New mayor of London Sadiq Khan has pledged to introduce living rents after beating his Conservative Party rival Zac Goldsmith by 1,310,143 votes to 994,614.
The Labour Party candidate might have a larger personal mandate than previous mayors Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone, but private landlords in the capital have little reason to fear Sadiq Khan’s pre-election property pledges.
The smallprint of the new mayor’s manifesto reveals that he wants to create a new form of affordable housing, with living rents based on one-third of average local income, not market rates.
This appears to be great news for London’s 2 million tenants living in private accommodation, who the mayor says pay an average rent of £1676 per month.
The politician, who stood down as Labour MP for Tooting on 10 May, claims this £55 per night cost is more expensive than staying in a four-star hotel in Paris, Rome, Berlin, Warsaw and Prague.
But his living rent plan hinges on the mayor being able to deliver up to 80,000 new homes each year in London.
Khan says he will “seek out new sources of investment and use planning powers effectively to raise the number of new and affordable homes London builds”.
But with an average of 19,571 homes per year built under Ken Livingstone and 18,364 per year under Boris Johnson, many question whether mass housebuilding can be achieved.
Christine Whitehead, a professor in housing economics at the LSE, has said that Khan’s housebuilding target would “result in an initial fall in development activity and would make many sites financially unviable”.
Property promise
Another property promise made by the mayor involves establishing a “London-wide not-for-profit letting agency to promote longer-term, stable tenancies for responsible tenants and good landlords across the capital”.
If put in place, this would guarantee a tenancy of up to three years and rents that only go up in line with inflation.
Denhan has been working with private landlords for 15 years to give them long-term stability.
We give property owners who sign up to our rent guarantee scheme the full market rental value of their homes every month for up to five years.
Our experience teaches us that many tenants do not wish to remain in a property for longer than the standard 12-month assured shorthold tenancy agreement.
This can mean London’s landlords having to deal with void periods while their rental properties undergo cleaning and repairs between tenancies.
Denhan’s five-year rent guarantee scheme takes the stress out of managing your property and can ensure you receive fixed monthly payments even if your property’s not rented out.
Not only that, we deal with all tenant issues directly to save you the trouble.
Here at Denhan, we agree with the mayor when he says that London does not have enough homes for its estimated 8.6 million population and the price of property prevents many tenants from being able to afford a home of their own.
Affordable homes
Even if the mayor does deliver the affordable homes that London needs, it will be many years before private landlords will cease being an integral component of the capital’s housing mix.
Denhan works tirelessly to protect tenants’ interests by giving landlords the support they need to cope with the growing amount of legislation that now affects the private rental sector.
To learn more about all the services that Denhan offers landlords, contact us today.