It has also called for the government to reverse April’s Stamp Duty charge on second homes and shift its focus onto short-term rental supply.
Households opting to rent have doubled from 2.3 million in 2001 to 5.4 million in 2014 and figures showed 86% of landlords have no plans to increase their rental portfolio, a trend which is expected to continue for the next five years.
RICS recommended the government takes a bolder long-term approach and pioneers a new build-to-rent sector, however, this is not the first time the government has been urged to reconsider April’s Stamp Duty.
RICS wants to see:
- Pension funds incentivised with tax brackets to build large-scale rental properties
- The private sector focussing on building properties for residential letting
- Local authorities in possession of brownfield land to release it to allow rental property builds
Grainger, the UK’s largest residential property owner with an existing portfolio of 9,000 rental homes across the UK, reported its plans to invest a further 1bn into the rental housing market through build-to-rent.
Chief executive of Grainger, Helen Gordon, said: “In order to support us in this ambition and many others with similar plans, the government should recognise the important role we have to play and explicitly support build-to-rent in its policies.”
RICS head of UK policy, Jeremy Blackburn, warned that the country was on the brink of a critical rental shortage.
He said: “The private rented sector became a scapegoat under the previous Prime Minister, and because of that it suffered. Yet with increasingly unaffordable house prices, the majority of British households will be relying on the rental sector in the future.
“We must ensure that it is fit for purpose, and the government must put in place the measures that allow the rental sector to thrive. Any restrictions on supply will push up rents, marginalising those members of society who are already struggling.”
