Gove’s ‘war on landlords’ is not going to plan

Levelling up the housing market, it is fair to say, is not quite going according to plan. Rents in the year to February, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), reveals today increased by 9 per cent – the largest rise since the ONS started its rental price index. In some cases, tenants have been complaining of far steeper increases as landlords seek to recover rising mortgage costs. They have been able to get away with jacking up rents because the withdrawal of many landlords from the market has led to a fall in properties available to rent. Over the past year, according to the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), 21 per cent of landlords have sold a property and only eight per cent have bought one.

It is easy to see the rationale behind what some have termed Michael Gove’s ‘war on landlords’. Property prices have galloped ahead of earnings over the past generation, to the point that many young people are now unable to do what their parents and grandparents took for granted: get on the property ladder.