Shelter report on rent caps
The idea of capping rents would make life harder for tenants is a warning coming from the Housing Charity Shelter, this follows on from a report commissioned by them, researchers from the University of Cambridge said in that report that hard rent controls would remove landlords incentive to invest in their properties leading to poorer quality homes.
In a survey of landlords carried out for the report 31% claimed they would sell all or some of their properties immediately if rents were capped, that would mean less choice for those in the private rented sector, even more serious that a blunt cap on rents would encourage a black market which would be unregulated.
The Shelter report emphasised the need for reform, explaining that if nothing changed the average rent paid in England would increase by 22% over the next decade, from £176 to £215 a week, furthermore it predicted that by 2025 we would see increases in the numbers of households renting from 4.5 million in 2014 to more than 7 million