A leading housing economics expert has been hired by Camden council in an effort to slow down the rate of increase in private renting costs.

 

The consultant is Christine Whitehead who is a professor of housing economics at the London School of Economics (LSE), her brief is to explore ways of how the council can keep rent increases to a low.

One the council's initiatives that they are looking to introduce, is offering financial rewards to those private landlords that agree to a rent cap policy for their properties in line with inflation.

Councillor Julian Fulbrook, cabinet member for housing, said: “Rents in the borough are unbelievable. There are some enormous amounts being talked about. Private sector tenants have some very lurid tales about how landlords are putting up rents.

“We may not be using all the levers that we have at our disposal to deal with a very difficult problem, which is an overheated private rented sector in Camden.

“We don’t necessarily need to wait for national legislation to deal with this because we already have relationships with private landlords and many of them have already said they welcome this.”

Fulbrook knows Professor Whitehead of old when he held the position of law professor at the LSE. He says the housing expert is suggesting the offering of loans for capital repairs to landlords who sign up to the council's “rent stabilisation scheme”, could encourage "take up".

“If we are handing out council money, maybe we ought to consider if there are strings attached to some of the loans to landlords,” said Fulbrook.

He also hopes landlords, upon registration, would benefit from the “kitemark saying, Camden Council-approved”.

The council's plans very much mirror Miliband's proposals to cap rent increases and introduce compulsory three-year tenancies in the private sector.

It is looking very likely that LSE's report will look at ways to encourage landlords to offer longer term tenancies so that tenants will have more security.

The report is due to be published by sometime in the Autumn and Councillor Fulbrook said that its findings  would be “filtering through to one of our local residents, Ed Miliband, to see what a future Labour government could do”.

However Conservative councillor Jonny Bucknell who is a private landlord, said: “The reason that rents are so high is that prices are so high. Rents have got to be proportionate to house prices. Any sort of cap will deter people from coming into the marketplace.

“What has worked incredibly well is deregulation and the private market has taken off. Any whiff of regulation could put people off coming into the market.”