To think rents are going up because of insane levels of demand and not billionaires buying all the houses?

Building more houses isn’t the answer in itself because builders want to maximise profit and that doesn’t happen if there is a glut of new homes

round here they build big homes that most families can’t afford meaning locals are trapped on sofas and a lot of richer people are moving here ; and a much smaller pool of cheaper ( social ) homes because that’s all the social can afford

we need to be building social homes - and that really gets the nimby going - but without a big pool of social homes the problem will remain

Partly supply and demand, partly house prices being allowed to soar for decades, partly housing benefits propping up what is actually affordable.
The housing stock we have isn't used efficiently, and there is too much opposition to building more. Disincentivise empty rooms and build high quality medium density housing. And scrap rtb entirely, immediately.

Yep some basic economics would help, supply, demand price. Look at the policies decreasing supply and increasing demand.

Yeah but there were net migration of half a million people to the uk in 2024, you can’t have those year on year increases and not expect to face housing shortages. The idea that the actual number of people and the actual number of housing has no bearing in price is a bit mad really.

Many of your ‘greedy’ landlords have or are in the process of selling up due to the extreme leftists insane tax regime.

Why can’t any of you understand that when you reduce supply it becomes more expensive? And that when you support uncontrolled migration all these people need somewhere to live?

And why the hate towards billionaires?

And selling off social housing.

It’s both.

The housing crisis is caused by issues with both the supply and demand sides of the equation. Supply because as a country we haven’t built anything like enough homes, and particularly starter homes, since the 90s. And demand because 25 years of uncontrolled mass immigration has massively increased demand for the stock of housing we do have.

The problem with fixing this situation is that politicians refuse to tackle both sides of it. The right don’t want to build more houses, because that pisses off their voters, who are mostly older NIMBYs. And the left don’t want to seriously tackle immigration because they think it’s racist and it will piss off their voters who are mostly young & ‘woke’ or ethnic minorities.

I was wondering the other day how much impact the rising student population has on this because it means that essentially students have 2 homes - you need lots of flats in all the cities to cope with the temporary student population?

I still however also think that it was sellin off council homes that started the process - because there is now no stabilising effect in of decent low rent homes - there are so few social houses as a share of the housing stock compared to the 1970s

Yes, maybe we could restrict homes to newly married couples and the rest can continue to live with their parents? 😂

Too many homes are underoccupied . In boomers days they lived in multi generational homes and stayed at home unito they got married.

When we bought a family home we decided to keep our old flat and rent it out.
We had a tenant for a long time but he decided to move out last year. We advertised it and were completely overwhelmed with interest. We took the ad down after 1 day. We had people writing us essays setting out their reasons why we should choose them. There was a real desperation from lots of them. I had no idea it was so bad before that.

I know plenty of older people (70s and 80s) living very happily in flats that they downsized to from big houses with gardens.

It means they can stay living in their own home for longer rather than moving to a care home.

Not everyone cares about a garden, although I am sure some do. But bungalows or small houses with gardens exist.

Not unreasonable it's supply and demand. I assume billionaires buy them to rent them out anyway seeing as one cannot live in twenty homes at once.
And the price they could rent then for would depend on supply and demand

is said on a thread yesterday, schools in london are closing due to 15 % less children living in london. In my old home town there is uproar when new developments are put to planning but these are needed. Most eventually get through.

I can't really understand why we have massive mansions empty and not being bought to convert to small housing estates. I guess it's a case of nimby

I agree. That would free up essential housing.

8 million new people in the country since 2010 vs 1.7 million new homes in a similar timeframe.

I don’t see how the BTL boom in the nineties and noughties has caused a shortage in rental properties now? What’s your reasoning? Surely it means there are more rentals?

Rent is down to supply and demand and the recent policies have dropped supply so price will go up.

Your nasty ageism is not a good look.

The landlords I know only have 1 house they rent and frankly the costs of doing so have gone up hugely and they're selling up. Trades now are double what they were before Brexit, tenants demand new carpets every move then always trash the place. The gov just wants huge companies with offshore £ buying cheap property with no intention to do any more than the legal minimum for tenants, with no time pressure. If you can get through to them to complain, good luck!
Careful what you wish for.

Rents are rising because of all the regulatory certifications going up eg gas safety , electrical , things the government are introducing , harsher taxes , all the EPC stuff , council licensing, no doubt rents will go up again if landlords are hammered with NI on rental income in the budget . A lot of landlords are getting out the market .

Well commerical wise it is the millionaires, my area is owned by Rowan Atkison and people cant afford to rent the shop spaces as he is charging through the roof for them despite being in terrible condition!

but normal housing wise, yanbu. Mostly down to everyone trying to own an air BnB which would of been used to house families beforehand. Needs to be a blanket ban on air BnBs to be honest.

That didn't take long.

You do realise an enormous number of immigrants are legal immigrants, who live in homes and not hotel rooms?

The village near me is now 50% owned by a Lord and Lady , as are the two pubs.

The houses mostly sit empty and the locals do not have enough local residents anymore to do civic activities.

Guess it's the same in many pretty villages

You do know that the government are moving people out of the hotels into rented accommodation?

Obviously that in itself has not cause the current shortage but population growth in recent years will be a huge factor.

We have grown since 2010 with population of 62 million to almost 70 million today. We have not created 8 million (several large cities worth) of homes in that time. The builders federation reports 1.7 million since 2015. The maths of supply and demand is fairly obvious. We also have the impact of the government taxing landlords and making it harder and harder for them to operate.

If people downsize, they are going to buy smaller, first-time buyers type property, which will make it even harder for young people to get on the property market.

p.s. Calling people Boomers is very rude