UK's Private Renters Being Ripped-Off By Letting Agents

A majority of the UK's private rented sector (PRS) tenants believe that the fees charged by letting agents are poor value for money. A Populus survey found that 60% of PRS tenants believe they have been overcharged by letting agents - and a quarter said they were unlikely to use the same letting agent again based on their previous experience. Those polled said that they didn't believe more government regulation would offer a solution. Read more on 24dash.

Six Popular Housebuilding Policies

At Shelter we have long argued that housebuilding can be a vote winner. We know from our campaigns that engaging the public in the problem isn’t too difficult – almost universally, they are worried about where their kids are going to live. But when it comes to solutions, one of the things that holds housing back among political types is the belief that housebuilding itself isn’t, well, very sexy.  So, we asked Populus to poll six possible housebuilding policies. We then asked respondents to pick their favourite, and whether they would still support that policy even if it meant more homes being built in their local area.  The six policies were;

1. Rent to Buy    

2. Part buy part-rent homes        

3. ‘New Homes Deal’      

4. Zero deposit homes

5. New council homes with the option of Right to Buy     

6. Home-buyers discount

Read more details of each one on the Shelter website.