A RICS survey is showing that private sector rents are expected to rise signifcantly in some parts of the country - mainly London and the South East. It is widely perceived that people are priced out of home ownership: but there are likely to be increasing numbers of people priced out of the private rented sector too in areas of high demand, leading to increases in homelessness, over-crowding and sofa-surfing.
It will make it harder for empty homes schemes to attract private landlords in some areas, if the rents offered don't come close enough to private sector rents. If landlords let their homes anyway that will not be a big blow in itself to tackling empty homes, but some schemes address both transiactional and problematic empties and if they are not able to attract sufficient landlords of transactional empties the entire schemes may no longer be viable. Rather than face the increased costs associated with higher rents, councils may be tempted to allocate more of their available stock or nominations to homelessness cases. The question of whether an offer of accommodation in the private sector is reasonable may also becoming more prominent.