A trade body is warning of a crisis in the private rental market as new figures show a sharp drop in supply over the last year.

As LAT reported yesterday, the latest Residential Market Survey by the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors for November shows a net balance of minus 29 per cent of surveyors reporting a fall in landlord instructions which is twice the negative rating in November 2018.  

With tenant demand continuing to increase, RICS predicts that this will lead to rent increases of around two per cent over the next year and around three per cent a year over the next five years.

Now David Smith, policy director for the Residential Landlords Association, says: “If the decline in the supply of new homes to rent continues to fall whilst demand is still rising, this is going to lead to a crisis in some areas as tenants desperately search for somewhere to live. This is all the result of increased taxation and other measures over the last three years and the result has been highly predictable as we said it would be.

“The new government needs to urgently address the problem and make changes in the forthcoming budget to relieve the pressure on landlords and encourage new investment to meet the demand.”