Six reasons why today’s renters pay more than previous generations
The harsh reality of the UK’s sometimes savage housing market is that more people are renting their homes until later in life but paying more for the privilege of doing so than their parents did.
In England the number of private renters has increased from two million to 4.5 million between 1999 and 2015 while renting a home has been eating up a steadily increasing proportion of renters’ income, rising from 8% during the late 1960s to over 27% today, on average. Here we look at the key trends driving up rents across the nation in recent years.
Landlord tax evasion – what do we know?
A few weeks ago, the London Borough of Newham revealed that 13,000 local landlords had failed to declare their rental income, prompting estimates that £200m of tax was being evaded in London alone.
Today, Parliament has published an answer from the Treasury Minister Mel Stride to Frank Field, who asked what assessment the government had made of this. The Minister directed him (and us) to this information on tax gaps (pp54-5).
MPs debate letting fee ban
The ban on letting fees is currently the government’s flagship policy to help renters, and we’re currently waiting for a draft bill to be published, which follows a consultation that we and hundreds of our supporters responded to.
In the meantime, MPs gave us a taste of how the legislation will proceed in Parliament yesterday morning by debating the subject for the first time since last year’s Autumn Statement.
The Other Waitrose Effect – the hidden costs of gentrification
Is a new Waitrose in your neighbourhood a cause for excitement, or a troubling omen for your future in the area?
A new study reveals that the high-end supermarket is linked with rising evictions of private tenants in areas they open up in.
The analysis, conducted by Oxford University academic David Adler for Generation Rent, found that the arrival of a new store was associated with an increase in the number of evictions of between 25% and 50%.
Great cheese selection, but will you be around to enjoy it?
National study finds tenants optimistic but rental market oppressive
Every year the government runs the English Housing Survey. General findings are published in February, then, to the delight of housing geeks, the juicy detail on the different subsections of the market arrives in July. We’ve taken a look at the findings for 2015-16, published last week.
If London housebuilding is reliant on overseas investment, where do we go from here?
Commissioned in Autumn 2016, the final report of the London Mayor’s investigation into the role of overseas investment in housing was published last week – but its findings can be read in very different ways.
Based on research by the LSE, its major conclusion and argument is that off-plan and pre-sales to the overseas market are integral to the current development model in London – and therefore also key to leveraging more affordable housing through section 106 agreements on those sites.
Renters vote – and cause another political upset
The results are in, and the UK’s voters have delivered yet another shock.
The dust still has to settle but one thing is already apparent: the votes of renters had an impact yesterday. Twenty of the 32 seats that the Conservatives lost to Labour and the Liberal Democrats had more renters than average. Back at the 2011 census, those 32 seats had an average private renter population of 19% – it was 16% in the country as a whole.
The choice tomorrow
We haven’t been posting much on here for the past few weeks as we have joined forces with ACORN on #RentersVote for the duration of the election.
There we have analysed each of the 5 UK-wide parties’ manifestos and pulled it all together into one big graphic, so you can see what we made of their housing commitments side-by-side.
Save £404 when you move after fees ban
Tomorrow is the final chance to respond to the government’s consultation on their proposals to ban letting fees.
Ahead of this we have published our latest research from lettingfees.co.uk, which features in today’s Times (£), Guardian and i. We have also published an update to last year’s report.
Our main findings are that the government’s proposals will save the average tenants £404 when they move, and an average £117 every 6 or 12 months to renew the tenancy.
3.4m private renters risk losing their vote
With one week until voter registration closes, we’ve estimated that more than three million private renters in England are at risk of losing their vote at the General Election.
1.8m private renters have moved home since the 2016 Referendum and must therefore register again. Private renters are typically on tenancy agreements of no longer than 12 months and are six times more likely to move in a given year than homeowners.