Renters reform: Tenants call for rent controls in London protest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2p783jjqgo
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
Renters reform: Tenants call for rent controls in London protest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2p783jjqgo
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
14 Comments
More supply (making it easier to build houses) and less demand (reducing net migration) are the only things that actually help lower prices, rent controls have the opposite impact on both sides of the equation.
Why don’t they call for big increases in supply instead?
Bedroom taxes would do the trick.
It essentially means that 3-4 bedroom houses which are occupied by just 1 person become fairly costly to live in, even if the occupant is mortgage-free (especially if they’re not working). That essentially forces them to rent out the spare rooms to cover the tax or face the same penalties that people get if they just refuse to pay council tax.
You could sweeten it be increasing the tax threshold on the rent-a-room scheme from £7500 to say, £15000 per annum.
It’s all supply and demand.
Market distorting rent controls are always a bad idea and lead to a privileged few getting a better deal while everyone outside the system gets left out in the cold.
It’s great that people are angry and organising. However this doesn’t fix anything in the long run.
Tax empty homes and empty bedrooms more. Zone more land for development, preferably everything inside the M25. Build up. Improve transport infrastructure.
It’s actually really stunning just how economically illiterate even people with a Russel group University education are.
Like, it’s supply and demand. Or do these people only want rent controls for them, and once all rents are taken, any further people wanting to move to London should be “sucking it up”?
Rent control works in the short-term until it doesn’t. It is quickly abandoned due to all the problems it causes.
Let’s ask Scottish renters how rent controls have gone for them
Landlords hate the idea which to me suggests it’s a good policy.
Unfortunately rental controls have just exacerbated the problem in many cases (eg Berlin, Scotland)
Another issue no one really talks about is the mega low interest rates we had for almost 10yrs. It just drove house prices through the roof with affordability. Now we have landlords who just can’t afford the new high interests rates.
Anyone who’s seriously proposing things like Rent Controls cannot call themselves educated. One of the many reasons the greens should be nowhere near power. I’ll never understand why why so much of UK Reddit loves those clowns
To stem rent and property values spiralling up, cease buy to let mortgages, heavily tax second+ homes. That’s it. Landlords are prolific because you can legally make a lot of relatively easy money in property as a landlord; and the more cutthroat to your tenants you are the more profitable it is.
Until the second and more home owner is cut out of the equation it will be the same.
I rented from a place where the landlord couldn’t increase rent by more than 5% . It was great
Renting is supposed to be _temporary_, the point is that you can move out and go somewhere else.
Rent controls make it harder to move out, because if you do then you may not be able to afford to afford the new rent.
It’s the worst of both worlds, like a mortgage you cannot easily move out, unlike a mortgage you don’t ever own the place at the end.
The solution to affordable long-term housing is not rent controls but building properties that people can buy for themselves, and disincentivising renting.
For all the people saying rubbish like “rent controls don’t work”, show me a single council property that was sold off and now has a lower rent price than it did when it was under the council’s rent controls.
Every single council property that was sold off and then later rented out has a MUCH higher price than the rent controlled council properties.
Rent controls work to keep prices low. And every single place that has had those rent controls removed has seen massive increases in prices.
Anyone who says “rent controls don’t work” is lying to you.