Jeremy Hunt has rejected the chance to boost housing supply and seemed to dodge the housing market altogether in the spring budget. The chancellor failed to increase the short supply of affordable and family homes to buy or rent. He disreguarded the Conservative Party’s 2019 manifesto pledge to build 300,000 new homes per year. This could lead to impending problems; an affordability crisis looming for first time buyers, a mortgage affordability crunch for those coming off low fixed rate loans, and a supply shortage in the private rented sector.

The budget is heavily geared toward boosting economic growth, it would be expected the housing market would have been mentioned, given how central it is to the economy. Lack of support for first-time buyers, no mention of how to address new home supply issues, and a missed chance to encourage existing landlords to remain in the market and attract new landlords with some form of tax-break. The withdrawal of landlords from the market at a time when workers are returning to the office following the pandemic means there is little choice for tenants and has pushed up rents at an astonishing pace.

Landlords remain vital for the future of a fit and healthy private rented sector and placing further negative legislative burdens on both amateur and professional landlords will only prove detrimental to a PRS which is already overflowing.Recent data from Companies House revealed that there were a record 47,400 new buy-to-let companies incorporated in 2021 across the UK. Which is nearly twice the number that was set up in 2017 and further proof that the sector is shifting away from ‘amateur’ landlords and becoming more professional. Tightnening regulations, rising morgage rates and the annoucement of the rise of corporation tax.