• FishFace@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    2 days ago

    Why? This will increase supply of housing available to buy and reduce the supply available to rent. So house prices will go down slightly, and rents will go up slightly.

    • BooBees@fedinsfw.app
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      Because there isn’t a free market in housing anymore, they’ve all been caught colluding to keep pricing up even when there’s a huge glut of available units/houses in an area. They have been caught using apps to do it, and when faced with threats to stop that practice were found to use traditional means to collude. The free market is a myth in 2026, stop believing in fairy tales. Ayn Rand was a charlatan and capital isn’t going to ever be allowed to work for the poors.

      • FishFace@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        2 days ago

        I think you’re thinking of a case in the USA that colluded on rental prices? I don’t know of any evidence that there is collusion on house prices in the UK. People separately talk about investment companies buying up housing in the US as if that will have much impact on prices, but the proportion of housing under discussion is miniscule and unlikely to have any effect on prices - at least, outside of limited areas.

        I’m guessing at what you’re referring to here so feel free to get specific. But cases in the USA are not that relevant to the UK, where the government is far more willing to enforce free market conditions than the “free market” idiotlogues in America who think that you can have a free market without regulation.

    • Chozo@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      2 days ago

      Oh, so it only hurts the poorest and benefits those who can already afford to buy? How uplifting.

      • FishFace@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        2 days ago

        The Renters Rights Act overall benefits renters by making sure they can do such shocking things as keep a pet and make requests of the landlord without being evicted in revenge. This imposes a restriction on landlords, which amounts to a “cost” (in the sense of cost/benefit, not necessarily monetary) which means it was inevitable some would sell up. That part - landlords selling - does hurt the poorest, at least in the short term.

        However, the effect will be small in the long run: because houses for sale will increase a bit in supply, those prices will come down, enabling more people to exit the rental market. That will bring down prices at the top of the rental market, and eventually a portion of the decrease in house prices will feed through to a mitigation (not a reversal) of the increase in rents at the bottom of the rental sector as well. So a small effect to begin with (because it’s not like 50% of landlords will sell up without being replaced) and mitigated because while there’s no perfect exchange between the rental and owner-occupied sectors, there is some exchange.

        It’s therefore a small price to pay for basic standards of decency for renters.

        The true mitigation will come from building more social and affordable housing. The government has committed to do this but has so far abjectly failed, like many governments before them.