A traditional fatuous argument against LVT is that "Landlords will just increase the rent".
No they won't. They can't. Rents are set at the upper limit of what tenants can afford/are willing to pay and that is the end of that. The landlord's outgoings are entirely irrelevant (except in very marginal areas with little or no location value). But it is traditional Home-Owner-Ist strategy to just lie, lie, lie, regardless why; totally ignore logic or hard facts; and never, ever to concede on anything.
Exhibit A, from City AM:
There were 74,000 tenants owing more than two months’ rent at the end of the second quarter – up 7.2 per cent on the same time last year when this figure stood at 69,000 across the UK...
However this is still significantly less than the worst peak in the third quarter of 2012, when the number of households owing more than two months rent was 116,600.
It also represents just 1.4 per cent of all tenants, which is stable compared to the previous quarter and compares to 2.9 per cent of tenants in the first quarter of 2008 at the height of the crisis.
Debate Magazine
