I know that the hard-core Homeys like to play the "disappearing homes" card, but Shelter really ought to know better:
But the evidence, summarised in the table below, suggests that old fashioned controls – setting the rent, not just controlling the increase – would force a significant number of landlords to sell their home, as they could make more money that way.
Now, that might be good for middle earners – a glut of homes suddenly for sale might become available.
But this is where the risk comes in for low earners. They can’t afford to buy and increasingly rely on the private rented sector. As landlords sell up, they would be left with fewer places to live. In the absence of a much larger supply of council and social housing, that risks pushing people into homelessness. This is probably not a gamble worth taking.
FFS.
The number of homes available to rent will fall and the number of potential tenants will fall by a corresponding amount. Those remaining tenants will have lower incomes, so rents would fall naturally anyway. Logic and real life evidence tells us this.
Funny how the UK had rent controls of one form or another for most of the 20th century, and 'homelessness' (however defined) wasn't as acute as it is now. I refer the approach as Georgism Lite.
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