The price of tenant activist politics: When campaigns collide with reality
1 week ago | 6 comments
Why rent controls are the wrong answer to a housing shortage
9:14 AM, 12th June 2026, 3 days ago
17
Categories:
Oh, dear, another week and another call for rent controls.
This time it’s the turn of Generation Rent, which has published an article asking what rent control in England could look like.
We’ve already had three prominent think tanks, including the New Economics Foundation, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), release blueprints for capping rents in England in the last few weeks.
Let’s not forget that in April, the Treasury was reportedly considering a 12-month rent freeze.
All landlords should read the article, not because it offers a sensible solution to the rent crisis, but because it reveals the central flaw in the rent control argument.
Cap tenant rents
The pitch to the public sounds simple and compassionate: cap rents to protect tenants from soaring costs.
But as anyone running a property portfolio knows, capping the price of a commodity without fixing the underlying shortage is an economic delusion.
To understand why rent controls are nonsense, you only need to look at basic supply and demand.
The reason rents have risen across England is a historic failure to build homes to meet rocketing demand.
Nobody serious about housing policy should pretend that affordability is not a problem.
But that’s not the fault of landlords – it would take a very big pair of rose-tinted glasses to suggest otherwise.
Here is the big problem for landlords.
The ‘between-tenancy’ caps favoured by all three think tanks mean that when a tenant moves out, the landlord is forbidden from adjusting the rent to market value.
It must remain locked to an arbitrary index like CPI or wage growth.
That sounds great if you ignore institutional builders and individual landlords who would see the financial viability of investing in new housing stock disappear.
Why risk capital on building a block of flats or upgrading a terrace house when your long-term yield is artificially suppressed below the true cost of maintenance, mortgage interest and inflation?
You wouldn’t. And, I suspect, neither would the charlatans in the think tanks if they had to spend their own cash.
Don’t look to Scotland
The Generation Rent article points to Scotland as a model, but Scotland should be treated as a warning, not a blueprint.
When emergency rent caps were introduced in 2022, there was a dramatic reduction in available rental properties.
It also forced major build-to-rent developers to pull out of schemes in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
When landlords face capped revenues alongside rising regulatory costs, higher interest rates, and the removal of mortgage interest tax relief, the rational response is simple: they sell up.
Once the government begins interfering with prices, landlords adapt.
Some raise rents more regularly up to the permitted limit and some will leave the sector.
Other landlords will become more cautious about who they accept as tenants.
The people most likely to lose out are often those already facing the greatest difficulty finding a home.
Rent control problem
Before Labour ministers reach for another PRS intervention, they should allow the Renters’ Rights Act to bed in because the private rented sector needs confidence.
The country cannot afford to drive out responsible landlords while still failing to build enough homes.
A serious answer to high rents would focus on supply, planning, tax, court capacity and keeping good landlords in the market.
It would target help at tenants who need support without pretending that price controls can magic new homes into existence.
Renters are right to be angry about unaffordable housing.
Put simply, rent control will not solve the housing shortage; it will simply make the shortage cheaper for some and much worse for everyone else.
Until next time,
The Landlord Crusader
Tags:
Housing shortage England, landlord opinion, Landlord rent controls, Private Rented Sector, Rent control England, Renters’ Rights Act, The Landlord Crusader
Comments
Have Your Say
Every day, landlords who want to influence policy and share real-world experience add their voice here. Your perspective helps keep the debate balanced.
Not a member yet? Join In Seconds
Login with
or
Related Articles
Are we witnessing a real-time purge of small landlords from the PRS?
3 weeks ago | 8 comments
Why economic illiteracy is the greatest danger facing landlords
1 month ago | 15 comments
Member Since September 2022 - Comments: 196
9:35 AM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
With the 2 million extra people who have now moved to the UK since the Pandemic there is no where near the amount of new housing to house them.
Many of the problems seem to be in London and the South east yet Landlords are selling up and very little new housing is being built.
I wonder why ?
Member Since February 2020 - Comments: 370
10:11 AM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
“The reason rents have risen across England is a historic failure to build homes to meet rocketing demand.”
“But that’s not the fault of landlords – it would take a very big pair of rose-tinted glasses to suggest otherwise.”
The fault of landlords…. more landlords are the solution not the problem!
The question is what is stopping more landlords or landlord properties from appearing.
We all know its reduction in incentives from inept governments.
Member Since May 2017 - Comments: 803
10:31 AM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
Maybe the TDS should take some responsibility for rising rents. When your carpet is destroyed and they say the life of a carpet is 5 years, that may add £2,000/5 to the annual rent for starters. Hands up who changes their own carpet every 5 years?
Member Since August 2018 - Comments: 160
12:39 PM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
1985 UK population 56.6m
2005 UK population 60.6m – increase of 4m
2025 UK population 69.5m – increase of 8.9m
Both Labour and Conservative governments have overseen a shocking increase in net immigration to this country and THAT is why there is a housing shortage.
The latest ONS figures show a FALL in the core UK population in the next 20 years so why is Labour hell bent in building thousands of houses on the Green Belt?
This country has been badly let down by politicians on all sides.
Member Since October 2023 - Comments: 221
12:43 PM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
Reply to the comment left by JB at 10:31
Exactly. In my own house I have carpet that I installed 15 years ago, still looks like new.
But in a house I let out, I did a full decor refresh, (new flooring, and all walls painted etc).
When I took the property back (after the tenant had done a midnight flit owing me three months rent………….EVERY FLOOR COVERING (including laminate floors) had to be replaced. EVERY WALL HAD TO BE REPAINTED.
How long were they there you may ask…………….TWO BLEEPING YEARS!
My wife cried when she saw the destruction. After all our work (we painted it ourselves, and I had put in the laminate floor myself to save money)
Heat breaking.
Member Since September 2015 - Comments: 1021
12:53 PM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
Reply to the comment left by JB at 12/06/2026 – 10:31
…. and even shorter write off periods for HMOs, which makes no sense. The reduction is supposedly for higher wear & tear, but in reality it’s only the communal areas that suffer any higher w&t (and even that’s arguable – does a mattress get more w&t in an HMO? ) but items in those areas if damaged can rarely be attributed to a individual!
Member Since December 2023 - Comments: 1622
1:07 PM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
We do not have a housing crisis. We have a population crisis.
Unfair legislation that encourages landlords to sell doesn’t help either.
Firstly, builders won’t build houses that they cannot sell. We need people to invest in property.
Secondly, owner-occupied housing is the least efficient of all tenure types. That is, it has the most spare bedrooms. The stress and cost of moving home is so much worse when you own a property.
Member Since May 2017 - Comments: 803
1:13 PM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 12/06/2026 – 13:07
We do have a population crisis but we also have a cost of renting crisis. I reckon one third of the rent goes on the tax regime, tenants not paying for their damage, excess admin and regulation, insurance fraud (increasing premiums) and a warchest for potential (unjust) fines
Member Since October 2020 - Comments: 204
3:06 PM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
Analytical view on why rent-capping causes more problems than it solves can be read here: https://www.thevola.org/projects/rentcapping
Member Since April 2018 - Comments: 453
5:11 PM, 12th June 2026, About 3 days ago
Lots of think tanks, which would be better used to keep fish in.How much are these tanks and Gen Rent earning in salaries and who’s paying for it? I think landlords should apply for jobs with these tanks as they would earn more than being landlords. Just sit on your arse and waffle.
Do these people not understand economics and the damage already done by the RRA. If I can’t afford to pay my property management company, plumber, electrician, replace white goods, ground rent, tax, etc etc I will be forced out like a lot of landlords.
We can all be angry about the cost of living but I don’t see this government capping council tax, food etc.