Edinburgh is doon the pan, I’m sad to say. And Dundee is right on track to follow it.
Our capital city is almost unliveable for normal people.
Insatiable landlord thirst, and cowardice on behalf of those that can legislate to de-fang the bloodsuckers, has allowed rent to run completely – wildly – out of control.
Edinburgh has been crippled for several years now.
A lack of alternatives – unobtainable mortgages, not enough social housing – have forced people into the private renting market.
And the individual landlords who make up that market have been absolutely fleecing us.
CityLets quarterly report on the private rental market has just been released, and it is alarming for anyone in and around Dundee.
The report shows rents in this city have risen by 50% in 5 years.
And there is no engine driving the increase other than exploitative greed.
Landlords hold price-point power
The report is very clear: there is great need for housing at the moment.
People are desperate for somewhere to live.
Landlords have sensed this human need, and put a high price on it.
Landlords will be reading this. If you are acting, in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis in my lifetime, to jack up rents to further line your own nest, you are behaving immorally.
Now is a time to reconsider.
You don’t need to charge the absolute maximum the market will bear.
I know of plenty of decent landlords.
I personally have paid below the market rate by a hundred quid or more on three of my last four rented rooms.
Anecdotally, there are folk out there who are bucking the trend of Thatcherite greed.
I hope you are one of them.
But the CityLets report is emphatic: the majority of landlords are absolutely at it.
And it’s causing real human misery.
The report from Citylets provides an excellent analysis of Scotland's rental market. It shows that there is a lack of supply and really strong demand from tenants across the country. https://t.co/ZuUpvs09M4#citylets #scotlandrentalmarket pic.twitter.com/iO1W7N5Ap2
— Portolio (@myportolio) September 1, 2022
The Scottish Government are also clear, saying: “People who rent their homes are more likely to live in poverty, be financially vulnerable and live on low incomes.”
No wonder.
Rental generally sees money ‘trickle up’.
The poorer give their salaries to shore up the finances of those better off.
Londonised cities knock on to commuter towns
This summer I worked mostly in Edinburgh.
All the chat was how impossible it is to pay rent, or even find a flat or room to rent in the first place.
Our capital has been Londonised: turned into a property plaything for the hyperwealthy.
Fifteen landlords own 5,300 Edinburgh flats between them.
Many of them will have plenty of subtenants squirrelled away in them.
So the number of lives these greedy landlords will have power over will be potentially around 20,000.
One single Edinburgh landlord owns more than 1,000 properties.
Criminal. Or at least, it should be.
With the capital uninhabitable, many working folk move out.
To Livingston, to Inverkeithing, to Dunfermline.
That’s fine, unless you live in those places.
The slightly-better salaries in Edinburgh mean commuters can outcompete locals in Fife and the Lothians, and force them in turn to move out of their own towns and commute back in.
Just like London, Edinburgh’s overheated rental sector is hollowing these worthy towns out.
Capitalist greed turning our ancient and modern towns to commuter shells.
Horrible.
Dundee rent prices ‘criminal’
Dundee is now going the same way.
The barber cutting my hair is from Aberdeenshire.
His partner is a teacher.
They couldn’t afford a place in Dundee – the DD5 postcode is ridiculous now – so live in Carnoustie and commute.
Anecdotes like this play out in the figures of the CityLets reports.
Rent in Scotland as whole has gone up 26.6% in the last decade, and 8.3% in just the last year.
Dundee is far outstripping that.
The average increase in rental prices is a whopping 36% in the last five years.
Worse, if you’re a family, or care for an aged or infirm relation and need extra bedrooms, you’re additionally screwed.
The average rent for a three-bed flat or house here is over £1,100, an increase of 55%.
Again, not criminal.
But it should be.
So what are we going to do?
Rent freeze is a start – but not enough`
Well, the Scottish Government have at last acted, and frozen rent for existing tenants for the next few months.
So, if you have a place, your landlord can’t put the price up.
That’s good.
So Sturgeon wants to control the rent I charge for a flat in Dundee?
Simple. I will remove it from the rental market after evicting the tenant and selling the flat.
— A Bairn of Jock Tamson (@nats_tired) September 6, 2022
But there needs to be a reversal in prices, too, if we are going to reduce the number of people living in landlord-imposed poverty.
It’s got to be far more affordable housing.
It’s got to be a massive council housing build project.
And it’s got to be an enforced annual decrease in rental property prices that are above the average.
I appreciate that many landlords will feel the pinch of that.
But that’s life.
There is a squeeze coming for us all, and it’s not right that we let owners of multiple properties protect themselves against it by overcharging those who are struggling.
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