Half of all private renting families now rely on benefits to pay the rent
The coronavirus has had a devastating impact on families living in private rented homes. Over half are now reliant on benefits to pay the rent – including 1.82 million children. That’s an increase of 23% since February.
Yet, one in five families renting from a private landlord currently receive less in benefits than they need to pay their rent, our research has found. This leaves 378,000 families in England with a shortfall. More disturbingly, this figure includes 750,000 children living in households with this shortfall.
Read moreNew mayoral strategy develops plans for London's private renters
Two million tenants in London will welcome the fact that getting a fairer deal for private renters is one of the Mayor of London’s five priorities for housing in the London Housing Strategy, which was published at the end of May. Given that Sadiq Khan’s housing powers are highly limited, what is his strategy promising to private renters in London?
Read moreLondon's housing costs are driving families away
Today we have called on the Mayor of London to adopt a set of policies that will speed up his efforts to end the capital’s housing crisis.
To remind him what’s at stake, we have uncovered another startling trend that is hurting the city and its people.
Every year the Office for National Statistics releases figures on internal migration – how many people move from one part of the UK to another – and people are moving out of London at an alarming rate.
Read moreEnjoy the summer - but come back ready to end the London housing crisis
As is so often the case in the week before politicians break for the summer, we’ve had a raft of announcements, predictions and indicators in the last week – including a number of focused reports today from English Housing Survey data.
Coupled with announcements made at yesterday’s Mayoral Question Time (the last until September), private renters in London have a diagnosis and some solutions to ponder over the summer.
But equally, it is hoped that these reports will have brought added impetus to plans being written by the housing team at City Hall, ready to hit the ground running after the summer.
Read moreExodus from London accelerates
The London housing crisis is taking its toll on families in the capital as they move to other parts of the UK in ever greater numbers. The net number of thirtysomethings and under-10s leaving the city has increased by 25% between 2012 and 2014 according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
We have always seen more people in these age brackets move away from London than move there, but the difference is getting bigger. In the same two-year period, rents and house prices rose three times as fast in London as the rest of Britain.
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As more couples with children live in the PRS, will it ever be family-friendly?
Today the Department for Communities and Local government released some of the datasets underpinning the latest English Housing Survey (comprising of data up to the year 2013/2014, the most recent we have) and the central finding is no longer surprising – the private rented sector continues to grow.
Read moreA Nation of Renters: the latest report from Citizen's Advice
Today, the Citizens Advice released a report, A Nation of Renters, which explores the doubling of the private rented sector over the past decade and its failure to adapt to the needs of renters.
Read morePrivate renters – What choice(s) do we have?
Hannah Fearn recently focused on the Residental Landlords’ Association’s call to politicians to back regulations they feel will increase properties and raise standards in the PRS. All parties are urged in this election year to support this sector which the RLA feels has the potential to become ‘a first choice for those seeking a place to live’. Hannah points out that far from making an active ‘choice’ about their tenure, private renters of 2015 feel ‘trapped’ and optionless.
She’s right.
Read moreONS: costs for renters keep rising
The ONS has today released its Family Spending statistics up to the end of 2013. These show that families’ weekly expenditure has begun to increase, following a steady decline since 2006, although levels of spending still remain lower than those of 2006 once inflation has been taken into account. The decrease was due to families cutting back on non-essential items following the recession. This increase can be attributed to rising housing and transport costs, forcing families to find money to cover their basic needs.
Read moreLandlords milking two days wages a week from tenants
Private renters spend 40% of their income on rent, compared with owner occupiers whose mortgage payments average 20% of income, according to the Government's English Housing Survey published this morning.
That means that renters spend two days a week working to pay off their landlords mortgage - most would prefer to be paying off their own, but house prices are far too expensive. It's hard to see how this could be characterised as anything other than exploitation.
An initial set of figures for 2012-13 was published in February - today's more detailed look reveals that:
- Only half of private renters agree that living in their sector is a good way to occupy a home, rather lower than in the other two main tenure groups.
- 73% of private renters were aged under 45 compared with 37% of social renters and just one quarter (27%) of owner occupiers
- A fifth of private renters last year were couples with children - up from 12% in 2008-09
- Over half (55%) of private renters said they anticipated owning their own home in the longer-term. Around a quarter (27%) reported that they expected to still be renting from a private landlord in the longer-term.
This graph makes it clear just how inadequate the private rented sector is - we have proposed a number of policies to fix it in our Renters Manifesto - and sign up here!