We've tried that in Ireland - I'm the beneficiary of Rent Pressure Zones in Dublin and I think they're incredibly dumb; if you want more housing don't try your hardest to convince all the people thinking "hmm, should we rent Grandma's unit that's been vacant in Rialto since she died 10 years ago" that it's a terrible idea!
It's the inverse of the problem the BTL revolution had - small landlords buying up housing stock and driving prices up.
So, house no longer for rent - it'll go on sale, which means more houses available on the market, which would depress prices. The problem is that's unpalateable to the large Tory donors, so the only way out is to build build build (and maybe see if it's possible to forbid purchase by anyone but owner-occupiers).
The Scottish tenancy reform already changed the ability to evict to one of a list of specified reasons: https://rentingscotland.org/landlords/eviction-grounds-for-t...
I got around this by negotiating directly with the landlord to renew the tenancy without involving the agent. Just because the agent sends you a letter saying you owe them £90 doesn't make it true, they actually have very little power.
But what needs to happen urgently (and could happen virtually overnight if politicians wanted it to) is that renting needs to be made slightly less awful.
Renting a home is no longer something that people do for a few years while they're young. Many will be doing it for life, and the rules need to change accordingly.
Some ideas:
- A total ban on any agent's fees being charged to the tenant (already happened in Scotland, and been promised to the rest of the UK for months now).
- A year's notice before you can evict someone from a home. (unless they are not paying rent / trashing the place)
- A year's notice before increasing the rent.
- Some sort of government body that forces landlords to conduct repairs to a high standard, and obliges them to pay for alternative accommodation if the property isn't fixed.