It’s not exactly news that we’re in the throes of an unprecedented ‘cost of living crisis’. Equally depressing are recent reports of ‘slum-like’ social housing in which tenants are living in conditions so dire that their homes are actually making them ill. Of course spiralling inflation isn’t helping – because the cost of remedying poor housing is increasing.
The UK has been suffering a chronic shortage of social housing – and indeed any form of affordable housing – for decades. In fact, according to homelessness charity Shelter’s website, England alone is lacking around 1.5 million homes, largely because too few are being built.
The main reason for the social housing deficit is that the government invests negligible amounts directly in social housing these days – but at least reliance in the past on developers’ obligation to dedicate around 25% of their new builds to “Affordable Housing” has mitigated things to some extent. And this, counter-intuitively, is where the current cost of living crisis, compounded by the recent surge in interest rates, is making things so much worse.
“How’s that?”, you might well ask. Well, as fewer and fewer people have any hope of ‘getting a foot on the housing ladder’ as inflation, not least on rents, makes it all but impossible to save a deposit, demand begins to fall. So developers build fewer houses to avoid a crash in prices – and the nation loses that quarter of new builds designated for affordable housing. The trend has been downward for a very long time – since the 1980s!
Even if you’d like to do something to alleviate what Shelter is now describing as a ‘Housing Emergency’, on the face of it, surely the individual landlord with just one, a couple or a handful of properties in their portfolio can’t do anything significant?
Actually there is a way you can help – and make your own life considerably easier at the same time – simply by getting involved in Abel Living’s Guaranteed Rent for Landlords scheme. Tried and trusted by landlords the length and breadth of the UK, it simply means you add your property or properties to our social housing pool, thereby doing your bit to make life better for cash-starved prospective tenants. And, better still, we guarantee you steady monthly rental payments at a fixed rate for up to 5 years. We even pay you for all the times the properties are vacant, handle all the maintenance and repairs and regularly inspect to ensure your properties are kept in good condition.
Reliable income, peace of mind and the knowledge you’re running a socially responsible and helpful property business. What’s not to love?