Government policy should move away from thinking that social housing and home ownership are good while private landlords are bad’ if it is to solve the rental stock and rent costs crisis.
That’s the view of a new report from Cambridge University Land Society which says this mindset translates into discrepancies when helping the PRS to retrofit properties, as it largely doesn’t have access to public funding or political support.
“Homes rented privately are no less valuable or important than owner occupied or social homes, but they are typically less well capitalised even before the need to retrofit and yet only sticks are used to incentivise action – no carrots – because this tenure is positioned as worse,” according to the authors of A Vision for the UK Housing Market.
They have tried to come up with genuine solutions to the housing crisis and suggest that policy should instead incentivise quality upgrades for existing properties.
Landlord incentives
The report suggests mortgage lenders should be encouraged to offer discounted mortgage products to property owners providing longer term tenancies, and that property owners offering longer leases could be given tax breaks to provide residents with greater security.
It also suggests releasing the freeze on Local Housing Allowance and enhancing incentives to mortgage lenders to offer long term low interest rate mortgages in return for energy performance upgrades.
The report adds that it would help if the government moved away from old fashioned terms such as landlord and tenant and used property owner and resident in its policies instead.
The authors explain: “The overriding proposal is for more joined up and coherent housing policy. This should run wider than just not changing housing ministers frequently but also engage HM Treasury and the financial regulators. Only then could we achieve the goal of defining and moving towards housing market success.”
Read the report in full.
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