The truth about Britain's housing crisis | Vicky Spratt interview 

Since Thatcher sold off council houses, utilities and the railways we are slowly going back to Victorian times. Low wages and a great divide between rich & poor.

The problem is the lack of long term social affordable housing. It's down from 5.5 million (late 1970's) to 4 million today, a 1.5 million loss while the UK's population has grown 11 million in the last 40 years. Private rented property isn't social, it can't and should not replace social housing. All shades of government have ducked their responsibility to generate enough social housing to meet the UK's needs. We need a genuine effort to invest in large scale affordable social housing.

As an Australian id like to correct one thing she said. Long term fixed rate mortgages do not exist here so we cop it on every rate rise just like the brits.

Rather than rent control, I'd prefer mass amounts of social housing like in Vienna. Rent control tends to be ripe for exploitation and second order effects that were unpredicted. However, building such a large amount of social housing obviously takes time so likely would require rent control in place until it can be built.

Between 2004 and 2009, 1.5 million people came to uk. These were EU citizens arriving and needing housing. This had a huge impact on our housing resource.

occurs to me we cant compete internationally on wages because we are so burdened with housing costs, so we lose our jobs , then our homes, happy days

I'm a landlord (hisss, booo etc) thought this was a great conversation. I agree that the changes in the 80s with right to buy and AST's started the ball rolling in this direction but also private landlord numbers really took off when access to finance became easier. With 20k deposit you can get a BTL mortgage on a terrace house in the North West.I work on construction sites and and joiners and plumbers are doing these so they have an asset to sell at retirement, it isn't always about making loads of profit out of renters. The property I have is for supported living so doesn't affect the private market in the same way, I know a lot of people doing this too. I think this podcast and the new statesman can be a little london centric. The NW needs a lot of rentable housing, some people will never save for a depoist even if values were only three times wages like in the 70's then there's students, young professionals etc. Last point is that rent controls from the examples I have read about led to a worsening of rental supply and increased rents like in Scotland and Berlin but I believe the latter have now repealed that legislation to help increase supply. I would have liked to hear Vickys' thoughts on Scotland and why rent controls haven't seemed to be help.I'm sure she would have given an eloquent answer. I'm pretty sure rent controls will happen though with labour coming in so will have to just roll with it. Just hope it doesn't make matters worse

If you increase the population by 15% ish in 20 years through immigration then what do you expect is going to happen ?

...you're getting there. Would it surprise you to hear Architects were arguing about this twenty years ago? Some of us saw what was coming... we just didn't win the argument at the time.

I worked in public sector housing management for over 40 years and I absolutely agree with you. The problems really began with the Right To Buy and the introduction of ‘assured tenancies’ in 1989, which basically scrapped all protections for tenants. Scrapping of new build housing standards and a lack of enforcement of building regulations have encouraged the familiar ‘race to the bottom’ in so many aspects of life in the U.K.

Section 21, sale and non replacement of council houses, buy to let mortgages, homes being bought by overseas investors, houses as investments not homes...

Also how about controlling immigration, 2nd and overseas buyers, just saying

London population 1990 6.7M / 2024 9.7M 44% rise. UK population only rose 18% in that time. London is just too successful, too popular. Nice and cheap here in the sticks.

I think MPs being landlords is absolutely connected. When I was at uni ten years ago, it was not illegal to rent homes that were classed unfit for human habitation. Those laws that mandate that responsibility have come in pretty recently, and were voted down by parliament initially. Also, further to your later point, when I lived in Cardiff most of my landlords were not based in the UK. They were from the Middle East and their properties were managed by letting agencies. But that meant whenever anything broke, the letting agent was meant to contact the owner before any action could be taken. I lived in one property for 14 months, while the letting agent had zero contact or responses from the owner, meaning nothing got fixed, and we had to contest losing our deposits for fixing things ourselves. Renting is punitive as hell.

Immigration is a big contributor to the housing crisis. I am a landlord in Australia and Germany and nearly 75% of the applications were recent arrivals.

If rent controls are introduced, expect to be living in your car or a tent. The queue for rent controlled accommodation in Sweden is 30 years long.

Advocating Rent controls speaks to an underlying lack of economic understanding. The housing market as a whole is inflated and it’s not just about rentals, that is just a side effect. It’s already not economic to be a landlord in much of Britain which pushes rents up as people leave the sector. Beneath it all? Too many people in the country for the resources we have and too much prime London property used as a piggy bank not a home. The latter should be heavily taxed.

The government we have here has recently applied rent controls here in my city, Barcelona, what a disaster! After only a few months there are now about 20% less apartments for rent in the city and it's going to get worst, rent controls don't work!

Watching people who still do not understand supply and demand is beautiful to watch. Not one mention of the problem

wait a minute, if your flat is worth 2mill, how much will the house you want to buy be? the madness is that it's phantom equity, which you can only benefit from if you leave the country to somewhere with sane house prices.

Before COVID I rented out a large room in my house for £600 a month. Now I'm thinking of getting another tennant. But since then the government/central bank has increased the money supply by over 30%. If you were to say to me I can't increase the rent to get at least the same in real value, then I'll just leave the room empty. Even landlords with multiple properties are in basically the same position. The problem is the fiat currency being inflated away leading to lower real wages, while places to rent are limited. Landlords are not going to provide accomodation without a profit incentive. The UK needs to allow wages to rise, tax workers far less, cut government spending and immigration dramatically, and build more houses. And ultimately have some kind of return to a harder currency. Rent controls will just cause a shortage of places to rent.

Things are out of control. £800-1100 for a 1 bedroom flat is insane. That with council tax is 1/2 my pay. 😢

Long term fixed rates are not common in Australia - USA yes, Australia no..... pretty much the same as UK

The sub prime wasn’t caused by people on low incomes getting 100% mortgages, it was caused by homeowners remortgaging their homes to release cash and these loans with ridiculous high interest being packaged up and sold as securities on Wall Street.

Rent control aint going to fix the problem. Its "Supply & Demand". With the lack of social housing avaliable or being built aint keeping up with the demand. Landlords/investors are actually turning old derelict run-down properties and turning them into housing stock. Therefore helping the housing crisis.

Rent controls are going really well in Scotland! It has resulted in more rapid contraction of supply and even higher percentage increases in rents than in England over the same period. I also find it economically illiterate to deny that the rules of supply and demand don’t apply to housing when it comes to immigration? The answer is to build a million new homes and drastically cut immigration.

If you introduce rent control, landlords will just sell up, they are not in it for a charitable reason. Council Housing should Never have been sold off. Big Mistake..

Vicky obviously cares about getting housing for all and is trying to fix the house crises. She is very articulate, but I dont agree will all her thoughts. 1. House Price Inflation only favours those on their last house, or BTL investors. Everyone else ends up paying more when they trade up their house. Even some of those coborts who directly benefit, will end up paying large deposits for their kids to help them onto an unaffordable housing ladder. 2. The Private Rental sector is not "unregulated". It is full of rules and regulations, many of which are simply not needed (e.g. Legionairres certificate ). This is especially true in Scotland. 3. 9% Rent inflation is not " far above recent inflstion". 4. Rent controls are not the answer. Building more homes to increase rental home supply is the answer. 5. Northern Rock did not crash because of 125% Mortgages. It crashed because it was overly depenedent of the wholsale markets for its funding. This caused the lender a liquidity crises when the markets stopped lending. The government actually made a profit for the sale of the good bank to Virgin Money and the back bank to other investors. The main fix is to build more homes, especially good quality council homes. Labour when they come in, need to start doing this. Constantly focusing on Landlords with more admin and more restrictions, leads to Landlords leaving the market, leaving less homes for rental, and ultimately renters worse off. All thay said, I totally agree that owning your own home helps drive the econony, supports a healthy population, and reduces crime, and other bad outcomes.

This woman is highly impressive. Knowledgeable, calm, concise, explains difficult concepts in a translatable way, and has a very soothing, persuasive voice. You can tell the housing crisis makes her angry, but that anger is measured, which is great rhetorically since it makes her very difficult to disagree with. We need to see much more of her.

The most pressing issue is the economic inequality between ‘us’ and the super rich! Not the ever decreasing middle classes (some of which may be a landlord with one extra property, struggling to survive!) and the even poorer poor who are now going to food banks! Tax the super rich and corporations who don’t pay ANY tax at all and are controlling governments! Landlords NEVER evict without a reason! There is ALWAYS a reason! Once the new bill goes through…. Landlords will just GIVE the reason! It won’t make ANY difference!!

It was the 1988 Housing Act that removed rent control when Thatcher was PM.

I've experienced rough sleeping. The majority of rough sleepers are not from other countries. I never saw none native English people on the streets. People from other countries are taking housing stock from native English people regardless of the state of the roof, native English are at the back of the queue when it comes to shelter. I was brow beaten into making use of the right to buy and it lead to homelessness. Huge mistake removing housing stock from the councils. J P Morgan is one name behind Serco swallowing up private rental housing for exclusively none native English folk.

My UK taxes don’t owe a Sudanese illegal immigrant a home, whether there are enough dwellings or not.

672,000 people settled in the UK last year, 745,000 in 2021-22.Yes there are other factors but if this figure was cut to zero we'd alleviate the stress. We simply cant keep building more houses, the queue to leave my small town stretches nearly the entire length of the town in both directions at rush hour. Yet there is 52 new houses going up next to me, 400 on the outskirts and many more in between. We simply can't handle the population size, unless you want everyone to live in a single room with a wardrobe in the corridor, I personally don't.

Yes migrants might take the worst accomodation INITIALLY. That is still accomodation that would have been available for a native citizen who might have generations living in the UK. Even then, where do you think that migrant will go once they are established ? They don’t magically disappear. How can you straight face say that population increases don’t factor in. It’s not the only factor but it is a key factor. Also wealth inequality and older generations sitting in incorrectly sized houses and lack of social housing.

I think you've already missed the boat. Yes rent should be proportional to income but because so many landlords have mortgages, which are based on the base rate, as soon as it becomes unprofitable, they decide to no longer to be a landlord. Great on paper, but if you're renting because of your inability to get on the housing ladder, this won't help you short term either. The problem that has to be address which will address all others after it is the supply of housing. There simply isn't enough and until there is, prices will continue to rise.

Weird that housing price inflation is the only inflation we deem justified . It’s been a catastrophic experiment.

Immigration both legal, illegal, asylum obviously impacts the demand for housing supply in this country, you either increase supply or you reduce the demand, govts of both colours have failed to do either.

I am an out of work gas engineer. Why does the government not create a civil building service to help people that are qualified and competent, but don't have the experience to gain employment in athe private sector. I invest 6.2k and 6 months of unpaid work to het myself qualified and the army and government have just abandoned me. There are people unemployed with skills like me that can make difference if there was leadership, but that is what happens when your counrltry is lead by bankers!

Rent has gone up for one reason, more tenants than available property. This has been partly caused by all the additional costs that have been put onto landlord. It's very easy for a landlord to exit the market. You mentioned the pre 1988 rent control period, this resulted in few private landlords, so the state had to step in and buy houses and become social landlord. That takes time and society's money, need to do that first before forcing all the private landlords to exit.

Not landlords, the correct term is home scalpers.

Need to stop blaming the landlords and start blaming the politicians for lack of social housing. As a landlord (not me) you want to make profit otherwise it’s a pointless exercise not saying to make a killing but needs to be a worthwhile profit. Adding regulation will add expense to the landlords which will be pass3d onto the renters. The reason rents go up is because house prices and mortgage rates go up the more they go up the more rent goes up. Why? Because nobody is going to mortgage at 1k a month and rent it for less so you have to cover mortgage management fees and any work that needs doing to the house. On top of this you can’t offset your mortgage as a tax deduction this move they introduced a few years back really exacerbated the rent increases as again the cost got passed into the renter. More social housing is the only answer

I wish they spoke more about increasing the housing supply and zoning laws

Are they really small or are the table and microphone just big

As soon as you say "rent control" you say "I'm a halfwit". It does NOT work. You get an even larger shortage of housing. It certainly doesn't free any up long term. Rent works on a basic supply and demand curve. You want lower rent you have to collapse house prices. The UK version of social housing is a fine if you add vast quantities of housing to that. The costs of ownership are too high and THAT is what is passed on in rent. It's not a "license to print money", most landlords made far more money on the increases in values (assuming those get realized before a much needed collapse). Rent can rarely cover costs though I do agree with the housing theory of everything in many senses. If housing is expensive, so will be everything else. Anyone excited to watch their house values increase is silly unless they are super wealthy with many properties.

We don't have enough houses, that's why there's a housing crisis. Rent controls will be great for those who are in a place but it's not gonna fix the underlying issue that there aren't enough homes to go around.

The council houses that were sold off haven't ceased to exist. They've simply changed from being (relatively) cheap homes for rent to (relatively) cheap homes for sale.

A landlord can offer rent control in exchange for tenant control. If a landlord can't quickly evict a bad tenant then losses are greater than having cheaper rent.

Just spit-balling, but would rent control that is implemented based on the quality of the house work? Like if we graded the house based on general conditions then rent could be increased at a higher level. (Like, if the property didn't have a damp problem, for example.) It would incentivise landlords to keep the property in working order and would stop/restrict them from scalping the tenants?

The idea of a 40-year mortgage is truly insane. It can only make sense for someone who knows that he or she will inherit a great deal of wealth in future decades to pay off the debt with the proceeds of the sale of their parents' house. Cross your fingers that your parents don't get seriously ill and need round- the clock residential care that will force them to sell the house before they die...

5 years ago i paid 90k for my house, it needed stripping back to brick and new everything, 1 owner from the 70's and i dont have drive way, my mortgage is now 305, thanks to liz truss and a 2am re-mortgage, The house over the road from me, which at the time i got mine would have been 125k ish, 3 bed semi with a driveway, is up for and has now rented out for £900 a month in st helens... If that was my rent, i would need a 2nd income or a lodger, there is no way i could afford that, never mind save anything to be able to one day have a deposit to move out and buy my own place.

Can we have food heating and fuel controls as well? Why not clothing cost controls? and public travel cost controls as well? 🤦‍♂️

Rent controls are not the solution. If you force a private owner to reduce the price of the rent they will take the houses from rent. If you want them to reduce the cost of rent, the government should give a tax discount whenever they follow the regulation. Otherwise, nobody will be interested in letting their investments.

I find it incredibly sad that so many people do not understand what is really going on. Since 1971 we have been on a fiat system where money has not been backed by anything, but the money supply really increased after the 2008 crisis, when they bailed out the banks. Then we had COVID and the money printing really got out of control. 60% of all Dollars in existence were created in the last 3 years. This huge debasement of money has created asset price inflation, widening the gap between rich and poor. Rent controls will not work, you have to stop the central banks from printing money to cover government deficits or it will get worse. We work for money that they can create at a press of a button. It does not make sense right? They create more money and the amount in your bank does not change, but what it can buy falls. They are stealing from us. It is not landlords, or companies or immigrants: the money is broken. We should be all be benefiting from the efficiency gains that technology brings us. Technology makes things cheaper and is therefore deflationary. Then why does the Bank of England have a 2% inflation target? Answer: that is the amount they can steal from us without us noticing. Right now, we can see the inflation that THEY caused - it is expressed in houses, food, rent, stock everything. We are about to enter a significant currency crisis within the next 10 years and hope more people can learn about what is really happening, or there will be so much pain.

also possible to refinance the fixed rates loans when rates drop. you will pay some fees which can be rolled into the loan, typically there is a savings. the uk system seems crazy. i guess it explains grand designs.

Great interview. Love the housing Theory of Everything. Such an underdiscussed and underreported yet profoundly important area of our lives. Top work to Vick S and PolJoe. Maybe a part 2 soon to discuss the creeping insurgency of institutional landlords, which may be worse than the privateers and their letting-agent cousins.

Uncontrolled capitalisim always eats it's self.

I get what she's saying about house prices I'm a month out from exchanging contracts and the recent fall in house prices has been great for getting me on the ladder, however I would like to see them come down further what, I had to do (in terms of saving up for the house) to get here was insane and is something I wouldn't wish on anyone as I had to put my entire life on hold for 3 years to do it, no holidays, gigs, cinema trips, festivals or any large expenses plus being so careful with day to day spending as well (all while living with my parents) it's been grim. But now I get a home to call my own that's safe and secure and my life will soon be in my hands once again and something everyone should be able to work towards without going to the extremes I have to do it. Cap rents and find someway of stagnating the housing market (building a few million new homes mostly social/affordable housing would do the trick I reckon) and I'd be fine with that, yes the value of my house might go down or stay the same but I'll take it if everyone else gets to have the security both in terms of their financial and living situation.

Add the dimension of disability in and you're royally screwed. You're trying to either save for a deposit on about 1.4x the average couples income (in a cost of living crisis) or you're being overlooked for rentals by people/couples with higher salary income. If you've got mobility issues you need ground floor/bungalow or a place with lifts. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's SO much harder, and nobody talks about this element

Making a basic necessity a central asset is a huge problem.

Rent controls tried in Scotland. They were told time and time again it won’t solve the problem, but make it worse. Guess what happened.

I live in London and am surrounded by upper middle class peers. It’s very common for them be to be given a few hundred thousand by a grandparent to buy a home. These sorts of people don’t want to raise the playing field for the rest for us as their status will be lowered. They do not want to the rest of us to be levelled up. The average English person does not like to admit that they are struggling either.

The government will never build everyone a home because it would fuck house prices to a point that only desirable houses would be worth anything

Food and Shelter are a basic need. You would think it was disgusting if someone bought up all the surplus food there was and drip fed it to the poor at ever inflating prices, right? Why do we think it’s ok to do that with shelter? In 2024, theres many ways to invest money, outside of property. It shouldn’t be seen as an ‘investment’ class. You should only be able to own the home you live in.

Now I know where my dad's glasses from the early 1980s went.

Being a landlord isnt a license to print money, being government is. It just so happens that property prices (and by extension rents) rise with inflation (printing of money)

If we had not had millions of new people moving to the UK since 1997 the pressure on housing would be massively reduced.

Wow great guest. Well spoken, concise and engaging

One issue in the UK is that were love subsiding low quality people. Me and my wife work in finance. We have 2 jobs. We save up for our new build which cost 250k. There are 8 houses around us that were given to unemployed people. And 5 more are rented out to people on benefits who don’t work. Jesus Christ

when people buy a home, they place themselves into the community, in an area, they also feel a responsibility to improve the community and try to reduce negative situations in the community (and im not talking blocking new builds)... How often do people say "people dont even talk to their neighbours anymore" ? Well people are fed up with making friends with people only for them to be booted out in 18 months time... if everyone just rents they know they are there temporarily, (especially when they look into the future and think, I wont be able to afford to rent this place in X years time...) so areas become a coming and going people. At best - they couldn't care less about: local businesses, if the streets they live on are a path of degradation , the people around them or honestly if the accomodation they live in falls into disrepair - we only have to endure this for another 12 months and were moving to X country/city/town/suburb. At worst - you create (and it is going to hit very very soon) a majority of greater than 65 year olds that cannot afford to live anywhere because their income doesnt exist and the dole wont cover it.... and our retiring population end up in tents like in the USA.... but those with parents with multiple properties, they will be ok

Well said you are a national treasure as a retired senior project manager construction I see the way forward will be achieved by housing co ops what we have now is a national housing DISASTER

We need to build 3 million council houses , but with MPs and journalist owning homes it will never happen

Thank you so much for highlighting this issue.

Consider this: Rent has gone up because of currency inflation across the globe. Housing has become an 'export' along with arms, technology and pharmaceuticals. As such, new-build houses have become institutional trading chips and not homes. Likewise with population is necessary for a consumer economy.

Switzerland has rent controls based on investment in the property and average mortgage interest rates. I quite like it now, but i honestly don't know if it helps. In such an organised and wealthy country there is underinvestment and lack of availability. Switzerland is small and highly organised which makes me doubt this system would work on a bigger scale.

There are few things a govt can do to raise the GDP without a lot of effort (which never happens). Letting the rent income get so out of control is an easy way the govt helps its economy whilst doing absolutely nothing. Same for house prices, allowing greed to rule. It's a windfall to hard to reject, it's never going to happen.

Essay Warning: I've been researching housing unaffordability for seven years and am about to start writing a dissertation on Rent Control (℅ Dr Anna Minton). After all these years of trying to find solutions, the elephant in the room is Rent Control. Why? Because it gets right to the heart of the issue, which is, in fact (drum roll)......Land values. A disappointing and slightly dull answer, but it's one of the keys that have unlocked many doors for working and middle-class people who don't want to spend 30-50% of their income on a 40-year mortgage or rent to a landlord. Some of the main authors to thank for this conclusion are: John Doling (tries to be neutral), Danny Dorling (left), Nick Bano (left), Kemp (right), and Christine Whitehead (LSE, right). It is always good to see if there is a counter-argument of value-there isn't. (As well as Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Keynes, Piketty, Blyth, Mazzucato, Christophers, Kenton, Richard Murry and Minton) Why? An example: I'm a former bricklayer who ran a business in construction, so I know about house building pricing. My humble little flat; In 1994 was purchased for £47,700 with a floor area of 42m². In 1994, it cost £600 per m² all in to build, thus £25,200 to rebuild. Therefore, 53% build/47% land value = £47,700. Now (without all the breakdowns) it’s 33% build/67% land value! @£250K purchase price (based on £2K/m² rebuild). The killer: in the 1950s, land values of new builds dropped to 3%. Based on those values and present-day build values (£2K per/m²), my flat would be on the market for £86,600, which equates to 2.4 times the full-time national average income (£35K). 2.4 times was also the amount needed in the 1950s-60s for an average income to buy an average 2.5 bed semi (.5 being the box room). History 1910-1988 In 1910, 10% of the population owned 90% of property; they were the private rental sector (PRS) at their height. Then, as Vicky explained, WW1 backdated rent freeze and various forms of rent control until 1988. What rent control does to the PRS is reduce their needed yield to make the investment worth the hassle; otherwise, they’d put it in government bonds/stock markets, etc. So they got out, often selling to their tenants (one million properties were sold by landlords to their tenants from 1920-1930). This caused the once high land values (remember the percentage of the final price) to crash. Along with government-regulated and subsidised mortgages (1% below the base rate) from highly regulated Mutual Building Societies (banks were not allowed post-1929; this reverted back in 1986 via the 'Big Bang' of financial deregulation of the banks, financial services, and stock market) as well as something called stop/go policy (a whole other subject). Suffice it to say, by the 1950s land values had dropped to between 3-15% of the total value. The government (of both colours, i.e., post-war consensus till 1979) made sure it stayed there so it could purchase land for New Towns and social housing. A win-win. All because rent control killed the commodified land value market. By the late 1970s the PRS has dropped to 7% from 90% (1910) and there were serious conversations as to whether it would cease to exist. Nobody was crying out for more PRS, just more social housing and potential ownership. Now? So far (still working on this concerning covering known consequences). Rent Control has to be national, with an initial backdated rent freeze for 3-5 years. Then a form of rent control. What form? Well, in fact, we still have a form of rent control in Shared Ownership that was never tackled in 1988. My Shared Ownership of 50% was based on the 3% of the original purchase value the former owner purchased it on (I took over the lease), which was around £64K in 1990. Thus, minus the deposit, £32K @3% = £960 per annum divided by 12 months = £80 per month. The annual rent increase in law (at the time and in the lease agreement) is no more than RPI (now the lower CPI). Therefore, over the years, my rent has fallen behind market rents. No need for rent assessments, rent officers, the economy, i.e., national CPI inflation determines the max (some years it was 0%) amount. In reality, it would take between 10-20 years for the housing market (i.e., land values) to return from the present 70-90% land values to 15%. The losers: PRS, but they have already had their dividends via unearned rent. Those who bought at the height, falling into negative equity, I would suggest a reduction in term. End of this ridiculous mortgage market. Variable and that's it for the life of the mortgage. Return of Mutuals only, no banks. Banks (but they never lose). The winners: Everybody else. Conclusion: The Nordics have this idea that each generation should cut the apron strings when they leave home. So young people can (like I could, due to the accident of birth in 1964) buy a home without the Bank of Mum and Dad or grandparents' inheritance. Parents don't need to amass wealth to pass on, as the kids can afford it on their own. Now we just need to tackle university/further education (free at the point of need), child and elderly care (free at the point of need), and homelessness (Finland: we have homeless people; answer: build homes. It has worked). I was at a Further Education event (ICE at Cambridge) and I suggested a Beveridge 2.0, to which someone (correctly) said it has to get a lot worse (i.e., 1930s) before people will respond to a modern-day Beveridge Report (1943) that was the springing point of the Attlee 1945 reformist government that gave us Nye Bevan, housing and health secretary, who led to housing reform and the NHS. This is brief and basic. housingresearch.solutions For further information and updates on the dissertation, if you are at all interested in 'solutions' to the problems we are already aware of. Thanks Vicky (great book read it as soon as it came out) and Joe for a great interview.

Nearly everybody knows how to play Monopoly. Nobody seems to learn the lesson

Several solutions: A family - a home. Nobody can own more than a property. If you want a house by the beach, you move to the beach or go to a Hotel. Only english people can buy a property. If you are a migrant you would need to live in UK for X year and have the full residency to be able to buy. Not living in UK, not option to buy a house. Now, that is dictatorship laws, but I can of agree with those, and is applicable to all the countries. Like the british moving to spain and buy houses causing the prices to raise.

The value of a home should be the cost of the land plus the cost to build it and the value based on the condition of the house but these days it's based on what estate agents believe they can get for you. The price of housing relative to wages is at an all time high. This is what has seriously made it increasingly difficult to buy a house for the less well paid in Britain. It's the race to the bottom all over which suits the wealthy but impedes the less well off.

10% of uk landlords are chinese ,was 5% in 2020. Chinese have lowest employment rate of any migrants at just 52% and of those 52% 280k are "employed" as landlords.

Rent controls have the opposite effect on rents to what's intended.

Because rent controls are going so well in Scotland? Seriously this is your hare brained solution? Stop persecuting housing suppliers and help them! Increase the supply and get builders building. So many landlords have been leaving the market (because of punitive tax changes, increasing difficulties dealing with delinquent tenants and fear of incoming Labour government) rental supply is at a 10 year low and as a result prices are up. What a surprise. Non of us landlord want or need insane house price increases or mad rents, we just want a stable environment to operate in. Any of us with half a brain or soul realise insane price rises are bad for society and our businesses in the long term. Again, the answer is to increase supply. Most of us are for fair and balanced changes to regulation of the rental market (condition standards, reporting rogue landlords etc) but regulations that will put us out of business will only backfire for everyone

Rent controls won't help anyone. Do stop landlords packing multioccupancy dwellings with students or families in each room, they charge far above their costs. However single occupancy dwellings are no longer a means of generating an income. They are a liability. The government has made all income taxable and few costs deductible. Those landlords are not squeezing their tenants, they are trying to stay afloat whilst costs spiral, interest rates rise and tax burdens climb. The simple problem is supply and demand along with a government creating an environment hostile to home ownership as an owner/occupier or landlord. All the reforms being put through and future environmental EPC net zero bollocks will keep heaping on costs and force more decent landlords to sell up. We need a fix to the economy, more social and private rental properties and less demand from millions of migrants being allowed to enter and stay, getting priority on every social benefit queue. Its a disgrace. By all means go after big corporate landlords or those that don't keep properties safe and in good condition. However, don't go after those good landlords scraping by with one or two properties. The government taxes all income, screws you on capital gains, and if like me you rent to family at below market rates you cannot carry excess building maintenance costs from one year to the next. The reason houses are expensive to rent or buy and expensive to own and maintain is the government's fault not landlords. Don't victimise landlords.

Financial planning, akin to navigation, requires knowing your destination. James Clark's guidance provides clarity in uncertain markets.

She is bloody great.

Really good infornative interview!

It's a free market system. As private landlords move out will be taken over by private equity who will package rentals income into bonds and, rather like they did with mortgages, will then be traded like any other commodity. It's not good but legislating to stop might be tricky.

Rent controls are a decent, emergency, short term option. But ultimately it will fail in the longer run due to the dynamics it’s leaving in place.

This is a great video, loved it

Keep devaluing the £ by printing more £’s and all assets (including housing) will continue to rise. Those with a greater demand due to scarcity will rise faster. Increasing supply is a must. Starter homes not 4 bed detached are urgently needed.

Its a great argument for reducing mass migration to limit demand

The problem is lack of supply. Rent controls aren't going to impact the quantity of houses but they will impact the quality.

Great video, very informative. To my knowledge New York and Germany both have rent control, it was Thatcher that got rid of it in the UK. Whilst we live in a democracy political pressure will eventually force the reintroduction ... as Vicki says it just a matter of when.

You guys are f***ing amazing for bring coverage to this issue. Thank you so much!!

Anyone who advocated rent controls needs to open an economics textbook. It always fails eventually because it leads to a lowering of supply and ultimately creates a housing crisis.

Well if nothing is done. Then the India Model is where you are all headed. Slums cobbled together with whatever people can find or steal, with all the problems that brings. Up to you Landlords, you've been warned.

Rent control is about restricting property rights of home owners without saying that openly. I feel for those who has no homes, but it is not a justification for effectively taking property rights away from the owner. If society feels that it should help poor and homeless - it should be done through centralized government effort on taxpayer dime, not by cherry-picking particular landlord and saying that now he has to sponsor this particular tenant and have no right to quit except by selling tenanted property at huge disadvantage. Not to mention - it is one thing if the property was purchased and rented knowing that rent control exist, meaning landlord should have factored in rent control implications, but if the business model was calculated, property was rented out and rent control kicks in after - it is literally a fraud committed by government.

People here in UK didn't stay in the same home and pay off their 25 years mortgage. When house price going up, they refinance, take cash out from the home, and spent it on holiday, new car and etc.

Blame the Tories. They sold council houses and didn't replace them, they got working migrants that pay taxes into the system but the Tories didn't increase the social services to cover for this fact, so people started repeating the right wing papers blaming foreigners for NHS waiting lists and schools obvious lack of investment. 3-5 floor well built buildings are needed, far more than detached houses with private gardens. No studios, minimum 30 sq metres for 1 bedroom even in cities, with rent control and proper purchase aids. End leaseholds for houses and flats, copying share of freehold systems from other saber countries giving freedom to owners regarding contracts for service companies. Blame the Tories for reducing the number of asylum officials to eliminate this ridiculous number of people waiting for a decision, and let them work if still waiting after 6 months so they pay for themselves. Investigate the donor/friend connections with people profiting from the accommodation of asylum seekers, make money and connections public. If British people don't want foreigners, they'd better start doing all those basic jobs that keep the country moving, and have a government that actually invests in their people and social services. Vote Labour, destroy the Tories and their monstrous social policies. You are not part of their little club unless you have hundreds of millions of wealth, wake up, you are feeding them and destroying the future of your kids because they accumulate wealth while you lose the little bit you have