News

From the Housing News website:

England is fast becoming a nation of renters, according to figures from the latest English Housing Survey.

Thanks to an ongoing relative decline in the overall numbers of social housing and an explosion in the numbers of people renting privately, for the first time these two rental sectors are now more or less equal in size in terms of their overall market share at 17 per cent of England’s housing stock.

Since 2001, the number of homes in the private rented sector has risen from 2.2 million to 3.7 million, whilst over the same period, local authority owned properties fell by exactly a million to 1.8 million. The number of housing association properties has increased from 1.4 million to 2 million, giving a total of 3.8 million social houses.

That the two rental sectors are now neck and neck went down well with the Residential Landlords Association (RLA), which welcomed the findings as a demonstration of the sector’s “ever-increasing importance”.

RLA chairman Alan Ward, said: “Whilst the number of properties in the sector has increased by over a million in ten years, all the figures persistently show a chronic shortage of privately rented properties, denying tenants genuine choices over their housing needs, and serving only to drive up rents.

“With the Government’s review of investment in the sector and the Opposition’s private rented sector policy review both due to be published soon, ministers and shadow ministers must ensure that reforming the way the sector is taxed is a priority to boost investment and growth in the sector to meet the demands of tenants.”

Read the rest of the story here: www.housingnews.co.uk