generation rent

Dr. Quintin BradleySenior Lecturer in Planning & Housing

and the housing crisis

Short changed

• Chronic under-supply of new homes

• 240,000 needed annually –

• In 2015 only 131,000 built

Magic million

• Government policy - supply and demand:– Liberalise planning – ease

supply of land & speed approvals

– Deregulate building standards– Privatise social housing and

reduce rent subsidies to restore price mechanisms

Speculative builders

• Policy supports volume house builders

• But structural problems with industry:– Tend towards monopoly– Prioritises margins over

volume– Operates across land and

housing markets simultaneously

(Meek 2014)

Broken market

• If food prices had risen as fast as house prices, a chicken would cost £50, a loaf of bread would cost more than £4 and a family's weekly shopping bill would be £453

• Reduction in affordable homes

• Liberalisation of finance capital

• Buy to Let mortgages• Economic growth predicated

on rising property prices• Demand-side interventions

o Sub-prime mortgages o Help to Buyo Starter Homes

Deliberately unaffordable

Locked out

• Average house price now 10 times average wage

• Home ownership declined from 71 in 2003 to 65.2% today

• 84 per cent of home owners are now above the age of 40.

• The number of 65+ year-olds who own their home outright has outstripped the number of first time buyers

Priced out

• “An entire generation locked out of home ownership forever and forced to rent for life” (NHF 2014).

• Nearly half of households in the 25-34 age group live in the private rented sector

• Up from 21 per cent in ten years• Rents have risen 57% in last 10

years and set to soar by another 39% by 2020

Source: National Housing Federation 2014

Tenure bias

• Home ownership promoted through £16.6bn in financial subsidies

• ‘Dual rental system’ (Kemeny 1995) where private renting is unrestrained &

• Affordable rented sector kept small and unpleasant

Small and unpleasant

• Only 30,660 affordable rented homes built in 2014

• Homelessness acceptances up 26% over two years – rough sleeping doubled

• Ten year high in families with kids in Bed & Breakfast

• One in 12 families on social housing waiting list

Not affordable

• Affordable housing grant cut by 50% in 2010

• Rents raised to 80% of market value in new grant programme

• Forced disposals of social rented stock

• Housing associations switch to high value areas

Sustained attack

• Big discounts for Right to Buy• Bedroom tax hits 400,000

households – evictions up 22%• Results in stock loss of 2 – 3

bedroom properties • Government U-turn on rent

settlement • Right to buy for housing

association tenants• Sale of ‘high value’ council housing • Pay to stay – the work tax.

Housing benefit cutsIn 2010 benefit capped at 30% of rents. Introduction of top limit – this cap to be reduced to £20,000 in 2015– and rise linked to lower rate of Consumer Price Index

Resistance• Clearances & social cleansing

in London• Demolition of social housing

continues • Gentrification led by

international property investment

• Resistance mounts – New Era, Sweets Way Resists, Guinness AST, March for Homes

• Focus E15 Mothers• Links forged between social

housing and private rented campaigns

Tenants united

• Private rented campaigns

• Supporting homeless applicants

• Resisting evictions

Sucked in

• 9 million people now live in private rented sector

• Nearly a quarter are families with children

• Supersized sector

Set to rise to 25% by 2020

Don’t ask for repairs

• 37% of private rented stock fails decent standard

• 324,172 retaliatory evictions every year after tenants asked for repairs

Insecurity of tenure

• End of assured short-hold tenancy was single greatest cause of homelessness in 2013

• One third of renters forced to move each year

Amateur hour

• Majority of landlords are individuals – “rogue, ill-informed, amateur or accidental landlords” (Shelter 2014)

• More than three quarters (78%) of landlords let out only one property

• Almost half of landlords use lettings agents

• Annual landlord fees to agents act as driver for rent increases

Slum landlord Peter Rachman, pictured in 1963:

Cowboys of property

• ‘Unreasonable fees and opaque charging’ by lettings agents

• Administration fees, charges for inventories and reference checks - £355 on average but one in seven renters pay admin fees of more than £500

• “The property industry’s Wild West” Clive Betts MP, Chair of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee

Acting up

• Tenant action groups across London held a ‘housewarming party’ at a development of newly built private rented flats in Stratford, east London, in protest at soaring private rents and the government’s failure to tackle them.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QtdqgNg1q60

• A London-wide day of action against letting agents, members of Haringey Housing Action Group became ‘Community Housing Inspectors’ to expose the unwelcome practices that letting agents are engaged in.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKmcfiCgy0E&feature=player_embedded

A living rent

• France – 3 year tenancies, initial rent set by market, but increase regulated

• Spain – 5 year tenancies, initial rent set by market, but increase limited to CPI

• Germany – indefinite tenancies, fines for landlords setting rent above 20% of market

• England prior to 1988 – indefinite tenancies, ‘fair rents’ set by Rent Officer

Shout it out

• Survey by Shelter found that only 6% of renters would rent from private landlords given the choice

• Instead they wanted to be tenants in more secure and affordable social housing

• London Renters proposes rent strike alongside resistance to eviction

Back to the future?