Sir – Well done to Richard Scrase for dealing head-on with the issue of affordability in the housing market (First Person, April 24) and calling for rent control.
We are constantly told that the answer to the housing crisis is to build more houses, but this will do nothing to help the increasing number of people who cannot afford existing prices. For too long now we have been seduced into thinking that property is a great way of making money and blinded to the consequences.
Yes, we need a rental sector but the buy-to-let market creates artificial demand, which pushes up prices, and people who cannot afford to buy are forced into the rental market.
The consequences of this bonanza are
far-reaching — housing benefit now costs us more than £23bn a year.
Increasing property prices have forced up pub and shop rents, contributing to the demise of our pubs and high streets, families are forced to work longer just to pay for housing and our countryside is under increasing pressure from development.
For too long we have ignored the effect of the buy-to-let market on prices. HMRC recently announced that over one million buy-to-let landlords are failing to declare their income.
In addition to rental controls, the Government should consider restrictions on the buy-to-let mortgage market — and before anyone says that you cannot interfere in a free market, let’s just remember that the taxpayer subsidises this market to the tune of £23bn a year.
We have lost sight of the fact that the primary purpose of housing is to provide homes and not a means to make money. We are paying dearly for this short-sightedness.
Lawrence Kelly, Headington Quarry