Serious decisions must be made in the coming year to ensure there is sufficient housing north of the border, according to DJ Alexander.
The agency believes that the Scottish property market has changed immeasurably over the last 30 years but legislation and government policy has failed to keep pace.
DJ Alexander pointed out that in 1993, 37.5% of Scots lived in social housing, 7% rented privately and 55.5% were owner-occupiers. However, by 2020 – the latest date for which there are statistics – 23% were living in social housing, 14.9% were in the private rented sector and 58.2% were owner-occupiers.
In terms of actual numbers there were 822,000 social houses in 1993 and there were 608,000 in 2020 – a drop of 214,000. This translates to a reduction of 7,642 homes each year for the last 28 years.
David Alexander, the chief executive officer of DJ Alexander Scotland, commented: “These figures highlight the failure of successive governments’ on both sides of the border to build sufficient social housing to meet demand and the consequent growth of the private rented sector to fill this gap over the last three decades.
“We need a serious debate on every part of the housing sector in Scotland. The answer to the growing housing needs of our population lies in a blended solution which involves the owner-occupier market, the private rented and social housing sectors combining their efforts to create sufficient homes for people to live in.
“Yet the Scottish government has adopted a housing policy which seeks to single out the PRS as being the root cause of housing shortages in Scotland. The truth is that we have over 200,000 social houses fewer now than in 1993 and the only solution in the meantime has been for people to turn to the PRS to fill this growing need.”
Alexander added: “What we need is a coherent long-term plan to create a housing policy that reflects the needs and demands of a diverse and changing population. I believe that opening up communication channels between the various interested parties would be more valuable in ensuring we have a suitable supply of homes in the future.”
Comments (1)
PRS is what it says on the tin. It should only be used by those that can afford that market. Instead it has slowly, slowly been used to bail out SHS, for people who frankly cannot afford PRS sector. The sudden increase in cost of living is a 2023 time bomb for far too many tenants already being on their affordability limit and will go into arrears.
SNP will rent cap to keep SHS tenants in PRS as they can’t house them. Landlords will mass exodus as rents in real time will fall in value. Agents will have to increase fee’s to cover the costs which is a double whammy for landlords.
As usual …… all government only act when its too late, having buried their heads in the sand, knowing full well what they were doing and what would eventually happen, hoping not on their watch.