"It's time for Theresa May to get out her hard hat..."
RICS has used it's latest report to call on the government to ease financial pressure on investors in the form of tax breaks as well as encouraging ministers to remove their focus from supporting home ownership to rebuilding the buy-to-let sector.
The report claims that between 2001 and 2014 the number of UK households who were renting a property rose from 2.3 million to 5.4 million and that any further investment in property by landlords had been hit by changes to stamp duty in April.
RICS said that a result of the hike in stampt duty, 86% of landlords have no plans to increase their rental portfolio this year and that this worrying trend was on course to remain for the next five years.
The report said: "RICS is urging the Prime Minister to abandon David Cameron's previous home ownership focus and reverse April's Stamp Duty measures in order to address short term rental supply issues.
However, they are recommending that Government takes a much bolder long-term approach and pioneers a new build-to-rent sector, with the private sector encouraged to build properties specifically for residential letting.
It would like to see pension funds incentivised with tax breaks to build large scale rental properties with affordable elements. Additionally, local authorities holding brownfields sites should be encouraged to release land for such properties."
Jeremy Blackburn, head of policy at RICS, added: "It's time for Theresa May to get out her hard hat. We are facing a critical rental shortage and need to get Britain building in a way that benefits a cross section of society, not just the fortunate few."
Commenting on RICSs call to reverse the stamp duty surcharge on additional homes, Richard Lambert, CEO of the National Landlords Association (NLA), said: “The stamp duty surcharge for second home purchases was nothing more than a crowd-pleasing policy from a government that was dead set on championing homeownership at all costs.
However, it frankly isn’t raising any money for the exchequer, so it makes sense for Mr Hammond to reverse it and give private residential investors the opportunity to help ease the housing crisis.
This government should be commended for setting out a programme for building one million homes by 2020 and it needs to put the effort into making sure this is realised. In the meantime we’ve still got a burgeoning renting population that need to be housed right now”.
