0:05 AM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago 11
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As the Welsh Government unveils its Green Paper to address adequate rented housing and fair rents, the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) is calling on landlords to make their views known.
It says that everyone concerned with housing matters should voice their opinions on shaping the destiny of the private rented sector in Wales.
The call comes after government announced a consultation which aims to gather insights on understanding rents, including affordability, and strategies for enhancing rented home supply and quality in the sector.
The chief executive of the NRLA, Ben Beadle, said: “The Green Paper highlights the key issues as housing supply and affordability of rents in Wales.
“Let’s be clear, rent controls would serve only to decimate the sector further and would be a disaster for tenants, when so many are already struggling to find a place to rent.”
He added: “The Minister herself diagnosed the issues when she rightly rejected calls for a rent freeze before Christmas. The same reasons apply now.
“We all want to see more homes available to rent but adopting the tried and failed ideology of rent controls is not the way to do it.”
He says the best way for the Welsh government to deal with housing issues is to introduce pro-growth measures that will boost housing supply and reduce rents.
Mr Beadle said: “Now is the time for landlords to get involved and for the Welsh Government to listen carefully to the views of those providing much needed homes.”
The NRLA says that its members should respond to the consultation call and submit their views.
Commenting on the Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru call for evidence on securing a path towards adequate housing, including fair rents and affordability, Janet Finch-Saunders MS, a Conservative assembly member, said: “More socialist and nationalist red tape and consultations are not going to reduce rents and deliver more affordable housing.
“Instead of focussing on doubling our new house building rate in Wales, the Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru cooperation government are focussed on attacking the tourism sector, alienating visitors, and driving private landlords out of Wales.
“I have repeatedly delivered a clear plan to the Welsh Parliament that would deliver more houses, more social and affordable homes, and more homes to rent in Wales.”
Ms Finch-Saunders added: “The Renting Homes (Wales) Act has caused a tsunami of landlords to leave the sector. It needs to be scrapped.
“We need to be delivering new social housing in crisis communities where locals are struggling to afford a home, and empower them to buy that home after a decade.
“What we don’t need is rent controls, which international evidence from a number of continents has already proven to be a disaster.
“I am fighting to deliver homes for local people. All Labour and Plaid Cymru are doing is providing a false façade that they are tackling the problem of lack of housing, when in reality they are making the crisis worse, pushing more families into temporary accommodation, alienating landlords and villainising visitors.”
The paper – ‘A Call for Evidence on Securing a Path Towards Adequate Housing’ – makes clear that the government is ‘interested in people’s experience of the cost of renting a home in Wales’.
One of the issues raised is that of potentially imposing rent control measures.
The document says that some countries have rules that regulate rents, such as rent caps, and asks tenants if they believe that rent controls are needed in Wales.
The consultation period ends on 15 September and the responses will ‘inform the development of a White Paper’ consultation next year – landlords and those interested can submit their views online.
Gavin Putland
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Sign Up8:29 AM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
What's better than rent control? A market in which landlords have to compete against each other for tenants, instead of the other way around. How do you get that sort of market? Not by making it less attractive to supply accommodation, but by making it less attractive NOT to—by imposing a tax on vacant lots and unoccupied buildings. The "vacancy tax", as it is sometimes called, is not limited to what real-estate agents call vacancies, i.e. properties advertised for rent; it also applies to unoccupied properties that are not on the rental market (preferably including vacant land, so as not to encourage demolition or deter construction), and prompts the owners to find occupants in order to avoid the tax.
A vacancy tax is good for general taxpayers because *avoiding* the vacancy tax requires economic activity, which expands the *bases* of other taxes, allowing their *rates* to be lower.
A vacancy tax on commercial property is good for residential property owners because it keeps nearby commercial properties populated with employers and service-providers. It's good even if you're a commercial property owner because it keeps nearby commercial properties populated with complementary businesses that will attract foot traffic to *your* property!
A vacancy tax on residential property is good for commercial property owners because it keeps nearby residential properties populated with prospective customers and workers. And it's good for homeowners with mortgages because it is anti-inflationary, making the central bank less likely to raise interest rates and more likely to lower them!
And of course a vacancy tax is good for real-estate agents because it generates more rental-management fees or, if owners decide to sell rather than let, sales commissions.
Monty Bodkin
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Sign Up9:27 AM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Gavin Putland at 07/06/2023 - 08:29
Are you American?
Wales has a population of 3,100,000 and 27,000 vacant homes.
Vermont has a population of 645,000 and 78,000 vacant homes.
A vacancy tax in Wales is not the solution to a problem the Welsh government has created.
Monty Bodkin
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Sign Up9:28 AM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Rent controls have failed everywhere they have been tried.
GlanACC
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Sign Up9:36 AM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Gavin Putland at 07/06/2023 - 08:29
I think its fair to say that at the moment landlords DO NOT have to compete against each other to get tenants, there are at least 9 prospective tenants for each rented propertyy. Getting a good tenant is a different matter.
howdidigethere
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Sign Up10:57 AM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Gavin Putland at 07/06/2023 - 08:29
Although your proposition carries a certain logic in a certain paradigm, it is fundamentally flawed and is really quite damaging.
Taxation has never proved to be a way to elicit market productivity.
The lack of taxation is what drives market productivity.
Moreover, to tax on a property that is not conducting business is effectively theft by the point of a gun, and is a perversion of private property rights. The end of that road is that if you refuse to pay the tax you lose your property, so don't pretend that your rights are not infringed.
And so far as price controls go, this has been done by all empires that are desperate and have overspent. Ancient Rome is a good example, and nothing has changed. Anyone see any rhymes in debasement of currency and extended wars and territory???
The legislative puppets are doing what they are told to and have to look to be doing SOMETHING. The ACTAUL-THING they should be doing is NO-THING. Economy is a natural thing that best thrives in the protection of a benign gardener, not an interfering and over-trimming and over watering control freak creating a frankenstein beast that destroys it's creator. And everything else around them.
Neilt
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Sign Up11:30 AM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
You do all realise that rent control will arrive in England as soon as Labour gets into power
Freda Blogs
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Sign Up12:59 PM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Neilt at 07/06/2023 - 11:30
Quite possibly, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it or agree with it.
Neilt
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Sign Up14:35 PM, 7th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Freda Blogs at 07/06/2023 - 12:59
I do agree, Freda, but what I'm saying is we need to plan for the future. In my case, I'm getting out
Trevor Armstrong
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Sign Up4:53 AM, 8th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Airbnb are the one of the drivers of higher rents now, buying up vacant properties for short term lets starve the market for long term tenants and drive up rental prices.
All air bnb should be taxed at a much higher rate and those funds ringfenced for new builds - alternately taxed at a lower rate if new builds are funded by the landlord with a specific build for Airbnb.
Freda Blogs
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Sign Up8:12 AM, 8th June 2023, About 2 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Neilt at 07/06/2023 - 14:35
Indeed. Me too.