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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?