This might belong in the politics section, whatever.
Monday March 27th 2023's 'Panorama' was dedicated to an exposé of Britain's, in this specific case, S E London's chaotic private and public housing rental market.
Bear with me with this, look at the attached
Property for sale in Bampton Road, London SE23 - Zoopla and scan down to the Robinson Jackson, 375 grand property for sale.
Many of the same type of two bedroomed maisonettes shown in the ad, in this case on the Bampton Estate Forest Hill, have been bought by private landlords and converted into SIX one room 'apartments' .. that is the maisonette's original kitchens and bathrooms were ripped out and tiny 'en suite' loos and showers installed in each of the six rooms now converted to bedsits.
The key point is, these tiny bedsits are being let on a rent of £900+ per month EACH, a sum of at least £5,400 per month per maisonette unit AND guess what ?, Housing Benefit almost exclusively pays the rents as most of the occupants are old and/or unemployed.
What the fuck are housing benefit officials doing in allowing landlords to charge such piss taking rents for such all too often damp, mould infested and water leaking slums ?
The 'Right to Buy' legislation is blamed by Panorama for the start of this problem. As 'social housing' is sold off, it's not replaced. Rent control legislation has been scrapped and Local Councils up and down the country have given the running of the remaining social housing over to housing associations, supposedly 'not for profit' quangos that nevertheless employ hundreds of bureaucrats on very nice salaries and are often situated in very plush offices.
I could go on and on (please don't lol). Suffice to say that the Panorama programme is well worth a look, even if it is a bit hair raising.
The Nicky Campbell R5Live show this morning (March 29th) also dug a bit n more deeply into the looming crisis in British housing .. this is also worth a read ..
Renting: Number of UK homes available down by a third - BBC News 
Comments
I was in social housing for many years with Gallions/Peabody and they were great. The rent was very reasonable and we had four years in a row where the rent was actually reduced (only by a pound or two).
I had a problem with an old leaking tap and they came out within three days and replaced them all. A probem with the boiler was also sorted out quickly.
They also had a large item collection service and took away an old three-piece suite and mattress for free,
The only criticism was although we paid for neighborhood cleaning in with the rent, I never once saw anyone doing it. Us and various neighbours would take turns in picking up litter from the local area.
It was filled with mainly Filipinos working in low paid roles at the local hospital. The rent per house was astronomical and the landlord joyously told me they complied with all required regulations with fire doors etc.
I thought back to those rooms and their poor inhabitants as I bashed pots and pans together outside on Thursdays mid Covid times; they must have been absolutely riddled with Covid given the amount sharing a room and their profession.
I refused to have any dealings with the landlord as "legal" or not it was just horrible.
As Golfie says above it is many numerous Governments that have sold off council stock and then hammered smaller more responsible landlords making them unviable which have driven such a lack of stock that means people are forced into accepting whatever they can get and the less morally attuned landlords full the gap.
Nothing wrong with social housing but most of, if we are honest, want more from life. So surprise surprise, sell off houses at huge discounts and a few years down the road the tenants who bought have moved on but the houses really, more or less, have remained social housing but without much love for them by their new landlords. Add to this the monies raised in the sell offs went elsewhere and not to build houses. A nice bit of social engineering.
I always thought, when the right to buy was pushed out it might have been a better idea just to give the people who wanted to own a house a few grand towards their house owning dream and leave council houses in control of councils. Or an even better idea, if you want to buy a house don’t expect others to fund that dream. These houses are all or rather were all our assets but like a lot of things over the years have been sold off to fund today and not the future.
There is a lot of malevolence masquerading as capitalism in the private rental game. This is where people whose main argument for open borders immigration is so their posho kids don't have to do dirty, hard graft jobs and people from far far away can do them and live in squalor whilst being completely ripped off for the pleasure too.
Selling off council housing wasn't an awful idea but where did the money from that go? It didn't go on upgrading or even properly maintaining public infrastructure, it definitely didn't go on replacing the sold off stock. Successive governments are allowed to get away with their behaviour of selling off public assets to the lowest bidder.
So now we have housing crisis, cost of living crisis and both only squeeze those at the very bottom and those who think they are safe need to start looking over their shoulders. House prices are not coming down in line with the cost of mortgages which will probably mean interest rates go up again and unless you have a considerable amount of savings that is just another cost to be born
Sadly I think the housing situation is going to get worse before it gets better. As mortgage costs go up landlords are selling (or trying to ) or spending less on maintaining properties. You then have the change to EPC requirement coming, that will also lead to many selling.
The rental sector is going to get even more difficult.
On 52 properties (owned outright) the friendly society where I am a trustee just nudged 3% return last year. It’s getting to the point where it’s not really worth the hassle TBH, the additional cost & work required for the new EPC requirement levels will likely mean most will be sold.
yes they’ve seen capital growth, but not much different to having put in stocks and shares.
I have seen several of these programmes as well as experiencing it first hand all over the south east whilst working in the fire protection industry. I would not stay and drink a coffee in some of the buildings I have been in with no working fire alarm system, no emergency lighting and no fire escapes let alone sleep in one.
A lot of the people renting these properties do not use English as their fist language and a lot of the unscrupulous landlords are foreign nationals as well. The landlords know the tenants will be getting housing benefits so take them for what they can get whilst investing very little back into the property for maintenance.
I was truly shocked when I saw it is costing £6m a day to house those arriving by boat, that is a staggering £2b,190m per year!! However when these people are all found homes the merry go round starts again because the landlords waiting for them will be taking all their housing benefits and lining their pockets.
My sister has a small terraced house she rents out in Northern Ireland. At great expense the house needed a thorough refurb after the last tenant moved out. Her "market" for new tenants is also limited. She is not allowed to rent to anyone who isn't "local". The paramilitaries (both sides) will not allow it - no ethnics or we will burn the place down was the basic message. It wasn't an idle threat. She sees the house as her pension but frankly she's not making any money out of it.
A friend also rents out a small flat in Putney. (She used to live there before moving in with her partner). She makes a profit - just. But the on-going hassle from feckless tenants, the total uselessness of the letting agents, together with changes that mean that mortgage interest is no longer tax deductible is making her think it is just not worth the aggravation. I expect she will be taking it off the rental market when the tenants leave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rachman
The issue is, today when in the past (say) 70 years billions has been spent on slum clearances and the building of council housing, there is still a major (and growing) problem of both homelessness and inadequate housing.
Whole new towns were built (e.g.) Harlow & Stevenage, Milton Keynes, many examples to rehouse bombed out (the blitz not drunk and drugged) Londoners, Glaswegians, Mancunians etc. The answer is to build a few more new towns across our green and pleasant land. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
In my area there are literally thousands of bright new homes being built, almost exclusively 3/4/5 bedroom detached, builders want maximum profit from their landbanks.
This is bringing associated problems of inadequate schools traffic jams, new sewers, lack of shops, play areas, other amenities and such.
One new development of 600 homes three miles along the road has (I am told) a provision for 20 social houses. 'Social' defined by many potential buyers as meaning a drug addicted or drunken neighbour with 6 unruly kids, and who needs that when you move into your spanking new 4 bed detached ?
What is the solution? No idea.
Anybody see the large number of new high rises in Lewisham where plumbing and lifts don’t work?
You can buy a one bedroom matchbox there for half a million quid.
Like your SE13 example, every square inch of land adjacent to the billion pound refurbishment has been built on with scores of high rise blocks with many hundreds of flats crammed together with sky high rents and buy new prices .. many now advertised as Air B n B .. Properties To Rent in Battersea Power Station | Rightmove
There are also too many foreign owners, making too much money out of rental properties, especially in London where many are owned by wealthy Chinese and Russian people.
Even the more recently-built council housing in Greenwich and Lewisham is going for 50 per cent market rent ("London Affordable Rent"), which is usually justified by claiming that housing benefit will cover it.
so in your example we have skint councils relying on the general tax payer to subsidise their housing schemes through housing benefit ? .. thing is, how many of us would be prepared to pay through the nose higher taxes and hand it over to all too often inefficient, wasteful (not to say corrupt) local authorities to spend on our behalf .. the theme through this thread continues .. housing in far too many situations is in a deep and deepening crisis
I would be in favour of a LOT more local government intervention in the inspection and regulation of housing, as ever, the question is, who pays for it and would a rise in council tax be acceptable to fund it ? .. we do after all live in a 'I'm all right Jack society' where fixing problems is all too often seen as a better, cheaper option than preventing them .. only intervene when you hear a scream as a friend of mine once put it
I'd like to think we are very good landlords. All our houses are in good condition (despite most being 120+ years old). We charge sensible rents. We are tied by our society rules, we are supposed to have a rent that is at least 85% of market value, but bend that to a degree, our rents for 2/3 bed houses are some of if not the cheapest in Dartford. rents are on a 3 year rolling cycle for increases but even then we try to keep to a bare minimum.
We've just gone through a process of putting more insulation in all lofts, most now have a boiler under 10 years old, we'll refurbish between lets (most of our tenants stay a long time) and don't scrimp, if something needs repairing or replacing we do, we have the gutters cleaned, allow tenants a wider scope than most (decoration if they wish, pets are not an issue etc).
But it's become more and more onerous and less and less worthwhile from both a time and financial perspective. We will probably start from now to sell properties as they become vacant, however our tenants stay generally a long while, so we could get to a situation in around 5 years time of having to give notice, we won't if we can help it, but I can see it coming to that. There';s almost no way without spending £40-50k a property of getting them to the required EPC level and likely they'd have to be vacant to do so anyway.
Rent control was abolished by the Tories in 1988.
Oh - and this. https://www.landlordtoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2021/7/revealed--how-many-mps-are-landlords
As I say I think it’s more unintended consequences. Rent rises to unaffordable levels are the main issue I think. There needs to be some mechanism to limit rental amounts that landlords can get from councils : government.