Having survived this week’s leadership challenge, Boris Johnson will today (9 June) announce a push to boost home ownership, with more prefabricated housing and the extension of the right to buy policy to 2.5 million housing association tenants, as well as a review of the mortgage market to help renters climb the first rung of the housing ladder. It is rented accommodation, however, that is the UK’s real property crisis.
Since the onset of the pandemic, the number of homes available to rent has declined by 50 per cent, according to figures released by Propertymark on 6 June, while house prices have risen steeply. The latest Homelet rental index, which was released yesterday, finds that the average rent in Greater London has risen by 15.7 per cent in a single year. The average rent-to-income ratio across the UK is now more than 30 per cent. Meanwhile, some owners of the remaining homes on the rental market are reportedly pushing tenants out by hiking rental prices when their tenancy agreements expire, or are demanding six months of rent in advance.
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