Why are rent prices out of the range of normal hard working people for the area they live in ?
No need to over charge and get the max out of everybody it’s not rip off Britain
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According to the Big Issue [18feb2026], there’s a shortage of housing because not enough built by successive govts - extract below. (If you think your LL has put up rents too much you can challenge it at the Tribunal).
Best
David
“Why is UK rent so high?
The short answer to why rent is so high is because there is a shortage of affordable housing.
There is a housing crisis in the UK because not enough homes have been built by successive governments in the last few decades at a time where social housing stock has been sold off to the private sector through Right to Buy or demolished and not replaced.
An estimate from the National Housing Federation found around 340,000 new homes should be supplied in England each year with 145,000 them to be affordable. Shelter has called for 90,000 social rent homes to be built each year for the next decade.
The previous Conservative government has previously targeted 300,000 new homes in England – a 2019 manifesto commitment – but failed to hit that mark.
There have also been gloomy projections for the number of homes set to be built in the short-term future.
Labour has committed to building 1.5 million homes by 2029, including prioritising social rent homes to ease the demand on the private rented sector in the long-term.
…
Richard Donnell, executive director of research at Zoopla: “The rental market has made a big stride back towards normality over 2025 after a prolonged period of sky-high demand and a lack of homes for rent. This is welcome relief for renters who can expect to see a greater choice of homes, slower rent increases and a less competitive market.
“However, the high costs of buying a home remain a barrier to many renters, which will support demand for renting over 2026. While there are signs that landlords are buying homes again, we do not expect a big increase in supply, meaning rents are set to increase by 2.5% over 2026.”
Meanwhile, the National Residential Landlord Association has continually warned of a landlord exodus ahead of the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Act.
Hi Nic
I genuinely feel for people who are priced out of accommodation in their area. The other responders raise good points about the lack of investment in public housing. However, it might help you understand if you see the figures for landlords and why so many simply can’t afford to let a property at “affordable” rents. It comes down to the fact landlords have a lot of money tied up in a property (which they quite probably worked hard to own remember). That’s money that they could be doing something else with. Its not about ripping people off, its about what’s worthwhile to them in terms of their investment in that property.
Take a typical property price in my area of Devon of, conservatively £250 000, for a 3 bed house. If a landlord put that money in a bank at 4% interest that would bring them £10 000 pa for a stress free income, probably more, if they wanted to do safe stocks and shares. Yet even at upper rates for rent they’d not get much more than £12,000 and that’s gross before paying any tax that might be due (20% minimum) agent fees, vetting, void periods and upkeep, which is always a liability. Is that worth the stress? Then when they sell they have to pay capital gains on any profit they make for every year they rented it, so the liability isn’t just current tax and expenditure it’s also set against any improvement in valuation.
The fact that tenants often don’t understand the risks landlords take and see them as some sort of greedy capitalists is part of the problem. I guarantee if you had worked hard, made sacrifices to buy a property that you were in a position to let as I have you would see things differently - because it would be your hard work and capital tied up in that property!
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Many LLs are selling their property and leaving the rental market due to the governments Renters Rights Act. By making things harder for LLs the act makes things much harder for tenants. As rental property becomes less available, with more people chasing fewer properties the rents will increase and only the very best applicants will be considered. With no incentive for new investors to enter the PRS and become LLs , the problem will only get worse. Maybe groups like Shelter and Generation rent can pick up the pieces, although at present,they don’t supply, own or rent out housing to a single person . Write to your MP and tell them of the situation.
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It always makes me laugh when governments commit to building houses, as if they (therefore we the taxpayer) are putting the money in to build all of these houses . What they mainly do is force planning through for projects by private developers . If the developer isn’t going to make enough profit , the houses won’t get built. I haven’t looked but are councils still selling social housing under the right to buy legislation ?
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“In 2024-25 there were:
9,236 sales of social housing through the Right to Buy schemes. This is a 7% increase from 2023-24”
Social housing sales and demolitions 2024-25: Right to Buy sales
Published 12 February 2026
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Nic 7 You are making a blanket statement, but are not thinking of the real reasons behind that problem.
How is it blanket its true fact most hard working people spending most of there wages on rent just to have a decent home for a family the rent to wages is not set fairly it all about how much the agent or landlord can get in the short term granted they want to make profit but its just sad how things have becomeb
Do you literally just sit & run everyones comments & questions through AI to come up with all of this information?
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I too feel for tenants.
Like others have said though, the risks & rewards of renting properties has been ‘bashed’ by succesive governments, and if the Landlords costs & risks keep going up, they have to up the bottom line.
From 2027, Landlords will now be taxed a higher rate of tax on their income that other occupations, so it’ll only get worse, especially given that for many Landlords, they are taxed on more profits than they actually make, due to Section 24.
Like all businesses, if the costs go up, the cost of the service / goods supplied must go up.
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2 % up on the rents then
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er no I actually looked for the statistics myself as I agreed it was an interesting question and sort of know how to find this sort of stuff (which AI doesn’t always or not always the most recent) . Couldn’t find anything more recent than the 24-25 figures tho
But ty for the feedback I won’t bother to share results back with you next time…
Here’s what AI actually tells you and, happily, it confirms that David was right.
The latest England Right to Buy sales figures (financial years, year ending 31 March). These are sales to sitting tenants through the Right to Buy schemes (local authority RTB + PRP Preserved RTB + PRP Voluntary RTB).
Total Right to Buy scheme sales (England)
- 2024–25: 9,236
- 2023–24: 8,659
- 2022–23: 14,005
- 2021–22: 10,969
- 2020–21: 6,918
Breakdown (where the sales came from)
2024–25 (9,236 total)
- Local authority RTB: 7,580
- Private registered providers (Preserved RTB): 1,656
- Private registered providers (Voluntary RTB): 0
2023–24 (8,659 total)
- Local authority RTB: 7,068
- PRP (Preserved RTB): 1,541
- PRP (Voluntary RTB): 50
Longer-run context
- Total sold since RTB started (1980–81) up to end of March 2025: 2,038,589 homes.
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2 million homes sold off cheap . Now I wonder why there is a housing crisis?
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GM, David240.
Please take it as a feedback, not as a jab at you. Your posts are really quite long. I struggle to read them. Is there any chance you make them more concise in the future?
Have a good day ))
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Who is to say AI is right
Lawyers are now being told not to use AI because of “ illusion”
That is false information
In fact cases have been rejected in court from AI as when they were referenced checked they did not exist
David240 is. 
But seriously, if you want a conversation about how far we can trust AI, do message me privately. I use AI every day for work and follow the sector closely.
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