Why is there a shortage of property to rent?

[TwinklingFairyLightz]

This seems to be a post pandemic phenomenon. Rental prices are increasing due to a shortage in available properties to rent and there are bidding wars on properties that do come up.

Why is there a sudden shortage? Is it demand ie an increase in people looking to rent or supply ie less available properties?

Of all the awful parties in this there is a special place in hell for most but not all letting agents.

@Onandupw - it’s a myth social housing is a tax burden. Social housing runs at a surplus, you can check the accounts of any association. Housing benefit is obviously a tax burden but this is often paid to private landlords.

@Plumtreebob but it takes up council time and resources doesn’t it? - and if it runs at a surplus what on earth is the council
doing in the space - innovation in housing is not going to come from a council.

my experience of housing associations that they are almost across the board awful with awful housing.

but maybe I don’t understand what you’re talking about when you talk about social housing? It is a cultural thing here as well I ger

and why can social housing orgs/council do it and make money if private enterprises can’t? Ie what is the benefit of social housing. Genuine question.

It's the old fashioned idea of houses being homes rather than investments.

Read up on the post war welfare state. The idea was healthy, happy workers.

Also ties into places like the Unilever village at Port Sunlight and the Salt one near Huddersfield.

Yes I might do some reading.

i agree with the goal. But it just seems to have failed so dismally.

i personally have made a bucketload off an ex
council flat in London which I bought and lived in and now rent. And sure it’s great for me but that can’t possibly be the right outcome.

just so I understand though the social housing model is always rental (right to buy disaster aside)??

Thanks @lovloveisagirlnameddaisy that's what I meant. Apologies for the lazy typing.

One landlord here is desperate to sell, he is ill and in his late 70s. But the fees and taxes etc will leave him with very little if he sells. So he is keeping it, even though the last tenant cost him thousands that he just can't recoup. I hated doing that check out. Nasty, nasty trucks by the tenant, including water in the fuel oil tank.

@loveisagirlnameddaisy only if your earnings fall between £100,000 and £125,000 and then it’s only the effective rate on the income between those figures. It’s a weird quirk but avoidable especially when you control the income you are receiving. It doesn’t affect many people, certainly not the norm.

@Onandupw - when I say social housing I mean social housing organisations, very few councils keep their own housing stock these days, it’s dealt with primarily through social housing organisations who fund themselves and run at a surplus that they reinvest. How are they able to do it? Economies of scale of would suggest, multi million pounds of loans with lower interest rates to fund building, their own fleet of tradespeople directly employed, building their own houses. They are also looking at investment long term not short term maximisation of yields. I agree some of them are awful but I have been involved with lots of very good ones too. When they work they really work in my experience.

@Onandupw - there is also shared ownership where you own part of a property and a social housing organisation owns the other part. You can then purchase more equity over time. It has its pros and cons, I can see both sides of it.

This. I have just exchanged on a rental flat in London today for the above reasons. The buyer is a company and will continue to rent the place ou.

Agree with plumtreebob!My daughter is renting and if her landlord decides to sell up with short notice she will be totally screwed as well as her toddler, her degree etc .It really does impact people's lives when this happens.

@FlowerArranger has it exactly

Right to buy was a Thatcher policy in the 1980s. The original model of social housing was from the 1950s. It worked. It was always non profit rent (in the same way as the NHS is non profit). Some people lived in social housing all their lives. Some, like my parents, used them as starter homes until they could buy privately.

I think right to buy was wrong. A lot of working class people lived in social housing. It became needs based allocation in 1979 - that's when the problems started, then right to buy.

@Plumtreebob Every single survey I've seen of landlords recently suggest that up to 80% of them are seriously considering selling off. Especially if the government introduced the changes to section 21 and the changes to the EPC certification that they are currently talking about. Remember that it takes time to sell a property especially if it is tenanted.

The incoming EPC rules are incredibly challenging in period properties. Trying to get to a C in a country where much of the housing stock is Victorian or Edwardian is very tricky.

@sorbetseason why is it ethically dubious to buy a house to rent it out? You are providing somebody with a home. I could see the argument for it being dubious to buy a house in order to put it on Airbnb but that's different.

There is always going to be a need for rental property i.e. people moving jobs, people between houses people moving to a new area, people returning from overseas, young people not yet ready to buy, lots and lots of different reasons why people might want to rent rather than buy. I genuinely don't get your reasoning.

Will the EPC rules apply to non tenancy lets ie Airbnb, HMOs etc?

It's being made harder and harder to be a LL so people, apart from serious investors with big portfolios, are most likely selling off their rental properties now. But that's ok because greedy LL were making it harder for good people to buy houses yadda yadda. So now more people can buy houses instead. Yay!

@TwinklingFairyLightz so in the 1950s on what basis was housing allocated? Ie did everyone have the right to get a house? (Or flat)? In any area? Thanks!

@TwinklingFairyLightz apparently not

We're talking about property income which is different due to the effects of Section 24.

I'd have to read up in more detail but I believe there was plenty available. Interestingly, you had to get references in those days for social housing. They were seen as better than private rentals. People had pride in them, they were for workers. If you couldn't get references, then you were left to the private market, which was unregulated and often slums. My grandparents were thrilled when they got a council house (grandad was a quarry worker). Getting a council house was aspirational back then.

@BonnesVacances but I think the point of this thread is that this is not actually what’s happening.

Are you answering my question about the EPC rules applying to Airbnbs etc?

Thanks to the responses on here, I think I've got my answer to the thread title. Long term rental properties are being changed to airbnbs etc due to legal and EPC changes.