Severe shortage of affordable rentals causing housing crisis, says banker

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One view is that helping people to buy homes, as the government is doing, makes the crisis worse, not better

The government first needs to tackle the shortage of affordable properties to rent. That’s the view of Stuart Trow (main pic), a credit strategist at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development.

Trow argues that Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s efforts to alleviate the UK’s housing crisis have focussed on boosting demand, rather than supply, which he says is more important.

The Chancellor’s strategy – which follows the Conservatives long held belief that increasing home ownership is good for the economy – is one of helping people get onto the housing ladder, whereas Trow argues that it’s more affordable rented property that’s needed.

In this month’s annual budget Rishi Sunak announced a government backed mortgage guarantee scheme that aims to help more people become homeowners.

Banks are to be incentivised to offer 95% mortgages at cheaper rates, and the government indemnifying them against some of the risks.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s stated aim is to turn “generation rent into generation buy.”

However, with the average home in the U.K. now costing over eight times average earnings it’s pretty much the only way many people will ever get onto the housing ladder.

So, unfortunately, Trow says, it won’t solve the real housing crisis in the U.K., which he says is a greater shortage of affordable properties to rent rather than to buy.

Given the government’s legislation which has made it less attractive to become a buy-to-let landlord, given the increases in taxation and sector regulations, it’s perhaps not surprising that the supply of affordable rental properties has been shrinking over the past three years.

Social rent

A recent parliamentary report published last year concluded that: “England needs at least 90,000 net additional social-rent homes a year for the next 15 years.” In London it says, the average rent consumes 59% of net monthly income.

The mortgage guarantee scheme announced by the Chancellor will undoubtedly increase demand for lower priced homes, but without a corresponding boost to supply.

Over the long term this will only give rise to higher property prices and leave fewer properties available to the rental market. This, argues Trow, matters because around 85% of spare rooms in London are in the owner-occupied sector, and the rental sector tends to house more people per property.

Any government scheme designed to solve the housing crisis should provide strong incentives for investment in building new, affordable properties to let, Trow says. And importantly, he thinks, that this means encouraging private property investors to be part of the solution.

Mortgage strategy

Trow does not condemn the strategy of guaranteeing mortgages, there might be a place for that he says, but there is a more urgent need to increase in supply, not demand.

The government should be guaranteeing new investment in affordable housing stock to both buy and to rent. The returns, he argues, could then be shared with investors.

There is a precedent to this approach says Trow: the one that government has used in seeking to raise funds to speed the U.K.’s transition toward a low carbon economy. The Chancellor’s new “climate savings bonds” will target retail investors backed by the security of the National Savings & Investments brand, plus a 100% government guarantee.

Trow says that “few of the U.K.’s army of buy-to-let property investors (and he admits to being one himself) have any great desire to be landlords and deal with all the practical difficulties associated with acquiring and managing rental properties.”

Most landlords he says “are simply trying to save for their retirement and provision for their elder care, and they believe that property is their only realistic investment option.”

One way to encourage more investment would be to provide a properly regulated, hands-off means of investing in property in a socially responsible manner in the form of a REIT – a real estate investment trust.

But REITs fail to provide sufficient housing units, especially in relation to affordable rented homes, so Trow says “a government-backed housing investment scheme could reach further and draw upon an investor base that would not normally have considered REITs.”

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County Courts will not cope with ‘eviction avalanche’

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In 2020, as part of government restrictions to protect tenants during the pandemic, the number of residential evictions fell by an estimated 20,000 (74%). County Courts are facing an ‘eviction avalanche’ when the ban on bailiff-led evictions comes to an end on 31 May and courts are faced with processing and enforcing the backlog

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HMOs do not help spread Coronavirus, says health report

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HMOs have been given a clean bill of health by officials in the Northamptonshire town of Corby, which has the highest seven-day Covid rate in the country.

Councils around the UK have flagged up HMOs as a particular transmission risk, with many issuing strict guidance for tenants such as advising them to disinfectant toilet handles before and after use and to eat in their rooms when shared areas are too busy.

Corby is struggling to get its infection rates down and some have pointed the finger at the thousands of residents who work in factories and logistics warehouses and often live in cramped conditions in shared housing. However, Northamptonshire County Council data shows that HMOs aren’t a significant factor.

Consultant in public health, Rhosyn Harris, insists there is no evidence based on the 130 cases in the past week that HMOs are driving an increase in those case rates.

She adds: “We do know that there are challenges around managing transmission in HMOs, just as with any other busy household, and we produce a lot of guidance to support busy households in terms of reducing transmission – but there’s nothing to point to that being a driver of recent case rate increases.”

She says the town is facing factors that make their work more challenging such as being a particularly tight-knit community.

“You are less likely to want to get tested and to take up our offer of testing if you feel that you are in a low paid job or have insecure employment and you’re worried about what might happen if you have to isolate for two weeks,” adds Harris (pictured). “We know that more people in Corby than in other places around the country fall into that category.”

In a bid to curb cases, Public Health Northamptonshire has launched a new awareness campaign called ‘Take Care in the Open Air’ which includes reminders about reducing physical contact outdoors.

Read more about HMOs and Covid.

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Government must tackle looming ‘evictions avalanche’ says Shamplina

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Leading evictions firm Landlord Action is supporting today’s Lords constitutional committee report on court reforms, agreeing with one of its key findings that County Courts are likely to face an ‘evictions avalanche’ once restrictions end on 31^st May.

Its founder Paul Shamplina (pictured) says he estimates that there are 20,000 evictions waiting to go through, based on HMCTS figures, many of whom will have been waiting for over 12 months to win possession orders for their properties.

This is on top of those who have already won court orders or warrants and are waiting for the ban on bailiff evictions to be lifted.

“These figures are estimated based on what possessions in 2020 would have looked like without the pandemic,” he says.

“Unfortunately, we now have a situation where cases are backed up, new cases are arising all the time and the scale of the issue is impossible to predict because so many are still being cushioned by support such as furlough, business grants and/or mortgage holidays. 

Avalance

“When this package of measures comes to an end, and without government support to help tenants pay back accumulated arrears, I fear we could be heading for an evictions avalanche.”

According to Landlord Action, prior to the pandemic, cases with six months’ rent arrears were quite rare as the process to evict was much quicker and would usually be carried out prior to arrears reaching such levels.

Now, more than 60% of new instructions to Landlord Action have six months’ rent arrears, meaning all of these cases will meet the exemption criteria and require court action.

“Thousands of landlords have got court orders outstanding from a year ago and warrants due to expire, leaving them having to reapply to the courts. We don’t yet know if these landlords will be at the front or the back of the queue” adds Shamplina.

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FOI to assess noise complaints by city

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Confused.com has conducted Freedom of Information requests to the 100 biggest cities in the UK to find out the number of noise complaints over the last 12 months, to find out who has the loudest neighbours. The research also includes a survey of over 2,000 residents across the UK.

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BTL rates up but so is choice

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Moneyfacts.co.uk highlights a growth in choice of Buy-to-Let (BTL) product options, but warns that interest rates are on the rise.

For the fifth consecutive month, BTL availability has continued to improve; with 2,333 products available, the sector has recovered to 81% of pre-pandemic levels (compared to 68% recovery in the residential sector) and now offers the highest number of products seen since last March

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How are landlords to upgrade homes after scrapping of Green Homes Grant?

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Landlords have been left with a ‘green gap’ of finding up to £10,000 per property to meet new energy performance targets after the government scrapped its Green Homes Grant scheme.

Online mortgage broker Property Master acknowledges that the troubled scheme was difficult to access, made it hard to find the correctly registered tradespeople and suffered from a cumbersome process to redeem vouchers, however, it says landlords deserve a replacement. 

Chief executive Angus Stewart (pictured) adds: “Landlords could be forgiven for thinking the new energy regulations in the absence of government support is just an extra backdoor tax on the private rented sector.

“For many this will be a squeeze too far on their finances and they may well choose this moment to exit the market which will reduce the number of homes for rent.”

The government has set an ambitious target as part of its Net Zero greenhouse gases by 2050 programme of raising the energy performance certificate for all new tenancies in the private rented sector to a C or above by 2025. By 2028, this requirement will extend to all private rented sector properties. 

About 67% of private rented properties in England and Wales – 3.2 million in total – are currently a band D or below.

The £2 billion Green Homes Grant scheme was only launched in September 2020 but will close on Wednesday. Up to £5,000 per property was available, no more than two thirds of the cost of the work done. 

To date, only about 60,0000 of the 600,000 available vouchers have been taken up to fund improvements such as cavity wall insulation and draught proofing. 

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