The Rent a Room Scheme tax threshold was increased from £4,250 to £7,500 per year on 6th April 2016, following a six-year campaign by SpareRoom, backed by Shelter, Generation Rent and the National Landlords Association. There are around 19 million empty bedrooms in owner-occupied properties in England alone - if just 3% of these (570,000) were let out on a residential basis, it would unlock housing equivalent to a city the size of Liverpool.
Yet the failure to restrict the scheme to residential lets has meant a boost in short term lets rather than residential. According to SpareRoom data, there were 68,604 new lodger adverts in 2017 – 8% lower than the number in 2016 (74,684). This decline, which came on the back of seven years’ consecutive growth, continued into 2018.
At the same time short term lets via holiday sites like Airbnb have seen a huge spike, rising 200% in ten UK cities between 2015 and 2017[1]. In London particularly, there has been a fourfold increase in Airbnb listings since 2015, this reduces residential housing supply and pushes up rents for people looking for long-term homes.
Matt Hutchison, SpareRoom Communications Director, comments: “These figures clearly show that the benefits we hoped to see from the government’s Rent a Room Scheme have been undermined by a new surge in short-term rentals. Given the fact we’re not building new homes in anywhere near the numbers we should, we have to do more to better use existing stock. The UK has a housing crisis, not a hotel room crisis.”
