We have almost too much news at the moment what with a new president in America making worrying statements and the Brexit issues. Happily, I am only here to look at landlord and tenant related news so here goes.
The solution to the housing crisis?
Many of my news items today come from the wonderful Property Industry Eye, including this item about shortages of skilled workers in the building trade.
This is nothing new of course but worrying, particularly in the light of Brexit and the increasing difficulties workers from Europe will presumably face coming to this country to work.
One solution to this issue, which to do them credit the government has already spotted, is to use prefabricated buildings.
The main problems with pre-fabs have always been their reputation for poor quality, and the fact that most suppliers are based overseas – for example in Germany. However, this article in the Guardian describes how ‘modular off-site construction’ is being developed in this country using domestic materials – which could be the answer.
It is believed that the use of this type of housing will form a major plank of the forthcoming government white paper on housing but we will have to wait and see.
Anyone who has watched Grand Designs will know that pre-fabricated housing can be pretty spectacular and superb qualify. My view is that it would be a great way for Local Authorities to build. It is a lot quicker that traditional building and if Local Authorities are able to invest heavily, economies of scale would mean that a lot of superior housing could be developed at relatively modest cost.
Tenants ‘passports’
Another item in Property Industry Eye which caught my eye recently was this item about a new service promising ‘tenants passports’. Here is a bit more about them:
The new service, launching in April and based in Brighton, will allow agents and landlords all over the UK to recommend tenants and help build a tenant’s ‘rental passport’.
Agents and landlords will also be able to view a prospective tenant’s passport, including references, payment history and other personal information. Tenants will be able to build their own online rental passports, with full control over their own privacy.
Nobody will be able to buy access to these tenants’ passports, and there will be no public directory of tenants. Instead, the tenant must grant a particular Movem user access to view it through the website. Tenants can revoke this access at any time.
Sounds like a good idea, and just in time to help agents overcome the anticipated problems if the government’s forthcoming ban on letting agents fees prevents them from recovering the cost of tenant referencing.
My personal view is that the actual cost of referencing has a good chance of escaping the ban, as it is not really a fee but covering the cost of a disbursement. However, there is no guarantee that the government will see it this way.
The developer, Peter Ramsey, has a good track record, a previous service is currently being used in every university in the UK and is publicly endorsed by 25 student unions.
White paper?
We have been promised a white paper for a while, but according to Property Industry Eye there have been a few problems with it and it has gone back to be re-written.
One of the problems with the original version apparently being proposals to build on green belt land, which the Tories don’t want.
The White paper had been promised for last year, but it now looks as if it could be March or later. We shall have to see.
No ban in Wales
Turning to developments in Wales it seems that the Welsh are not minded to introduce letting agents fees just now (unlike Scotland who already have them and English where they are to be introduced).
Apparently, the Welsh first minister has written to David Cox of ARLA to confirm this saying that they want to see how Rent Smart Wales works out before coming to any decision.
Rather worryingly a quote from ALRA says
It’s clear that further widespread changes are in the pipeline for the private rented sector across the UK,
As if the sector had not had enough changes already!
Killing local newspapers
A worrying Property Industry Eye post recently looked at local newspapers and how these were being killed off by Property Portals.
Partly the newspapers own fault of course for not recognising the changes in the industry and adapting their service to suit.
However I don’t know about you, but I am very concerned about the decline of ‘proper’ news reporting, along with the rise of fake news sites, and of course the use of ‘alternative facts’ by the American Presidency.
I now support the Guardian and pay a modest contribution to them – they are not owned by a media mogul but by an independent trust so are probably our best bet for independent news.
More depressing news
There are of course always depressing news items about DSS tenants being shut out of the private rented sector and the rise of rough sleeping.
Dawn Foster in her Friday post considers the Homelessness Bill to be a step in the right direction but it is, of course, piling more obligations onto cash strapped Councils who don’t have the resources to meet them properly. To quote Dawn:
It’s roughly akin to legally mandating someone to build you a shed after taking away their toolbox, all the wood they’d stockpiled, and then for good measure, burning down any nearby trees.
Quite.
There is an interesting Guardian opinion piece on Council funding here.
What made me smile
Well, it’s been a bit of a grim week and not a lot to smile about news wise. However, as an ex-geographer, I am intrigued by Mr Trump’s wall plan and have done a bit of reading about it. I also took a look at the US /Mexico boundary on Google maps.
The amusement came when I read that actually, Mexican construction companies are likeliest to be the biggest winners and that anyway the wall won’t solve the problem much because (per this BBC item)
According to a 2015 US government “national drug threat assessment”, the bulk of illegal narcotics enter the US through border checkpoints and points of entry, hidden among more than 5.5 million commercial trucks that cross the US-Mexican border every year.
Undocumented immigration is a similar story. Most of the Mexicans who are in the US illegally entered through legal means and then overstayed their visas, not by illicit border-crossing that a wall could prevent.
It made me smile but it’s also deeply worrying.