Well, the British government has introduced a lot of changes recently, that made the landlord lives harder and landlords did start to sell. Now we have a situation, where people fight over places to rent, most places don’t even get advertised, people take them without viewings and rent prices have skyrocketed. All while housing stock in general got noticeably reduced. And, of course, homelessness is through the roof.
while housing stock in general got noticeably reduced
I’m not sure how those two things can coexist. So landlords started selling but then nobody that owned just one property sold so despite the influx of properties being listed for sale, the stock reduced? So there’s fewer rental units which has people trying to get into them but there aren’t more people purchasing the properties?
These types of policies also affect the types of units that get built. If rental units are a risky business move, then more construction will go towards larger single family homes, which are 1) less space efficient (fewer units), but 2) much more expensive (so the builder gets their money’s worth)
The other thing is with rent control, housing stock will decrease because people will not move. If you are in a rent controlled unit, you’re very strongly incentivised to never leave : because while your rent has been grandfathered to a low price, when you move you’ll suddenly starting paying the inflated rates everyone else has been paying to offset the sub-market rents you had. Live in the same place long enough and this could be a 1000% increase.
Well, the British government has introduced a lot of changes recently, that made the landlord lives harder and landlords did start to sell. Now we have a situation, where people fight over places to rent, most places don’t even get advertised, people take them without viewings and rent prices have skyrocketed. All while housing stock in general got noticeably reduced. And, of course, homelessness is through the roof.
I’m not sure how those two things can coexist. So landlords started selling but then nobody that owned just one property sold so despite the influx of properties being listed for sale, the stock reduced? So there’s fewer rental units which has people trying to get into them but there aren’t more people purchasing the properties?
These types of policies also affect the types of units that get built. If rental units are a risky business move, then more construction will go towards larger single family homes, which are 1) less space efficient (fewer units), but 2) much more expensive (so the builder gets their money’s worth)
The other thing is with rent control, housing stock will decrease because people will not move. If you are in a rent controlled unit, you’re very strongly incentivised to never leave : because while your rent has been grandfathered to a low price, when you move you’ll suddenly starting paying the inflated rates everyone else has been paying to offset the sub-market rents you had. Live in the same place long enough and this could be a 1000% increase.