Housing Policies on private landlords are reducing supply but not increasing owner occupation, making it difficult for the PRS to be commercially viable, according to a housing sector academic.

Giving evidence to the Pensions and Work Committee on benefit levels, Professor Kemp, professor of public policy at Blavatnik School of Government, said these housing policies were meant to help first-time buyers better compete with landlords but that home ownership had not risen by that much.

Supply had also dropped due to the fact landlords could get tenants to leave after six months, some were switching to Airbnbs, and the impact of rising interest rates, said Kemp.

Rents rising

“Where they can, some are increasing rent,” he explained. “It’s possible to do that as demand is going up because of the post-pandemic return to city, and also as undergraduates are returning to Britain and some domestic students are also coming back, and we now have a delayed entry into owner occupation.”

With Local Housing Allowance set in September 2019, if rents went up then the number of people able to afford private rented housing on benefit would drop, said Kemp.

“If, is as happening now, rents are rising rapidly – with Zoopla reporting that rents have risen for new lettings by 10% – then that puts the squeeze on people on housing benefit on what they can afford and as a result they then have to use part of the rest of their Universal Credit to cover the shortfall.”

Automatically uprating LHA would help the relationship between landlords and tenants, he added, while NRLA chief executive Ben Beadle told MPs that landlords would welcome better access to the Universal Credit system and a reasonable dialogue to resolve issues.

“We shouldn’t look at landlords as being a problematic customer which is how a lot of landlords feel at the moment. They want to help their tenants.”

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