Renters’ Rights Act blamed for shrinking rental supply

It looks like Property 118 has already said that.

I’ve advertised two rooms this week and the response rate has been huge. Way higher than normal. Unfortunately a lot of them don’t seem to have read the adverts, especially the bit that says available from November. The majority need somewhere much sooner, like early next week.
In addition to the didn’t read brigade there has been some very good applicants. One of the rooms was reserved last night (2 very high quality viewings, both wanted it, existing housemates made the choice). I was going to do more viewings over the weekend and make a decision after but the one girl just had an instant rapport with the existing housemates, so there’s no point messing around. I’m starting viewings for the other room on Sunday. The advert was only listed last night and my phone is pinging like crazy this morning.

Goodness knows where all the ones who can’t find anywhere will live. Most of them are relocating for either new jobs or university. They can’t just stay in their parents spare room due to the distance, there probably aren’t enough Airbnbs even if they could afford them. So what will happen? Will they simply have to abandon their new job or university course?

Reply to the comment left by Jo Westlake at 04/09/2026 – 10:17
where is your room? we are not finding this in London.

I imagine supply will shrink even further once the new EPC legislation kicks in…

Duh!
What did the government THINK would happen?
Yes of course we are all selling as soon as we can.
So less places available to rent.
And of course that means higher rents!
Plus no bidding over the asking price is allowed now so of course everyone is asking 20% more than they think they might get!!
Plus all our costs have rocketed and the risks shot up.
It’s all so predictable.
If you support landlords: protect us; Treat us fairly and decently and make it safer for us to rent places out then – guess what – you will increase the supply!!
If you relentlessly do the opposite what do you expect????
They are simply idiots looking for cheap popularity votes by appearing to be taking action on the housing crisis and being on the side of generation rent. ‘Bash the landlords and people will like us’.
No sign of any changes or second thoughts among policy makers though because when
Have politicians ever admitted their mistakes?
I despair.

The government is vague about many things including when the landlord data base will kick in! Is this so they can give out little publicity when it does so they can dish out some nice juicy fines! ???

Reply to the comment left by Phoenix at 04/09/2026 – 10:55
Yes, it will shrink even further. When labour were pushing their Renters Rights Bill through they didn’t consult the Competition and Markets Authority on what the effect of their legislation would be on either housing supply or rents. I also can’t find any evidence anywhere online that they asked anybody who would understand the risks what the effect of giving tenants the right to keep animals would be. They did not do any significant consultation with small portfolio landlords, i.e. the bulk of the private rental market (many of whom hadn’t raised rents for years), even though they did consult agents, who of course wrote themselves a cheque for tenants to pay in the form of higher rents.

Consequently, labours Renters Rights Act constrains the supply of residential property AND directly pushes up rents. It also dumps the costs of animal ownership on tenants who choose not to have animals and who are just trying to find somewhere affordable to live near where they need to work, or send their children to school.

Tenants are consumers and they understand the principle of competition. They recognise that if android phones weren’t available and all that was available was an iPhone then iPhones would be even more expensive. They understand that in order to get an affordable phone contract you can’t have just one or two suppliers, you need choice. They know that competition from challenger banks like Monzo or Revolut gives them choice, keeps their costs down, and offers a choice of better interest rates than high street banks. But they may not all have realised yet that when labour pushed ahead with its Renters Rights Act despite warnings from other parties and the House of Lords that it would make things worse they were destroying competition in a market that depended upon competition and were piling extra living costs onto tenants that depend upon a supply of rental property in order to be near work or schools.

The Renters Rights Act is a disaster. If labour also goes ahead with its Private Rental Sector database this will just make the situation even worse than it is now. On labour’s EPC proposals (obliging all rental properties to be band C or above) these just make the situation even worse for tenants. They increase costs and compromise supply of rental property to the market without making any significant difference to climate change or doing anything to improve the cost-of-living situation. Labour should cancel their PRS database, reform the EPC system so that it provides meaningful information, allow any tenant to be permitted to rent any [safe] property and let the market sort the problem out.

The more labour interfere in the rental market the worse they make the situation for tenants.

How Many Tenants does the Government and Councils want to make Homeless.
There are currently 12.9 million People living in Private Rental Accommodation.

The labour government DID ignore the concerns of the House of Lords. However, labour ALSO ignored the concerns raised by opposition-party members and this was extremely risky because almost no labour MPs have ever run a business. Being in a majority, left-wing government, generally labour MPs appear to have been too arrogant to listen to the concerns of people who had more understanding of markets than they did and reportedly (if what Pat McFadden is reported to have said is correct) back-bench labour MPs only care about who they can tax to pay benefits; but the truth is that given the lack of business experience in the present government they should have been listening even harder. And if they weren’t prepared to listen to opposition MPs in parliament or to the House of Lords then they should have asked the Competition and Markets Authority for an opinion on what their Act would do both to the supply of housing and to rents.

It doesn’t take an economist to understand why labour’s Renters Rights Act would raise rents. Some tenants shop in Lidl or Aldi but will have been in to Waitrose. They understand what happens when their choice is restricted and costs are driven up. Even a junior marketing assistant would be able to work it out. It is a far less complicated thing to understand than the EPC system.

Requiring all rental properties to be band C or above would further reduce the supply of rental properties and drive rents even higher.

There’s a lot of talk about leasehold’s lately. There’s the added complication e.g, a freehold property is bought and converted into flats to be sold individually . Leasehold’s would have to be set up plus servicing. Who would do the servicing – maintenance/repairs/cleaning/gardening etc and who would set the price and be responsible for job’s plus collecting the money? What if a leaseholder doesn’t pay? There’s a mention of Commonhold coming in which is vague and a few years away – as usual!