Buy-to-let lending should be severely curtailed and landlords stopped from buying new homes altogether.
The controversial proposals are in a new report from think tank the Strategic Society Centre – triggering accusations that it is trying to rig the market.
It says that first-time buyers are struggling to get on to the housing ladder because lenders favour landlords, and sellers prefer to sell to them.
The reason, says the report, is that buy-to-let landlords are quite simply wealthier than first-time buyers – but that as a result, house prices are being pushed up.
The report says that the number of landlords as a proportion of the UK population has grown by 250% in 20 years, but that the time has come to tip the balance back in favour of first-time buyers.
The report calls on ministers to cap buy-to-let lending. It suggests banks could also raise buy-to-let interest rates and use the profit to subsidise cheaper interest rates on other mortgage lending.
The report has also demanded a ‘new-build buy-to-let mortgage moratorium’ which would prevent anyone buying a new-build home with a buy-to-let mortgage for at least the foreseeable future.
Strategic Society Centre director James Lloyd said: “The Government champions ‘aspiration’ and getting people on to the property ladder. But the last decade has seen the unending growth of the private rented sector, with more and more private tenants trapped renting and seeing their dreams slip away.
“But building new homes will never be enough for the Government to help people’s aspiration for home ownership without new restrictions to ensure that new-build homes go to new home owners.”
However, Richard Lambert, chief executive officer of the National Landlords Association, said the think tank quite simply did not understand landlords.
He said: “This report should be re-titled ‘Misunderstanding Landlords’. The authors have already decided that owner occupation is best and that Government should rig the markets to achieve this.
“They just seem to want to prove their preconception that the growth of the private rented sector is the cause of problems in the housing market rather than a consequence of them.
“Will anyone really be surprised to learn that those who invest in property are likely to be wealthier than those who have not yet been able to buy? It’s not a specific phenomenon – it’s the nature of a competitive market economy.
“Claiming that the private rented sector represents a transfer of private income and wealth from tenants to landlords is like saying that pubs represent a transfer of wealth from drinkers to publicans.
“This country is in the early stages of a shift in how we house ourselves.
“It is far too soon to predict where this shift will lead, but there are some big questions to be asked about the roles of the main housing tenures (owner occupation, social housing, private renting) in our society and a real need for an informed debate.
“It’s a shame this report doesn’t do more to illuminate it.”
Comments
You talk about the estate agents' industry being on its knees like that's a bad thing...
If they only sold to people who can afford it the EA and building industry would be on its knees, thats why they invented help to buy
My, My. So they want to sell property only to people who cannot afford to pay for it. There's an incentive for builders to invest in construction materials. Are these people deficient in B group vitamins?