MORE homes need to be built if the spiraling cost of renting a home – which has rocketed by 14.9% in London over the past year – is to be curbed, according to a leading property expert.
Property developer Russell Quirk said: “I definitely agree that more needs to be built, both from a resale perspective and a rental perspective.
“There is a fairly straightforward way of doing that. They could actually make developments that get planning permission at local authority level, let’s say above a certain threshold of homes, 50 homes or whatever it might be, they could actually mandate that there is a certain amount of build to rent.”
He was speaking during On The Money with Liam Halligan on GB News during a two-hour special on the cost of living.
Mr Quirk said: “What we need to do is to stop demonising renting, and I’m not suggesting we’re doing that, but I think generally there is this kind of two tier property market where it’s seen that you’re kind of up here insofar as a house buyer, but if you’re a renter, you’re almost seen as a bit of a second class citizen and I think that’s completely wrong.
“What the government needs to do then is also make it better and more accessible for renters in terms of tenure, so rather than 12-month assured tenancy agreements, there needs to be the ability like leasing in Germany to lay down roots in other words to agree with the landlord, let’s say a 10 year deal.
“Why not a 20-year deal with certain breaks?”
He added: “Let’s also not throw landlords under the bus because there’s an inference in the media I think that landlords are genuinely bad and greedy.
“99% of landlords in my huge experience are ordinary people with just two or three properties just trying to do their best and to earn a living out of those properties but they also care about tenants.
“We hear headlines sometimes around substandard properties and nasty landlords putting rents up, but of course landlords are under the same inflationary pressures as everybody else in every respect.”
