Rent rises - what can the Gov do about it?

It's a vicious cycle. Public bodies won't/can't build. So they pump money into the market from their "bottomless" purses. Which leaves the market in a state which makes it even more difficult to do things the way they should do them.

I just don't get why we waste so much money on HAP. Let's build social houses. En masse. But - and here's the crux of it - don't give them away or have rights to purchase for cents on the dollar. You have a social house as long as, and only that long, as you need it. It is not inheritable.

Not sure about the fit out TBH, it's too subjective and open to abuse as a price control benchmark. If you look at countries with functioning rental markets, they typically rent unfurnished with white walls. Tenants are free to furnish and decorate as they wish but must return it in the same condition.

As for the levels of service from the owners, every tenant deserves a timely response to any reasonable request but in reality, what they should have is autonomy, like with the freedom to decorate. Taking an extreme example, our minimum rental standards require the provision of a microwave, an appliance that can cost as little as €75 or less than 0.5% of the average annual rent for new tenancies. If the microwave fails, and the tenant is waiting a week for a new one, that's poor service but in reality, our regulations are focused on the wrong thing, something like a microwave should be the tenants responsibility, they should be free to choose whatever microwave they want, or none, without having to to figure out where to store whatever POS the landlord provided, same for bed, sofa, and other furnishings. Larger appliances like fridge freezer, cooker, washing machine are probably better on the LL side but the regs should call out what a timely response to any issues should be.

modern society is far different in many ways, even financing property is now far more complex, when you start to look at the operations of credit and bond markets etc, but something is clearly catastrophically failing now in regards meeting this critical need. its clearly obvious the intended political approach of significantly reducing the public ownership of property, and the encouragement of more privately owned, is now starting to fail dramatically, the only solution here is the reintroduction of public accommodation, both housing and apartments, and to maintain a higher level of public ownership than is of current, an enormous amount of government borrowing is needed for this, but our current and previous governments have been deeply unwilling to accept this reality, hence their current falling.....

we re currently experiencing a major ideological failure, and id argue its actually a collapse, to the point, we dont really know what to do about it, and that also includes the opposition, we re also not the only country experiencing this problem, as its a wide scale global one. it could be argued, and i do partly agree with this, this approach worked for many older generations, in regards home ownership, many of which, probably would have never been able to obtain ownership without these polices, but this has now placed younger generations at great risk

renting public accommodation should be means tested, a significant amount of public borrowing will be required to build, which means many will probably need to pay market rate, or near market rate, to guarantee repayment of these loans.

our current approach is actually greatly exposing both renters and landlords, in order to have a functioning private market, protective measures for both entities are critical in order for these markets to function and exist, its clearly obvious, if we continue as is, this part of our property markets will more than likely also collapse, i strongly disagree with your last comment, even though an understandable one, there are failures in both sides of this story

again, i somewhat disagree, the nuances of being a landlord arent clear cut, there can be large amounts of debt still owed, and personal assets used in order to gain access to that credit, of course taxes to be paid and other costs, then of course theres the continual threat of a tenant refusing to leave and/or wrecking the place, this has all become very very messy, but i will agree, we probably do need referenda to help solve this one, as this has become a great danger for our economy and our society

there clearly needs to be a functioning eviction process, but in order to have that, there must be a functioning public housing system to support it, as people still need to be housed no matter what, making people homeless isnt a solution, even if tenents wreck places.

its understandable why we re now introducing eviction bans, but equal protections must also be included for landlords, an eviction ban alone simply wont work, both parties must be protected, in order to maintain a functioning system.

the reality is, the financial situation of the landlord, and of the property, must be included, there simply cannot be a situation whereby many landlords are facing default, and potential homelessness themselves, one of the main lessons from 08 should be the fact, if theres a significant amount of defaults on mortgages, it potentially could bring the whole system done, i.e. ignoring this fact simply is not an option, and must be included

Of course if rent is paid and tenants create no problems, then my argument fails.

However, we live in the real world, and there are huge problems with unpaid rent and tenants creating problems and destroying property.

As a result, rents are higher, that is the truth.

Until the issue of eviction is addressed, there will be a significant premium built in to rents. It is probably the biggest factor in the above-average rents.

And a timely eviction method. If I had a choice between a tax reduction or a proper eviction method as a LL I'd take the latter. Between 20% and 30% of the rent you pay is likely a bad debt provision.