Renters are in a dire situation at the moment. Monthly payments are being raised by hundreds of pounds while others are being kicked out of their properties as landlords decide to sell up – yet, in a strange turn of events, some homeowners are turning on them.
I’ve noticed that cries of “at least you don’t have to face higher fixed rates” and “how can you complain when you don’t have to pay for broken appliances” are starting to creep in to the national property conversation.
I sense an anti-renter rhetoric building – perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to the news coverage highlighting how bad the rental situation has now got.
Now, Generation Rent, and I am one of this generation, is being told by some commentators and in conversations up and down the country that we are actually lucky. Renters are seen to be “free spirits” – we can move whenever we like, we can trash the house and not pay a penny over our deposit – and we can live anywhere in the country. What freedom, what joy!
We are also expected to be grateful that we aren’t falling foul of rising mortgage rates, which are nudging ever-closer to 7 per cent.
Except for the fact, that actually, we are. It may be an indirect link but it still exists: landlords are mostly passing on their increased mortgage rates to tenants in the form of higher rent.
Rental costs as a proportion of earnings reached their highest for a decade in June, according to Zoopla, and I think it’s safe to assume the situation will only get worse.
I am renting a two-bedroom property in south-west London, for which we pay £1,800 in rent – without any bills attached. I can imagine many are paying this amount in mortgage repayments for a home that is their own, and probably bigger and more permanent.
Anecdotally, I have heard from huge numbers of renters who are being told their rents are to be increased, often by hundreds of pounds, with the sentiment: pay up or get out.
While mortgage holders are rightly distressed at the situation they have been thrown into, some renters have even less agency in the situation they find themselves in. A lack of supply has resulted in long waiting lists for viewings of properties of sometimes up to a hundred people waiting for the home, leading to landlords and estate agents raising the rental value yet again.
If a house were to be repossessed – as horrendous as that is – this is a process that takes months on end, giving some leeway to the homeowner to find alternative accommodation, perhaps downgrading to a smaller property.
Renters, meanwhile, can be chucked out at a month’s notice (something I have had first-hand experience with) before being expected to find a new property, often at an elevated price, likely with limited options to choose from.
The argument that appliances and issues around the home will be fixed at a moment’s notice is usually a fallacy – my partner and I once spent a month without a working oven, shower and freezer because our landlord refused to pay out to fix them. And where could we go for support? Nowhere.
And I need to break it to you: most renters want to stay put for a set period of time. Many landlords are having an awful time at the moment, as are homeowners, but turning groups of society against each other and blaming renters for not being able to afford their own homes is wrong.
Most of us would just like to buy a home at some point to give us security, to know we can stay put until we choose not to. That used to be an ordinary aspiration – but now it’s not – and we shouldn’t be blamed for a situation we didn’t create.
