It’s one thing to say we need to be more like Europe, but another to actually offer renters European standards of housing. Far from having a sustainable private rented sector like Germany’s, we’re moving to a divided nation where a small number of people with growing property portfolios are milking a large herd of tenants and preventing them owning property themselves.
Renting should be a genuine choice and not a holding pen for frustrated would-be first-time buyers. Before people will happily surrender the dream of home ownership for a lifetime of renting, they need secure tenancies, professional landlords and letting agents, and much more affordable housing.
Generation Rent Director Alex Hilton explained this to Sky News. He also debated the issues on Radio 5 Live on Friday morning (available until Thursday 24 April).
