IfNotNowThen ..... the problem with relying on Private landlords supplying over 50% of rented properties, is that for many, their BTL is their pension - and the 'social objective' of flat/lower home price rises and no/little returns on rents received over their BTL mortgage costs AND guaranteed long tenancies - is not compatible with that personal savings objective.
Personal Pension Savings were made less attractive after 1997, and seeing the the derisory annual rises in the State pension indicated they could not trust a government on their future financial security, all helped to fuel the growth of private landlords looking for the best return they can get.
“Labour's 'rent cap' row: how renting has grown, in charts”
“The charts and tables here show how property ownership is changing, who is renting – and for how much.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/buy-to-let/10800343/Labours-rent-cap-row-how-renting-has-grown-in-charts.html
“The subjects of renting and buy-to-let spark anger like few others and Labour's latest suggestion – that rent increases could be capped and minimum lengths of tenancies introduced – has added fuel to the controversy.”
“What are the facts behind Britain's growing army of renters? This graph, from the February 2014 English Housing Survey, shows that since 2005 ownership has been in decline relative to renting, which started to climb in 2000.”
“For the first time, according to this year's data, people renting from private landlords outnumbered social renters.”
Clearly the growth in the Private rental market, whether by design or not, was a government initiative, hardly likely to be addressed when they were averaging around 25,000 social homes a year and the immigration figures were climbing.
*Still we are where we are, and as I mentioned earlier within this page. for the majority of tenants CURRENT problems, from the availability, regulation, fair rents up to log term tenancy contracts - is this PART of the answer, that small private landlords are unable, or unwilling, to offer?
“Pru plans foray into UK rented housing”
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a35a999e-9893-11e2-a853-00144feabdc0.html#axzz330iRnEwP
“The Prudential is to become the first UK institutional investor to enter the UK rented housing market in recent times, paving the way for the growth of a corporate-backed letting market at a time of acute housing shortage.”
“The UK’s insurers and pension funds were once among the largest owners of residential property in the UK, but sold off their estates in the years after the second world war due to the intensive management required.”
“Both Legal & General and Aviva are looking at entering the private rented sector; both are understood to have eyed various potential developments and tie-ups with housebuilders.”