An NHS worker said that he and many fellow health service staff struggled to find a home to rent in Brighton because of the likes of Airbnb.
Social prescriber Joe Walker told a Brighton and Hove City Council meeting that the problem was particularly acute in the spring and summer.
Mr Walker told councillors that he was currently in temporary housing and has spent the past three months trying to find a room in a shared house.
He said that he had responded to more than a hundred adverts but had been able to arrange only six viewings.
Landlords had told him that between 80 and 130 people applied for every room that was advertised in Brighton and Hove.
At a meeting of the Housing Committee, he asked what the council was doing to deal with the housing shortage for workers.
He said that his experience was “that of literally hundreds of others who are currently trying to find somewhere to live in the city”. They had good jobs but were unable to find a room to rent.
He added: “I’m trying to find a room, not a property. Affordability is not even an issue. It is more about where am I going to live?
“I would ask the council to commit to a report and a proposal for action on the lack of rental accommodation available to workers like me in the city.”
Green councillor Siriol Hugh-Jones, who co-chairs the council’s Housing Committee, said that holiday lets were a source of “great frustration” and national legislation was needed to combat the problem.
She said: “Where households are homeless or at risk, the council will provide assistance to access private accommodation – and this will vary.
“This can include help negotiating rents, providing deposits and rent in advance and incentives to landlords or agents to provide longer-term tenancies.
“We are also developing a new scheme to act as an alternative to a guarantor.”
She said that short-term lets were a national issue and the council’s housing director had raised the issue with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities that day.
In September, members of the council’s Tourism, Equalities, Communities and Culture Committee agreed to respond to the government’s call for evidence before ministers decide whether to change the law on holiday lets.
At that time, councillors were told that the number of holiday lets in Brighton and Hove had more than doubled in five years.
Green councillor Martin Osborne, who co-chairs the council’s Tourism, Equalities, Communities and Culture Committee, said that councillors had already discussed two reports on the effects of holiday lets.
Councillor Osborne said: “It is very difficult to have an influence on the current stock in the city. What we do have an influence on is on what we’re building.”
The council doesn’t even know how many AirBnBs are in Brighton. I don’t have a problem with the odd room being let if a homeowner wants a bit of extra cash, but how many entire houses have been turned into holiday lets/party houses without applying for change of use? The council can look into this without the need for national legislation.
There is no requirement to apply for a change of use. There is no requirement to register a holiday let. This is part of the problem – holiday lets are so lightly regulated that landlords have piled in rather than stay in the heavily taxed and regulated rental sector.
The issue is not the number of AirBnBs. the issue is the abolition of section 21 and the increasing tax and mortgage burden on private landlords that means letting properties out is no longer financially viable. The EPC regulations coming in also mean that most properties in Brighton which are old building stock are also simply no longer possible to have as long term lets as the conversion costs either run into tens of thousands of pounds or are simply impossible to achieve.
I’m afraid the population of Brighton is hugely increasing. People are leaving London and moving down here now they do not need to go into the office every day and there is also natural population growth from immigration. This coupled with the incoming EPC regulation, abolition of section 21 etc means that people prepared to rent out their houses will become fewer and fewer and more and more properties will sit empty as people move in with partners etc. Encouraging people to rent out these properties will help the situation but Acorn etc just seem to want to attack landlords and who in their right mind would end up renting a property when you can just invest your money in tracker funds and get better returns without the agro and risk of being a landlord.
Many landlords are rushing to sell up due to increased costs imposed on them by “net zero” / sect21 and now Sunak’s tax grab. The only AirBnB lets will soon be people’s own homes while they go away for a bit, usually staying in another AirBnB. I think some guest homes also use AirBnB to advertise.
The problem is there are too many people in Brighton and not enough homes. So the price goes up. Removing rental properties will not improve matters. AirBnB figures are probably inaccurate and banning them will have no effect on the number of properties for rent.
Acorn should buy up homes and rent them out at cost – therby putting their money where their mouth is…
Interestingly this article focuses on “Health care workers” not being able to get accomodation.The NHS in an employer, just like any other. If it wants to employ people in Brighton it needs to pay more so employees can afford to live here. It happens in London so why not Brighton ?
Because Brighton is not recognised as a place that should have ‘Brighton Weighting’ added to the pay of essential workers, as ‘London Weighting’ is added by many employers to recognise the higher accommodation costs and cost-of-living in the capital. In other words, the NHS and others expect to attract and keep essential workers in a place with London costs on bucket and spade wages.