English Housing Survey – Rise of the PRS has stalled

The English Housing Survey has been updated today 31/01/2019: Click here to view the full report

“After a period of substantial increase, the proportion of households in the private rented sector has not changed for five years. The proportion of households in the social rented sector has not changed for over a decade.

In 2017-18, the private rented sector accounted for 4.5 million or 19% of households. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the proportion of private rented households was steady at around 10%. While the sector has doubled in size since 2002, the rate has hovered around 19/20% since 2013-14.

The social rented sector, at 4.0 million households (17%), remained the smallest tenure, following a long downward trend which has stabilised over the last decade or so. However, the composition of the social rented sector has changed in recent years. In 2008-09, the social rented sector accounted for 18% of households with 9% (2.0 million) renting from housing associations and 9% (1.9million) renting from local authorities. In 2017-18, 10% (2.4 million) rented from housing associations, 7% (1.6 million) from local authorities”