Unpacking Rent Pressure Zones

Scotland recently broke ranks with the rest of the UK over private renting by introducing a new standard tenancy which will mandate the grounds by which a landlord can end a tenancy; otherwise they are open-ended and average tenancy lengths are expected to lengthen.  While some see this as a revolution in the rental market; others are more sceptical. It certainly has been the case in recent years that average length of tenancies had been growing under the old rules, as well as evidence that  more families are letting in the market. At the same time, others remain to be convinced by the new legislation. The new law is less than 6 months old and credible evaluation will take some time to surface and perhaps resolve these disagreements.

Alongside the tenancy reforms sit a new form of second degree rent controls in the shape of rent increase limitations in what are called local rent pressure zones, designated and applied for by local authorities. These are approved by the Scottish Government on the basis that the councils in question provide credible evidence that there is a clear case for such limitation to stop excessive rent increases. It is worth noting two or three things: the proposed limitations do not interfere with the initial rent setting that takes place at the beginning of a tenancy (they are not controlled) and any subsequent limitations will be capped but above the rate of inflation (a minimum of CPI & 1% for up to five years). These new proposals are, all in all, relatively modest.

For me, the most important issue is what the Scottish Government requires in terms of  credible and legitimate evidence from the council in question? Helpfully, the Scottish Government published a document which sets this out and I have just got round to reading it.

The first thing one is struck by in the guidance is that the evidence demands on a council are substantial. The early perception that many councils would be seeking such RPZs is clearly a misjudgement.  Paragraph 7 of the document says: Evidence of rent rises alone will not be sufficient to prove that they are rising by too much. Authorities also need to prove that rent rises in the proposed RPZ are causing undue hardship to tenants; and the rises are having a detrimental effect on the local authority’s broader housing system.

The cap only applies to tenants operating under the new tenancy in the designated geography of the RPZ. The guidance says that such a zone may be at different geographies such as a street, post code sector or data zone (but not necessarily a broad rental market area, as one might have intuitively expected). The guidance argues (para 18) that the provisions are intended to be used by a local authority to deal with excessively rapidly rising rents and where the Scottish Government consider that rents are rising too much, they are causing undue hardship to tenants, and, the council is coming under increasing pressure to provide housing  or subsidise the cost of housing as a consequence of rising rents (the Scottish Government expects the council to have plans to increasing housing supply and to link these to their RPZ application).

This is expected to be a transparent process where councils must publish their case and their evidence for RPZ designation. The guidance says (para 23): ‘the evidence will be a mixture of quantitative analysis e.g. statistics which demonstrate rent increases and qualitative analysis e.g. consultation with tenants. Councils will have to gather specific/ new evidence themselves where they do not hold this information already or where national data collections do not provide the level of detail required for an application. As such, councils might consider contracting with a third party with statistical and research expertise’.

Annex 1 of the guidance (criterion 3-5) sets out what is expected: a profile of the stock, time series evidence of rent increases, sample information and clarity over analytical methods, data from existing tenants, evidence that they are experiencing hardship, evidence that this rent pressure has increased pressure to expand supply and deliver more subsidy.

It would seem likely that the extent of evidence required will deter councils from making multiple applications and so the geographies may be comparatively wide. Second, it will take time for the new tenancies to generate the evidence required so do not expect RPZ applications immediately.

So, is this a modest proposal that sends a signal that may give tenants some comfort (and indeed landlords since they would have certainty about greater than CPI rent increases and can still set market rents initially); or might it be the thin end of the wedge that opens the door to greater levels of intervention?  I think it will be some time before we can assess the impact of RPZs.  Moreover, I think we need to place these reforms in a wider context of policy change for the private rented sector which go in different directions. These would include the adverse tax changes on landlords via LBTT, capital gains taxation and the tax relief available on borrowing, as well as the ongoing welfare impacts of the LHA cap and the treatment of younger single people (i.e. the single room rate). There is also the rental income guarantee pilot to encourage build to rent in Scotland.

And of course, the rental market is actually a series of more or less separate market segments on both sides of the market. We need to think through how these policy changes affect the different segments and the sector as a whole. Returning to the overall assessment of these interventions – rigorous analysis will have to both disaggregate the combined effects of these policies over time and ascertain their impacts across the multiple segments of the modern private rented sector –prs 1). All in all, we should be cautious about early evaluations telling us conclusively that the new system works or does not work later this year or even next.

 

 

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Sydney, Incidentally

I am working in Australia for a week. It is mid-winter (allegedly) and people are wearing coats (as are many pets). Yet it is the same temperature here as it is in Scotland and really quite nice, all in all. I am at the University of Sydney working with colleagues on research about mechanisms to boost affordable housing supply in Australia, part of an AHURI project led by Nicole Gurran. I have spoken at three events and participated in three other more informal meetings. Next, we head on to Wellington to see family for a few days before returning to Glasgow and the actual start date of the UK collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) on August 1.

Several of the meetings have been directly relevant to the new housing evidence centre. I met Ian Winter, the director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and discussed the ‘space’ between housing research and housing policymaking and policy influencing. In recognising the common interests between us (CaCHE is loosely based on the AHURI model), we explored how we might work together. For me, it is clear that AHURI delivers some of the best housing research anywhere – there is much to learn from them.

I also participated in an interesting knowledge exchange event about social housing regulation chaired by Michael Lennon, formerly of Glasgow Housing Association. My job was to provide an overview of regulation in the UK and its key role in supporting both capacity and the wider evolution of the sector. Hal Pawson (University of New South Wales) contrasted the UK position with that in Australia and the need for a working, national, comprehensive system across Australia. While the UK regulatory system has changed several times over the last 25 years or so, and faces the considerable challenges of reclassification now, it has undoubtedly been an essential element in the growth, stability and progress of the sector.

The AHURI project on affordable housing supply involved a public lecture event (again, I was to identify and draw lessons from the UK) before we had an ‘inquiry panel’ day where the three projects that constitute our inquiry were discussed with policy and practice experts along with the research team and AHURI. The inquiry seeks to build an evidence base about affordable supply mechanisms across Australia, drawing on international evidence, and operating at different levels – from federal government and state down to specific sites and case studies. The material has all been categorised around recognition of local context, assessment of specific mechanisms and evaluation of outcomes on the ground

The inquiry panel day was a bit like a Joseph Rowntree Foundation advisory group meeting for a programme of research. It was an excellent discussion and it was great to hear the presentations from Nicole, Steven Rowley (Curtin) and Bill Randolph (UNSW) as well as the great contributions made throughout the day by Vivienne Milligan (UNSW). It is clear that there is considerable variety in practice across the country and that good things are going on in Western Australia, in particular. I was really impressed by the quality of the policy instruments discussion regarding the interplay between market, finance and planning. Bill and his colleagues presented a very helpful (and intuitive) stripped-down spreadsheet model of specific affordable/market developments which allow the user to vary policy and market assumptions and with which one can see the impact on key financial outcomes.

It has been a very enjoyable week with much to reflect on for CaCHE. Thanks to Nicole and her colleague Catherine Gilbert for all their help and hospitality while I have been in Sydney.

 

Private Renting Redux

This post follows three different rental market developments in the last few weeks. First of all, I chaired Professor Peter Kemp speaking in a seminar reflecting on Scottish market renting and PRS policy from the remove of England (though he is a former colleague of mine in Glasgow). Peter was joined by an excellent panel of  Rosemary Brotchie, Nick Bailey, Susan Aktemel and Anna Evans. Second, the Scottish Government published online their instructions for landlords and tenants regarding the new private rental tenancy that will come into effect for new tenancies in December 2017. This will assume tenancies are ongoing unless specific mandated conditions for termination are met (and are verifiable). It also creates the right for councils to seek local pressured rent zone status which would allow them to seek caps on annual rent increases (though not on initial contract rents. Third, my new colleague in the Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, Tom Moore, has recently published an (currently) open access paper in the International Journal of Housing Policy contrasting regulation and rental policy for the PRS in each of the UK’s four nations.

Tom’s policy review paper does the interested reader a great service by laying out the background context and policy divergence across the UK in terms of tenure security, regulation and affordability. While all four nations have experienced considerable growth in private renting since devolution, there are both common and distinct trends across the home nations. While traditionally a sector of transition, more people are living longer in the sector and more families and other longer term household structures are opting for the rental market. A key question is the contribution of either lack of choice forcing people into the sector or whether the sector is a destination of choice (perhaps this also suggests the weakness of the use of the word ‘choice’). Tom stresses that not only are tenure rights and regulation very different across the UK (with England as the default most deregulated n most regards), none of the UK nations approach the levels of protection and regulation found across much of the continental Europe.

Moore stresses that to the extent that more low income households are now in the sector, their vulnerability may exacerbate inequalities and disadvantage. Second, he rightly emphasises the importance of greater tenure security in policy discussions as the sector grows in importance. Third, management practices by some landlords remain a cause for concern.

There is much to like in this paper especially the comparative analysis of divergence across the four nations. If I was being picky I would challenge a few points: Scotland does have limited policy control over housing-related aspects of the housing elements of universal credit and discretionary housing payments. They can also top up and create new benefits – but they have to pay for them out of their budget. Second, I think the paper downplays important UK level ‘reforms’ of the sector, particularly via HM Treasury (the Scottish Government chose to follow the 3% uplift in stamp duty via the devolved Land Building Transactions tax).  I am also one of those people sceptical about rent regulation and in particular the ability of people like the rent officer to find a balance between tenant and landlord interests. Scotland’s reforms will be an important natural experiment for Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The Glasgow seminar with Peter Kemp was both stimulating and challenging. Peter made many important points. First of all, he noted that there is a definite asymmetry in terms of the new Scottish tenancy in that it is considerably easier for a tenant to leave under the new settlement than it is for a landlord to end a tenancy. Second, he stressed that the likely cap on rent increases is likely to be CPI plus 1% – which, compared to the Scottish average rents as described as ONS is actually quite high (unaffordable areas excepting).

While there was some concern in the seminar about policing the landlord grounds for repossession of property, there is clearly much anticipation about the impact the new tenancies will have for Scottish housing.  There was also a focus on other concerns of the moment like short term tenancies and Air BnB.

For me, Peter’s most insightful comments concern the changes to the tax regime for private landlords. Until listening to Peter I had generally considered these to be a tax grab that was rather unthinking about its housing system consequences (ie reducing the supply of lets just when the rest of the market is difficult to access, possibly pushing rents up). That may be true but I interpreted what Peter said as a sort of blindside attack on individual ‘mum and dad’ landlords in favour of the corporates – not by subsidising them (although there is some of that going on  via guarantees, etc.) but by using the tax system to penalise small landlords. (who make up 90% of the supply side)

How so? First, they do this by charging an 8% surcharge on capital gains tax compared to other assets. Second, there is the 3% surcharge on the tax on buying properties if you are a landlord (which may help potential first time buyers but might just push rents up or broadly discourage investment). Third, mortgage tax relief has been cut to the basic rate (unlike for other forms of investment business loans) and this is also has been turned into a tax credit which essentially means that rather being applied to corporation tax, it is now really a turnover tax and this has the unintended (?) consequence of pushing many small-scale landlords into higher tax bracket. There is concern in the sector that will lead to a large scale departure of small scale landlords. Will this gap be closed by other providers? Will first time buyers fill the gap as properties come onto the market – perhaps to an extent but they still face high deposits even if prices weaken.

This highly dynamic sector is the fulcrum of the housing system and its segments and interdependencies remain comparatively poorly understood and recorded. This has to change. And now social landlords are increasing their interest in and provision of mid-market rent – slightly sub market rents on short tenancies aimed at key workers (though this will also have to change for new tenancies after December in Scotland). How will this new sector niche perform and will it impact on the quality of the traditional private offer (and indeed how will it impact on social tenancies also provided by the same landlord)? Peter made much of the growth of the sector but did point out that it started from an incredibly low base in the 1980s – perhaps is the real international comparison to note-  just how did the UK end up with such an infeasibly small sector, something which of itself creates much deeper inflexibilities in the wider housing system?

 

Lessons from German Housing?

 

IPPR has recently been producing a series of reports on housing in Germany asking why can’t the UK follow in its stead and take on some of the apparently desirable features of their housing system. As with other examples of policy transfer, diffusion or mobility, I don’t think it is always as straightforward, though IPPR are demonstrably aware of either the barriers to transfer or that we do need to look closely and critically at the German system as well as positively regarding certain undeniably positive outcomes.

What do IPPR say in their reports? The first one says why is it that Germany builds more homes, has a less volatile housing market and a bigger private rented sector? The second report, out last week, describes renting (i.e. the PRS) as the dominant tenure, more stable and with greater rights than for those in England. Since 1995,  and with much lower levels of volatility, German house prices have risen by 50%; in the UK they have gone up 400%.

IPPR argue that greater levels of housing construction are associated in Germany with a wider range of builders, both SMEs and larger firms. Ostensibly similar (a plan led system like in the UK), Germany seems to do better at converting planning permissions into new supply (i.e. the housing delivery system) but they have also seen a significant reduction in the volume of affordable housing being constructed. Perhaps more significantly, German public authorities are more proactive in the land market assembling sites and delivering infrastructure. Unlike the English, they continue to use planning gain to support the development of affordable housing. The lending environment is  more conservative than the UK and mortgage debt to GDP is considerably lower. While the housing tax regimes are not dissimilar, the German system of capital gains tax encourages long term property holding rather than speculation.

Interestingly, the IPPR conclusions include what they call mis-steps that should be avoided in the UK: first, they argue that a model of long term covenants (20-30 years) has failed to deliver more affordable units and second, they argue that there are higher transactions costs and inflexibilities that may impact negatively on the labour market.

Turning to the second report on private renting, IPPR stress that alongside security of tenure, private rents in Germany are much less likely to be associated with housing stress or very high housing cost to income ratios. Germany has a large supply of rental properties (which helps reduce the impact of longer tenancies on the supply of vacancies and this is supported by rent controls and a further control or brake on rents when properties are re-let. Not surprisingly, in such a different tenure distribution, tenants are also organised politically and have voice in a way that does not exist in the UK. This leads IPPR to recommend for the UK that: government should let LAs construct build-to-let schemes as part of the PRS and also recommends longer tenancies if public subsidy is involved.

The reports are worth reading and make excellent points. However, one must recognise the universal challenges of lesson-learning, transfer and diffusion of policy across national boundaries where market contexts, institutional settings and the evolution of housing systems move differently. Germany has more than half of its households in private renting but the institutional features of the PRS in Germany are quite different, as we have seen, from the deregulated UK. The benefits of the system stability and much more moderate volatility have taken decades to achieve and have had to overcome the challenges of reunification and surplus low demand social housing in the East. They have also enjoyed a comparatively stable policy framework without the catalogue of initiatives and innovations that we suffer from.

Yes, it is true that they do not meet their housing need targets and affordable housing completions are moving in the wrong direction. It may also be the case that the German mortgage market is more conservative and it is undoubtedly true that their rental market (by definition) is less flexible than that of the UK. But this may be an acceptable trade-off in terms of overall housing policy outcomes?

The point about the mortgage market is interesting for other reasons. Recently, in the House of Lords Economics Affairs Committee inquiry into housing, Dame Kate Barker made the point that there is a massive tension between housing-related government departments trying to boost housing supply and home ownership while, at the same time, HM Treasury, the Bank and the financial regulators are re-regulating and constraining mortgage lending.  Acknowledging this difficult trade-off and trying to develop the right balance is a critical requirement for housing policy and the forthcoming White Paper on housing.

I think these reports are a fundamentally good idea because it is by looking at other places in some depth that we shed light on some of the things wrong with our housing system. However, apart from one references to legislating over letting agency fees, I was a little surprised that IPPR did not make more reference to Scotland, given that we have just undergone fundamental reform to our tenancy laws (creating open-ended tenancies and limited specific routes only for eviction) and also proposed rent uplift limitations in pressured market areas. It is Ironic that there appears to be less interest with intra UK policy diffusion. After all while housing policy is diverging rapidly across the UK, it is nonetheless much more similar than comparisons made with Germany. Although it is early days and the law is not yet in force,  considering reform along Scottish lines might be preferable to the IPPR proposals suggested above which are premised on retaining the present tenancy laws and hence privileging, it seems to me, labour market flexibility over housing security.

 

 

Gimme (a ‘standard’) Shelter

Showing their undoubted media abilities, Shelter today launched a new study describing a model of a living home standard (LHS). The standard is based on 39 attributes of essential and more ‘tradable’ attributes of five dimensions of ‘home’ drawn from intensive research with the public carried out by Ipsos MORI. The hook was to show many homes in Britain fell below this new standard, an approach characterised as in the same spirit as the national living wage. The social, tv, radio and print media took to it hugely. So well done Shelter for getting the housing crisis and housing deficit to the top of the news agendas.

In this short post I want to review how they arrived at this new standard and reflect a bit on the national results that they hung their story around.

Ipsos MORI carried out nine months of investigative qualitative research with the public to uncover the five themes and 39 attributes deemed to make up the living home standard (regardless of tenure age or size). This was reminiscent of the approach taken by the Oxfam Humankind Wellbeing Index.The themes were based on: affordability, decent conditions, space, stability (i.e. security) and neighbourhood. Passing the standard required that it meet all of the essential conditions for each theme and a minimum number of the tradable ones for each theme.To take affordability as an example: the essential requirements were 1. Can meet the rent or mortgage payments on the home without regularly having to cut spending on household essentials like food or heating; and, 2. Not worried that rent or mortgage payments could rise to a level that would be difficult to pay. Tradable requirements for the affordability dimensions involved: 1. Can meet rent or mortgage payments on the home without regularly preventing participation in social activities; and 2. Can meet rent or mortgage payments on the home without regularly being prevented from putting enough money aside for unexpected events.

This sort of approach to affordability is refreshing in that it gets us away from the tyranny of specific ratios (cost to income ratios) and minimum values (residual incomes) but clearly does require household survey data. However, it would be incorrect to say that this type of approach is unassailably objective – it is not. Its attractiveness is that it has been robustly built up from the views of real people but of course even that has to some extent been conditioned by the design of the approach in the first place. More significantly, the quest for definitive objective measures is illusory and must require judgements about what is included and excluded, how threshold values are set and why, weighting (and how such weighting is approached) and the fundamental realisation that housing need, affordability and an overall LHS is and must be subjective and to an extent derived from judgment. However, that is not to say that this is anything but a comprehensive and well thought through approach. It is. We just need to recognise that while some forms of housing deficit are apparently objective and straightforward; others quickly become harder to pin down. We should welcome multi-dimensionality to thinking about housing problems but it bring challenges too.

A survey of just under 2000 adults, with results weighted to reflect the national (GB) population, was then undertaken to measure the extent to which the LHS was met and where it was not met. The analysis found that 43% of people live in homes that fail to meet at least one of these dimensions of LHS. Affordability was valued as one of the most important aspects of whether a home was acceptable but was the area that most failed on (followed by decent conditions). However, of all that failed only 1% failed in all five dimensions; the vast majority failed on one dimension or not more than two. The percentage failing the standard was negatively related to income i.e. lower income households were more likely to be in homes that failed the standard. A similar regressive gradient was found contrasting LHS with social grade. Third, fully 69% of private tenants failed the LHS and across age bands, the highest proportion failing (at 58%) were young aged 25-34.

This is more than a useful start and I particularly liked several things about the model – for instance, its multi-dimensionality and the concept of tradable relative to essential attributes. But it would be good to look at the LHS at different more local spatial scales so that it could articulate directly with complementary measures like official measures of housing need. Shelter have done a great job in getting their message out clearly and simply and doing so with such effectiveness. Housing needs to be up there near the top of the agenda because chronic problems rarely seem to inhabit the upper echelons of the news cycles for long. For all that, it is amazing how quickly fairly straightforward concepts and ideas get mauled and can confuse. Last night one of the BBC reporters struggled with the idea that 43% overall could fail the LHS but at the same time 69% of (private) tenants lived in homes that did not meet the standard.

http://www.shelter.org.uk/livinghomestandard.

 

 

 

 

A Different Class?

 

Just under a year ago many of us sat looking at the ONS website waiting for the news about whether or not they would reclassify English housing associations as public bodies for public accounting statistical purposes. On the basis of a review of the powers of the Regulator created under the previous UK Labour Government, the ONS took the view that these powers of disposal of assets, board and senior staff appointments were sufficient to deem that enough degree of control from a government agency meant that reclassification was indeed appropriate. This shifted more than £60 billion of debt on to the public books and initially raised uncertainties about the freedoms housing associations would retain over borrowing.

This fundamental change was not wanted by Government or the sector or other major stakeholders. In the midst of last year’s controversial housing legislation in England, the Government proposed a series of measures aimed at deregulating the English sector sufficiently, they hoped, to re-re-classify the sector back into the private sector.

Still with me? Yesterday morning the ONS announced its decision regarding the classification status for public accounting statistical purposes for housing associations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, assessing them on a similar basis as was the case in England. They are now described as ‘public non-financial corporations’. The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) has been reclassified as a ‘central government body’.

Interestingly, the Scottish Government had taken pre-emptive action by preparing and pre-announcing deregulatory legislation on a similar basis to the English proposal in order to reduce uncertainty and get back to the pre-announcement status quo. In 2012 the ONS re-reclassified English further education and sixth form colleges which it has earlier reclassified in the public sector in 2010 because Government relaxed some of its earlier controls. So there is a precedent.

According to Inside Housing, the reasons for reclassification in Scotland were threefold: the SHR has a degree of control over the management of housing associations, the housing associations need consent from the SHR over ‘constitutional change’ such as mergers and take-overs, and, associations also need consent over the disposal of assets like land and housing.

The Scottish Government plans to respond with new legislation which will first remove the need for consent over the disposal of assets, they will ‘limit’ the power of the SHR to appoint board members and officers, and, remove the need for the SHR’s consent regarding restructuring, voluntary winding-up and dissolution of housing associations. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations appear to share the Government’s optimism that this will be enough to put the sector back in the private sector, though they reserve the right to scrutinise the ONS details closely. They do make the point that the Scottish regulatory framework has evolved in recent years to put some distance between the sector and public control [link].

This is a statistical exercise but it has real implications, potentially. Governments around the UK would not seek corrective legislation if it were not of significance. Linked to this is the wider question of the degree of autonomy or level of external control applied to an important part of the voluntary or third sector, The reclassification also creates some uncertainty which may impact on policy delivery i.e. the Scottish Government’s preparedness of response in part reflects their desire to protect their priority to deliver the 50,000 affordable housing supply target over the life of this Parliament.

Deregulation is not without its risks – how will lenders respond to the changing regulatory environment? The English experience will provide a guide. Second, is this the end of the matter – will ONS accept the deregulation as sufficient basis for changing the classification back? The plans set out by the Scottish government may well turn out to be quite appropriate and sufficient for this purpose. ONS reclassification could be the dog that did not bark. We will see.

 

Freedom

Today was a milestone day in our household. We finally paid off our mortgage. Our journey is probably not too different to many of our vintage and trajectory but certainly it now looks like a housing career much less likely to be possible or typical for many folk starting out now wanting to buy a home.

As many did in the high water mark of mortgage deregulation, we started in the late 1980s with a 100% endowment mortgage. This was for a two bedroom interwar four in a block or cottage flat purchased a couple of months after I started my first full time job as a research fellow. Mortgage rates were 15%. It needed a lot of work, much of which family and friends assisted with and we stayed there, in hindsight, too long. There was a dodgy roof and a comparatively large garden, which were both in their different ways time-consuming and stressful.

I really wanted out of that house by the time we moved- I still occasionally have a recurring dream that we have to move back there (and to be clear I wake thinking I have had a nightmare). We moved about half a mile into a new home and watched it being built, which was an exciting time. This was a semi-detached three bedroom house, our larger mortgage was in two parts (a legacy of that earlier endowment). The new house was an incredible contrast to its predecessor and we had a little more than five years there. We would probably have stayed longer but an attractive, detached house around the corner came on the market and we managed to get it (the vendors also moved to another house in the immediate vicinity).

We have been in the present house more than 11 years now and we were able to use the redemption of the endowment (at nothing like its original supposed value) to pay off one bit of the mortgage and then overpay the other part till we could clear it today. A combination of very low interest rates and two jobs made this possible.

We know we have been fortunate working in comparatively secure jobs while escaping the vicissitudes of economic turmoil both in the early 1990s and late 2000s. We were able to secure a 100% loan in 1989 and make incremental progress thereafter. This is now a much more challenging problem for would-be buyers because of the binds of higher entry level house prices, weaker earnings growth, greater job insecurity and the much more significant down payment constraint.

If people cannot access funds, build savings or inter-vivo transfers or other financial support from family or friends, and do so when it is required or opportune, the average age of first time buyers will remain high except for the lucky few. As an aside I think there would be much merit in detailed and extensive independent research in the binding nature of these down-payment constraints and the effectiveness of policies that try to relax them. While there is much to be said for not returning to 100% mortgage loans the industry may have gone too far in the other direction but it is a complex multidimensional problem and simple pat answers about how to safely increase mortgage lending should be viewed with suspicion.

So, it is no more ‘I owe, I owe, so it is off to work I go’. However, to be honest I never really felt like that about work. Still, it is a rite of passage to close the mortgage account, and, as so many aspects of life increasingly do these days, it does make one feel old. The future will be about maintenance rather than a mortgage. We will just have to plan it ourselves.

 

Glasgow’s rental market affordability challenges

 

In Scotland we have statutory housing strategies for each local authority. Even though it has no council housing, this is a big deal for Glasgow. The city has control over the distribution of capital grant funding to the housing association sector, remains a key landowner and rightly sees housing as central to the delivery of many of its wider corporate objectives. Glasgow like all Scottish councils manages a number of statutory functions such as homelessness and housing planning. Tuesday past was the first set-piece external consulting event and I was speaking at it on the topic of private housing, need and affordability.

The central evidence base that the housing strategy is informed by is the Glasgow Clyde Valley joint Housing Needs and Demand assessment (HNDA). This is an impressive piece of work and one that conforms to a standardised model of quantifying demographic and economic trends, and the overviews the existing housing system, before then going on to examine sources of housing need and estimate three scenarios (low and high migration and the principal projection). This Scottish Government supported statutory analysis is built on earlier eras of housing planning (such as the Local Housing Systems Analysis framework that I was earlier involved with). It is a solid and internally consistent approach that makes best use of data but, as is widely recognised, it is replete with conventions, judgments and assumptions. There are undoubtedly weaker areas in all HNDAs and one of the main challenges is the private rented sector.

Private renting has grown rapidly in the city (and is now over 60,000 units or 20% of the stock) and while we can put together a narrative about the emerging market based on different sources of quantitative and qualitative evidence, it remains impressionistic and I would argue that, generally, we know little about market behaviour on either the supply or demand side. Consequently, we risk undesirable outcomes if our policies for the sector are not based on firm evidence and convincing models of how the sector works and interacts with the rest of the city. Below is my impressionistic version.

Citylets data for the 4th quarter of 2015 suggested an average monthly rent in Glasgow of £701 (compared to £741 for Scotland). While the level is lower, Glasgow how has higher rental inflation (4.2% compared to 2%) and a reducing time to let period – 21 days compared to 30 for Scotland as a whole. So, the market has rising real rents and a tightening around vacant units being filled more quickly Wider evidence suggest that Glasgow (and in some cases Greater Glasgow has been experiencing rising real rents since 2010 and again this is outpacing the Scottish average. Scottish Government evidence also suggests that rents are diverging with upper quartile rents growing quicker than lower quartile rents.

I sat in a breakout session at the conference yesterday where it was suggested by someone in the industry that Glasgow’s 60,000 or so private rented units and no fewer than 35,000 landlords – that is quite a stylised fact if broadly true. It makes policy intervention, regulation and analysis of the sector highly challenging. Landlords may be largely single property landlords alongside a smaller number of multiple unit portfolio landlords. The former may be more ‘amateur’ and short run in perspective – but some actually may see the property as a pension substitute and hence be in for the longer haul unless external drivers like tax changes force then out.

Two things struck me about the landlord suppliers – the recent tax changes to mortgage interest tax relief, LBTT and capital gains tax will have highly differential effects on landlords. Those with stock and not planning to invest will be less affected by LBTT increases but those investing will. And as was pointed out in the meeting, constraining the tax relief to the basic rate could turn for some a profitable business into a loss-making one. Another colleague, second, differentiated between the amateur landlords being likely to be more likely to exist as the market recovers and in the face of these negative fiscal pressures but also as a result of concerns about the new Scottish legislation and how this all affects capital gains. On the other hand corporate investors with several properties will be more concerned about cash flow and income returns.

I remember my former colleague Peter Kemp used to talk about a highly segmented private rented sector with landlords composed of volunteers and conscripts. I think that both notions apply all the more so now – we have a highly differentiated market which caters for discrete groups: students, generation rent working households, those with short run easy access housing demands, and those at the bottom end of the housing ladder unable to access social housing.  I am not convinced we have the research evidence or monitoring capacity to really understand what is going on in each of these segments. Policy is overwhelmingly concerned with the latter problematic group but actually there is much more going on which has an important impact on the rest of the urban housing system.

I think the other really interesting idea raised by Peter’s characterisation is that we cannot assume all tenants are conscripts but indeed some of them are clearly volunteers. Not all Generation rent working tenants, usually younger households. are potential home owners. Some are clearly happy with their rental experience, do not expect to have the sort of job security associated with a traditional mortgage and certainly do not have the savings required for a deposit). But many are content with that reality and would rather trade off a good location (and a relatively high rent) to be able to access the amenity important to their preferences. But we simply do not know enough about the profile of these two forms of tenant who essentially substitute for the presently less accessible home ownership sector. But we need to know more and Glasgow needs to prioritise this in its evidence gathering and ongoing monitoring of its housing system.

Finally, it is interesting that, in a small way, housing associations in Glasgow are dipping their toe into mid market rent and indeed ‘normal’ private renting. Do they have the skills to manage properties commercially and which segment should they operate in? How do you manage estates or neighbourhoods where you have tenants with quite different rights and conditions? This may be anathema to some housing people but to others it is a diversification that makes sense and offers opportunities to improve local housing quality and widen the range of housing on offer.

Changing times.

The ONS Returns

After the reclassification of English housing associations in the Autumn of 2015 into ‘public non-financial corporations’, many in Scotland believed that it was likely that in due course ONS would decide to look at the other housing association sectors across the rest of the UK. Last week ONS confirmed what many thought probably inevitable. The proposed work will be carried out by ONS in the last three months of 2016.

In its work programme, ONS said:

“Cases scheduled for assessment:

9. Registered providers of social housing (known also as registered social landlords in Wales) including registered housing associations in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland

Current classification: Private Non-Financial Corporations (S.11002)”


“ONS last assessed the classification of social housing providers in devolved governments in 2003 under the 1995 European System of Accounts rules. The existing classification will be reviewed to assess the impact of the latest 2010 European System of Accounts Rules and, where relevant, of changes in legislation which have occurred since the previous assessment. This will establish whether these bodies should be recorded in the public or private sectors for statistical purposes and whether they are market or non-market producers. Altogether, this will establish in which statistical sector their activities (including their assets and liabilities) should be recorded. As part of this review, ONS will also consider the classification of the associated social housing regulators where applicable.”

While this may not be clarified until the end of 2016, the Scottish case, like in England, is one based fundamentally on the relationship between the regulator and the sector. A number of implications would flow if Scotland is similarly reclassified. First, liabilities and assets would go on to the public sector books, adding to public debt. This may also mean wider government influence and a degree of control over new borrowing. Second, the question then becomes: will the Scottish Government go down the same road as the UK Government and try to deregulate the sector and hence have the reclassification reversed.

Just how this deregulation might be attempted and what its intended and unintended consequences might be for the sector – are quite hard to discern but require very careful consideration. Whatever else, deregulation should not be undertaken lightly or too rapidly. The English deregulation experience over the next few months will be an important if not critical guide for the Scottish government and the Scottish housing regulator. All of the UK devolved governments need to work together.

So, other things equal, we will now engage in a debate for several months about the appropriate way for the Scottish Government to respond to the probable reclassification and what form of regulatory level is both sufficient for reclassification reversal and adequate for the needs of the sector (indluding finance), its long term commitments and the interests of tenants (the current primary purpose of the SHR). What might this mean in a Scottish context for the delivery and composition of the 50,000 affordable units proposed for the next Parliament, if the present government is re-elected?

But we may be getting ahead of ourselves. The ONS has not started the work yet; it may be affected one supposes by the English experience (i.e. it may even be possible to short circuit multiples changes to classification). We will also have to see if primary legislation (as in England) is required to make the changes that the sector and presumably the government want.

All of this is about regulation and ultimately control over the sector. It is ironic that whereas all four UK nations adopt recognizably similar forms of housing regulation, the significant substantive policy divergence over the last few years between England and Scotland regarding social housing policy has absolutely no bearing on the current classification debate.

 

Three (tax) strikes and you are out

A relatively little-mentioned aspect of this week’s budget was the continuation of the fiscal assault on buy to let landlords. As we know, the rate of capital gains tax has been cut but the private landlord has been exempted from this effective tax subsidy. The rate of CGT remains at the old higher rate for them. While this is only a relative disadvantage compared to other forms of assets, it is a continuation of a process whereby the Treasury has accumulated fiscal penalties on the sector over the last year or so (reducing tax relief to the basic rate for interest on borrowing and also the 3% hike on all rates of stamp duty quickly replicated in Scotland).

The rationale from the UK Government is two-fold: they want to pursue a tenure-based housing policy that promotes the growth in home ownership and are of course pursuing a range of more or less credible policy proposals to do just that. Second, however, they are justifying this approach insofar as it means reducing the incentives to invest in private renting (or stay in the sector), because the Bank of England published its view that BTL investment may be pricing out home owners and creating bubble like inflation in the housing market (that needs to be moderated).

The logic of this argument is I think pretty ropey. It is one thing to say that rental investors are bidding up the properties they purchase (they obviously are very active and taking a large chunk of new lending and yes may be pushing prices up a bit); but it does not follow that by choking off the return to such investment via blunt fiscal interventions will (a) deflate any such bubble (whether or not it is a real issue consistently or largely outside of the Metropole) or (b) that this will in the short to medium run actually make things better in terms of the supply of housing. Let’s unpack the argument a bit.

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Clearly, private renting and owner-occupied segments of the housing market are interdependent – they are a more or less functioning system where change in one affects the other. In recent years, largely though not wholly as a result of the non-affordability of home ownership and linked  long term supply shortages, demand has grown and supply has responded on the rental market to accommodate unfulfilled home ownership demand and, to an extent, meet new demands independent of this frustrated non-owning segment. Intervening through fiscal levers to make the rental sector less attractive may well reduce new investment and stimulate disinvestment – slowing the growth and even reducing the sector’s actual size. But there are least three problems that arise in this system where I think the Treasury is not thinking it all through.

First, it will take a long time for any downward pressures on prices caused by a landlord or investor exit to impact on house prices to the extent that they make a material difference to potential first time buyers (and it is questionable if this would ever be the case in some parts of the U.K.)..

Second, the PRS is not the only force acting on house prices – there remains the chronic weakness of new supply to deliver and the myriad host of new announcements and policies supposed to unlock housing supply, as well as of course other demand side policies like Help to Buy.  Where is the evidence that this strategy adds up or that BTL is the critical driver of prices?

Third, in the (potentially lengthy) intervening period while we wait optimistically for this supply renaissance to deliver large numbers annually of a range of owner-occupied supply to locations where there is demand and a good proportion of it is accessible to potential purchasers – just where are the growing number of households going to be accommodated? Will a shrinking rental market simply not reduce the options for people to rent and bid up market rents?  Surely, this continuing long term problem in the home ownership sector is precisely why we need a well-functioning, better regulated (e.g. longer length of tenancy) and well policed rental market? Actively trying to make it less competitive and less attractive to investors is simply wrong-headed.