Buy-to-Let

EHS 2017 says around 25% of PRS tenants are LHA claimants - effectively an overspill of people who in a former era would have been in SRS claiming HB.

Needs based tenancy allocation in SRS began over 40 yrs ago - with claimants rising from a mere 10% in 1980 to current 75%.

Noteworthy is that DWP say only 23% of the 4.7 million HB/LHA claimants are in working households - so a good many have no core need to be living in expensive locations such as London/SE etc.

It is interesting to up-date this topic 5 years on ...

1.3 million children living in poverty in private rented sector, says NHF

In a new report published today, the trade body said that is an increase of 537,325 from 2008 – a 69% rise – with a shortage of social housing helping drive the surge.

The NHF claimed that 242,753 of the children currently affected would not be in poverty if they lived in social housing and that another 500,000 would be better off.

Social rents are typically around half of market rent, meaning that poor households in private rented homes would be £3,172 a year better off on average – which would also save the government an annual £1.8bn in housing benefit.

Nearly half (46%) of all children living in England’s private rented sector are in poverty, despite 71% of their families having jobs, researchers said.

Full/source article 

​See - Social landlords are the real "rent thieves"

Nearly half (46%) of all children living in England’s private rented sector are in poverty, despite 71% of their families having jobs,

If we take the PRS as the sample rather than the cause this tells us that:

• 33% of employees are not earning enough to be above the poverty line - that's an employment issue
  
• 46% of parents are unable or unwilling to adequately support their family - that's an education and social issue, and quite a big one!

This is simply the result of various Governments failing to address the social housing needs of its population.

Anyone with a ounce of common sense would have predicted this crisis years ago. Rather than sit in the cheap bar at Westminster Palace its about time they got  their B --s and sorted out this problem rather than support the banks that have made billions on the cheap money they were offered.

If you and I could have borrowed at .25% . and invested in bonds at 4% we would all be rich. 

It was easy money for the banks and no one saw it coming. Well it was given to the banks to lend out did the government really think that was what they were doing- of course not..

Billions of those profits could have been taken back and given to local authorities to build social housing and improve their housing stock.

"Social rents are typically around half of market rent" - Love to know where this stat came from?

And we will be called the greedy buggers

the truth is all our costs are riseing and there has been an LHA freeze for years

osbourne and his plans will not help this sector

level playing field my hat

Responding to today’s report from the National Housing Federation on poverty in the private rented sector, Chris Town, Vice Chair of the Residential Landlords Association said:

“The biggest driver of poverty in the private rented sector remains the Government’s freeze on Local Housing Allowance rates. Support for housing costs is simply failing to keep up with the realities of rented housing and we call on the Government to use its spending review to drop the freeze.

“It is though disappointing that today’s report failed to note that the official data shows that the proportion of income spent on private sector rents is falling compared to the social sector where it is increasingly. Data also shows that over the last year private sector rents fell in real terms.

“In the end, the best way to ensure rents are affordable is to boost the supply of homes to rent alongside all other tenures. This means the Government adopting a positive, pro-growth tax regime that supports and encourages the majority of good landlords to provide them.”

The English Housing Survey shows that between 2010-11 and 2017-18, the proportion of household income (including housing benefit) that private sector tenants spent on their rent decreased from 35 per cent to 33 per cent. In the same period the proportion of household income (including housing benefit) that social renters spent increased from 27 per cent to 28 per cent.

The Office for National Statistics has reported that in the year to December 2018, private sector rents paid by tenants in the UK rose by 1 per cent, well below inflation.

​A report for the RLA by Manchester Metropolitan University has noted that Local Housing Allowance rates are the main driver of tenancy failures in the private rented sector.

Longer term perspective on Social Rents - since 1979 on long term average they rose by 8% cagr (doubling every 9 yrs)

That was a 3% cagr faster increase than average UK wage growth in same interval.

Indeed had Social Rents tracked wage growth the average rent today would be just 1/3rd of actual rent and HB bill in SRS over £10 billion pa lower.

With HB claimants in SRS going from 10% in 1980 to 75% today there was little tenant opposition to those rent increases - plus of course the only other alternative was to move to PRS at even higher rents (ie post 1989 when ASTs came on stream). 

No surprise that SRS gets 65% of all HB/LHA - largely due to needs based tenancy allocation.