A Conservative MP says he is to declare a “state of housing emergency” in his constituency because of the loss of stock away from long-term renting towards Airbnb-style short lets.
Anthony Mangnall, the Tory MP for Totnes in Devon, has told The Times: “There are just 19 properties you can rent long-term in the whole of South Hams on Rightmove, yet there are 300 advertised on Airbnb in Salcombe, another 300 in Kingsbridge, a similar number in Totnes.
“Yet we have hospital staff who can’t find anywhere to live, RNLI crew that can’t live in the town they serve. This is starting to become dangerous.”
The newspaper says he is being supported by other Tory MPs in the south west including Steve Double MP and Derek Thomas MP in Cornwall, plus another Conservative member in a tourist area - Duncan Baker MP in North Norfolk.
Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader who is MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, has launched a petition calling for planning laws to change to stop family housing being turned into second homes and holiday lets.
He says: “The market is utterly broken and if we don't step in we will see entire populations move out.”
The MPs all want Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick to introduce measures to ease the problem.
The Times suggests initiatives under consideration include regulation of Airbnb-style rentals; incentives for landlords to let to local people; the building of more affordable homes; restrictions on the number of holiday and second homes; and the ability to impose more substantial council tax surcharges on second homes.
In the first six months of 2021, nearly 15,000 second homes were bought in Britain according to statistics from Hamptons.
In some areas of the Lake District, north Norfolk, Devon and Cornwall, up to 80 percent of houses are thought to be holiday lets or second homes, The Times claims.
A statement from Airbnb says:“Airbnb is built on the foundation of helping locals afford their homes and the majority of UK Hosts share a space in their own home with nearly half of UK Hosts saying that the additional income is an economic lifeline.
"We take housing concerns seriously and always welcome the opportunity to work with governments on solutions.
"We have already put forward proposals for a host registration system to the Government following a UK-wide consultation with local authorities and communities, and we are delighted to see the Government commit to consulting on measures as part of its Tourism Recovery Plan.”
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It's actually not for private landlords to provide social housing or solve a housing shortage. The government have relied on private landlords for years to solve this problem. Build more affordable housing and allow landlords to carry on investing as they should, to ensure they receive the best yields. Right to buy was a fantastic scheme to level up, but the government didn't think to replace this stock with new homes fit for purpose. Build more homes! Let landlords be landlords!
The discriminating new tax laws introduced to hammer landlords. No other business or small business have had such laws placed upon them.
Then you have the new rules on Electric checks, section 21 and 8 and more to be introduced
Pets cannot be ruled out and the cost and damage done to your property
Enough is enough all landlords should stand shoulder to shoulder to fight these demands on Landlords.
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Perhaps if landlords had the same protection from rogue tenants as the tenants enjoy from rogue landlords. Perhaps Airbnb would not be so attractive.
Let's hope they understand it is time to help the PRS instead of raping and damaging it. The lack of rental property is not because of short term letting, it is because a lot of private landlords are exiting the sector.
Too right and now the government is worrying and in dire straits loss of revenue from landlords
make it impossible to run a business and then wonder what's gone wrong.
Just worried if Labour got into power that would be the end of the rental market
How about abolishing Section 24 tax regs. That would make long term more attractive as an investment again. Short term rentals currently enjoys similar tax advantages long term used to have.
I do not blame landlord's crossing over to short lets one bit, if you are investing money in something you want to get the best return right?
Incentivise landlords to grow their portfolios for the PRS not bully them into selling or finding other ways to capitalise them. Don’t blame them for lack of investment by previous and current government.
This is just huffing and puffing by MPs anxious to persuade constituents that they are doing something. But actually its just words. The problem of housing availability is hardly new. And with 300,000 more people coming into the UK every year than leaving the problem only gets worse .
This is just huffing and puffing by MPs anxious to persuade constituents that they are doing something. But actually its just words. The problem of housing availability is hardly new. And with 300,000 more people coming into the UK every year than leaving the problem only gets worse .
A good opportunity for investors to get involved in Totnes, Devon. Section 24 can be navigated by buying in an LTD just so ya know. PD offers great opportunities to convert office and retail into residential, so more housing. What the Liberal MP is looking for is an Article 4 directive, which will only make the housing more unaffordable over the long term.
"Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader who is MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, has launched a petition calling for planning laws to change to stop family housing being turned into second homes and holiday lets."
When did the Liberals stop being liberal?
The party that flogged off council houses very cheaply and has open borders!!
You really couldn’t make this up! A TORY - yes, TORY!! - MP has finally decided that there aren’t enough rental houses! What a surprise! It was his government who insisted on forcing through section 24 despite all the obvious complaints and arguments against it. Yeah what did these idiots do? Told us that it wouldn’t affect rental housing, that the rents would not go up and that the supply would not diminish. This MP obviously missed Osborne saying of Section 24 that he wanted ‘to tax out of existence’ the ‘things he didn’t want’, and clearly isn’t aware of the Treasury statement on S24 which said ‘If it’s hurting landlords, it’s working’. Perhaps he is ignorant of the fact that the Treasury told us that the S24 policy must be enacted ‘at all costs’. Well, these are the costs! The very costs his govt were warned about repeatedly (even during the court case!) but refused to acknowledge. How can these people be so stupid? They KNEW the obvious results at the time yet now act like it’s all a mystery to them?! Unbelievable. The utter fools.
Combined with other disjointed, reactionary policies designed to curry short term favour and plug holes, without considering the bigger picture, for instance, relaxing the affordable requirement for developers and then pretty much stopping all social house building for 20 years, or inflaming house prices to make home ownership a dream now for most young people, or the idiotic way they have handled the fallout of the cladding crisis with lenders.... I could go on....
Unbelievable. The Tory have spent the last 6 years beinging in anti-Landlord rules, regulations and taxes (with even more in the pipeline like abolishing Sec.21) driving Landlords out of the PRS and then express surprise when there's no properties to rent!
@AnthonyMangnal1
Drive out all the landlords with excess and largely unnecessary legislation and then introduce more legislation to correct the previous legislative errors. Above all never concede that an error has been made.
Big fleas (legislation) have little fleas (legislation) upon their backs to bite them, and little fleas (legislation) have lesser fleas (legislation), and so ad infinitum.
Tory proposal " well we introduced legislation that f***ed up the long term letting industry, so lets introduce more legislation that'll f*** up the tourist industry, and while we're at it let's introduce more legislation (aka abolishing Sec.21) to f*** up the rental market even more".
divide and rule had worked wonders with the colonies which caused us to loose in the end and here we go again - lets try it at home now. divide the business sector give one something and take it away from the other sector
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