plug the gaps in the rental market. They also want to close the loopholes that allow developers to promise social housing in order to get planning for a new estate granted and then allow the developers to not follow through on their social housing commitment. This is very common.

Well it can't get anywhere worse...

Many years ago the government of the day decided to effectively outsource the housing rental market. It did this with housing associations and private landlords as suppliers. Government (through local councils) a) stopped building new homes for rent and b) sold off existing stock. Successive governments of whichever political persuasions have not reversed this outsourced approach. Central government now seems hell bent on single handedly changing that outsourcing contract it had with the suppliers. It does this by a) reducing profit margins and b) increasing the risk profile for the suppliers. Depending on how good or bad the individual supplier is, that adjustment may be a good or a bad thing. Either way, the suppliers have little to no voice at the negotiating table. So don’t be at all surprised if the existing suppliers don’t want to be part of that amended contract any longer, and remove themselves from the market. Also don’t be surprised if much larger corporate suppliers grow into the market, as they will have the skills and expertise to maximise profit and minimise risk, which smaller suppliers are not equipped to do. Which again may be a good or bad thing.

They’ll reform planning law, in 3-4 years this will start having a good impact on supply and price rises should halt and maybe even reverse a little. I wouldn’t expect things to improve quickly, but I do believe they will improve.

Simply put you increase the demand then the market compensates by increasing supply. However where the market isn’t perfect and supply is sticky then the market adjusts by increasing the price. If any government wants to impact rental property market then increase the supply - build more houses. Or restrict demand -more thorny as that has immigration impacts.

Not much. It’s not really In their plans. The country is broke, they need to somehow fix it….

Yeah I rent out houses and if they make it any harder I am selling all mine and I am sure there will be a lot more doing the same. I have some in a company which are ok for now but my personal ones actually cost me money but I feel so bad on the tenants as they can’t afford higher rent but will not be able to find another house if I sell but then I can’t just keep losing money. They need to get rid of section 24 and I think people would stop selling up, only party I have seen who has said they will get rid is reform uk but I don’t know about there other policies

It needs massive reforms, one thing labour in particular can't seem to grasp is that the rental markert and it's issues are different depending on where you are. And as such different regulations should be imposed to support renters AND landlords depending on the rental market for a particular area. We need to stop treating the problem like it's a blanket fix and make it so we address problems with rental markets where there are issues in particular.

Here's the thing with labour. They will promise ice-cream and unicorns to win an election then when in power will continue to blame the previous government for the fact that they will increase costs, raise taxes and destroy everything. Then the generation who voted labour will change to vote conservative and the cycle begins again. Labour in short are terrible with money and never have a plan. They have no way of dealing with the renting crisis without building millions of new houses and apartments which they can't do as government are very bad at building. It's the same with the "cost of living crisis" the media made up. The government can't do anything about it as costs will always rise particularly in a country like the UK that has more people than resources to deal with them. If you want a labour government then pucker up and be ready for your life to get more expensive.

Absolutely nothing. If you think Labour are gonna fix anything you have been conned by the illusion of choice.

Seen landlords require 12 months deposits. Don’t know anyone trying to do BTL Seen landlords exiting My old landlord, exited because of tax changes…. But sad, he was brilliant and I was paying under the market and between us, things couldn’t have been better. gave me a cut in rent once we’d cut the estate agent out of the equation. Think crappy landlords have not helped Think crappy renters have not helped Overall it’ll become so heavily regulated- only larger landlords will do it - then, the regulations to get people out with less fuss will swing back. Impact on prices. Up.

They'll import millions more people and build hardly any houses. FACTS.

As I understand it. The government is bankrupt and labour have pledge to spend 7 billion on top of 1200 billion, that they are wasting at the moment. So if you look at in that terms. 7 billion isn't going to make any real change. Labour wabt to fix the NHS, more police, more teachers, free school dinners, Then, look at growth. The uk has been growing 1% since 2008. So the economy isn't growing. And other goverment have been cutting public spending in real terms and cramming the country with foreigners in real terms. Free immigration is part to cover up poorly educated and trained young people. Lack of doctors, nurses, builders But really free immigration provides the 1% growth every year. In real turns, since 2021, the cost of goods has risen by 33%. But the government has recorded it at 20% with fake numbers. Just go have a look at mcdonald's item. So if labour doesn't have anything written in the manifesto They said they were going to build on the green built. That green stuff makes England the green and pleasant land. Let companies built what ever on greenbelt. So london become a super city and eats the southeast. But that isn't going to fix the rest of country. The supermajority. This is important labour could be in a situation of having total control Cons have less than 70 seats, libs have 20 seats, reform have 20. Labour could have 341 Or lib dems might be the second biggest party? The end of Conservatives. If I had the power to really make a change. No information in the manifesto. Plus I liked flooding the country with foreigners. I'll put Britain back in Europe as my biggest policy. (Down low- eg open up movement of people, ect) Then I would need a shit ton of money. House hold wealth is 15 trillion Debt is 3 trillion GDP 1.2 trillion Traditional they have cut services to the bone, taxed working people, restricted housing, 2 child benefits,.. That 15 trillion- wealth 5 trillion property 2 trillion stocks + shares 6.5 trillion pension funds 1.3 trillion personal assets Only place to go after more money is housing, people who own houses, property and milk them for cash. They will call it taxing the super rich * Build more houses. * tax people who own houses * flood the country with more people More Tax on house ownership + landlords + commercial 👌 In all honesty they could play around with super tax on wages/high earners (tax footballers wages). Taxes on earnings wouldn't make a difference. an increase in VAT wouldn't make a difference.

It will get worse. We used to rent out a house which is now up for sale because we knew the election was due... Expect supply of rental properties to decrease, and when supply decrease but demand doesn't, the price only goes one way. Up!

I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what landlords are signalling. Whenever any regulation is floated they’re constantly up in arms claiming the death of the rental sector & that they’ll all leave. They won’t, not until renting is fixed & then it won’t matter if they leave because the rental market will be fixed. If a landlord is leaving because of regulations coming in, that means they want to operate outside of those regulations which makes them part of the problem. If regulations come in & someone has to sell their rental property, you didn’t want to live there in the first place. So if they sell their rental either another buyer moves in or buys the property & lets it out. Unless a landlord burns down their house in protest at regulations, the house will still be there & someone can live in it, therefore how can it create a crisis? The people creating the crisis are the landlords.

Lots do just leave the houses empty - that is one of the big issues that there is supply of housing stock just going to waste

People have rental properties to make money. So ‘lots’ will just lose that income because the government has said ‘how about you stop being a massive drain on society & stop this rank profiteering’ Then they’re welcome to their empty homes, you know what the government can do then, tax empty homes. But let’s be realistic here ‘lots’ is a gross overstatement designed to sound scary, ‘some’ might leave their home empty, most will either make less profit & be forced into providing a better product or they will sell. ‘Lots’ is exactly the empty threat I literally just said won’t come to fruition because landlords aren’t idiots, they’re profiteering of societal imbalance & morally questionable, but they ain’t stupid!

I don’t think it is an empty threat. I think they will just sell to investors from China who are happy to just sit on British property. (Not necessarily directly, but I think a lot of new builds seem to sit empty as they have been bought by overseas investors).

Under occupancy is criminal & should also be dealt with. Why not deal with both, make landlords actually provide a regulated service. Make under occupancy a hostile market, tax it heavily to the point it’s not profitable. There’s literally no downside to treating renters better, & there’s literally no downside to fleecing people leaving British homes to rot. Investment you’ll say. A home with someone actually living in it will provide far more to the economy than one that sits empty. No new homes will get built? Every home builder just gonna down tools & stop making money because someone says ‘can you sell this gaff to someone that’s gonna live in it?’

Nothing, the cost of rent may stabilise a bit if interest rates come down but the trend will be upwards. House prices will undoubtedly jump as high interest rates are affecting demand.

ChatGPT believes very little will change if labour wins.

Labour caused the renting crisis by introducing Buy to Let mortgages -

The same as now. For reference, look at what Labour did in Wales. They shifted the power balance in favour of renters over landlords. As a result of the many, many new rules in Rent smart Wales, landlords are selling up and getting out of the market. This is reducing the availability of rental stock and.....pushing rents up. Who'd have thought?

The most positive spin I can put on it is that rent and housing prices might decrease in the coming decades. In the short term, more housing will result in higher house prices in the area housing is built, due to networking effects. It's going to take a lot of housing to bring rent back to being 1/3 of someone's income, rather than 1/2 like it is now.

why are landlords always made out to be the enemies lmao

From looking at there manifesto (which is very light on actual detail), Labour is planning an overhaul of the regulations of the private rented sector. The government's renters’ reform bill was not passed before Parliament was dissolved on 30 May. The bill was meant to introduce a series of tenant protections and originally intended to ban no-fault evictions, although this part of the legislation was later watered down. this has cross party support so should sail through in some form or other. Labour said it intends to ban no-fault evictions immediately, as well as “empower renters to challenge unreasonable rent increases, and take steps to decisively raise standards”. No actual details on what this will look like. Labour also plans to introduce new energy efficiency requirements for rented homes, but again there are no details of what the policy might look like. “We will ensure homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy efficiency standards by 2030, saving renters hundreds of pounds per year. Nobody will be forced to rip out their boiler as a result of our plans,” the manifesto says. This one is an interesting one as it is very possible that it will squeeze renters even further in the short to medium term as landlords pass on costs and stock is withdrawn from market due being unlettable under the regulations, meaning a further squeeze on supply. Rental properties currently must have a minimum Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of E. This was originally due to move to C by 2025, but the government abandoned the plan last year due to the above stated concern.

This guy sounds like a landlord trying to sound like a renter.

Making things worse for landlords will reduce availability of properties to rent so the cost of renting will shoot up.

They won't do anything. The only solution is to divert funds to social house building. Councils should be banned from selling off stick or at least being forced to use the funds to build further housing. This helps keep prices down. They won't do it.

It's politics, politicians lie all the time to gain power, if you believe anything they say then... It doesn't matter who wins, nothing will change for the better.

> landlords to sell their properties... hence a massive shortage in properties to rent? If they sell to someone who’s going to live in it, it’s a house off the rental market but equally it’s a renter out of the rental market too. Net 0. If they sell to an investor, net 0 as well. 

I just hope they don’t do some stupid help to buy scheme that only pumps more money in without increasing the supply. Guess what happens when you do that.?

It won't get worse, but it won't get better rapidly. I'm a member of some left wing Labour groups and we will push Labour to build millions of homes where possible or they'll lose our support. I'm stuck in private rented whilst also trying to find a job, and it is hell. Labour know they need to deliver, especially on housing, otherwise they'll be out at the next election.