Recent research by housing and homelessness charity Shelter revealed that one in two working private renters in England wouldn’t have enough in savings to pay their rent for more than one month if they lost their job.
“Why demonise those perfectly good landlords that are putting their money where their mouth is, and providing housing to vast number of tenants who would otherwise be on a long register of social housing for years, while sleeping in temporary accommodation?”
Kundan urged the government to lend a hand to the PRS sector: “It is imperative that the government unfreezes the local housing allowance (LHA) that has been set at unrealistic levels for the past several years.
“This would be a good starting point, enabling more small landlords to open their doors to those that need help, given market rents needed to qualify for a BTL mortgage are often much higher than the LHA in that region.
“Most lenders are now stress testing their BTL products between 6-9%, so clearly most landlords have been forced to increase their rents, not out of greed, but purely out of necessity.”
He went on to stress that property investors are also feeling the pinch of the current economic climate: “Most landlords are normal people with one to two properties that they own as their pension pot and are equally facing the same tribulations as anyone else.”
