Today’s stories split cleanly into two camps: the private rented sector arguing with itself, and the market moving on regardless of the argument. A SpareRoom survey has tenants overwhelmingly backing rent controls just as the NRLA relaunches its campaign against them, while separately the ONS confirms what anyone selling in London already suspects, an auction house reports its strongest June in years, and the government finally funds cladding removal on buildings under 11 metres using risk rather than height as the test. None of this will surprise regular readers, but the detail behind each one is worth your time.
Renters want rent control, the NRLA wants it ruled out — and both sides cite the same evidence
SpareRoom’s survey of 5,607 tenants, reported by Landlord Today, finds 77% strongly support rent controls and only 5% oppose them outright. The reasons aren’t hard to find: 67% of UK renters, 70% in London, saw their rent rise in the past 12 months, and 32% of UK renters, 35% in London, say they’ve had to move home in that time because rent became unaffordable. SpareRoom director Matt Hutchinson doesn’t dress it up: “Rents just hit record highs in six of the UK’s nine regions, and supply across the country has taken a battering as the Renters’ Rights Act came into effect.”
The NRLA didn’t wait long to respond. In a campaign relaunch reported the same day, chief executive Ben Beadle argued there is “a need to rule out any form of rent control,” pointing out that “Angela Rayner herself and the cross-party Housing Select Committee have all warned rent controls would undermine the supply of homes to rent so many tenants urgently need,” and citing Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook’s own Commons evidence on Sweden, Germany, San Francisco and Scotland. Hamptons’ David Fell, writing independently of either camp via Property118, lands somewhere similar: “the evidence from Scotland suggests rent controls rarely work as intended. At best, they delay rent increases; at worst, they set a new benchmark where landlords feel compelled to increase their rents every year by the maximum allowed.”
My read: tenants aren’t wrong that something has to give, but the specific remedy they’re backing has a patchy record everywhere it’s been tried, Scotland included. What’s notable in SpareRoom’s own numbers is that most tenants who back controls already know the trade-off — six in ten accept it could push landlords out and shrink supply further — and want it anyway. That’s not naivety, it’s exhaustion. Nothing here is legislated, and Burnham has said no more than that he’s “looking at all of those things.” But this is now a live public argument with data on both sides, not a rumour, and it will run through the summer.
London’s sale prices fall for a ninth straight month. Its rents don’t
The ONS and HM Land Registry’s July release, covering prices to May and rents to June, puts the average UK house price at £271,000, up 2.7% on the year, down from 3.9% in April. England alone is up 2.3% to £292,000. London is the outlier: prices there fell 3.7% over the year, the ninth consecutive month of annual decline, with inner London down 5.9% and, in the ONS’s words, “large annual falls in average house prices in several local authorities, such as Westminster and Tower Hamlets.”
What’s odd is what’s happening to rents in the same city over the same period. UK private rents rose 3.3% annually to £1,388 a month in June, unchanged on May; England rents rose 3.4% to £1,446. London rents grew too — just 2.2%, the slowest of any English region, but still growth, at the same time as London sale prices were falling. Owner-occupiers there are pulling back; tenant demand isn’t.
My read: this isn’t only a London story. A capital where buying gets cheaper and renting doesn’t is exactly the pressure that pushes commuting-distance demand further out, and the South East sits squarely in that catchment. The release doesn’t break out our patch specifically, so don’t extrapolate a Hartfield or Tunbridge Wells trend from a London headline, or a national one — get current local comparables before you rely on either.
The auction market just had its strongest June in years — and I don’t think that’s a coincidence
Figures reported by The Negotiator show 3,538 residential lots offered at auction in June, up 33.5% on June last year, with 2,319 sold, up 29.7%, raising £436.6 million, a 38% rise on June 2025. The success rate held at 65.5% despite the extra stock. NAVA Propertymark president Stuart Collar-Brown put it plainly: “The UK’s auction market continues to deliver positive results… both buyers and sellers continue to see the value of auctioning their property as they seek certainty in a turbulent economic climate.”
Collar-Brown doesn’t say why, and I won’t put words in his mouth, but my bet is this month isn’t a coincidence. June was the second full month since the Renters’ Rights Act ended no-fault eviction on 1 May, and a landlord who wants to sell a tenanted property with vacant possession now has to rely on a specific ground, Ground 1A, rather than simply serving a Section 21 notice and waiting. An auction gives a hard exchange and completion date without that negotiation. If that’s even part of what’s driving the numbers, expect the trend to continue as more landlords work through their portfolios.
Cladding funding for buildings under 11 metres finally drops the tape measure
This one is a fortnight old rather than fresh off the wire, but the deadline attached to it is close enough to flag properly. Earlier this month the government confirmed new funding through the Cladding Safety Scheme, delivered by Homes England, for buildings under 11 metres with genuine cladding fire safety risk. Applications open 17 August and close eight weeks later. Minister for Building Safety Samantha Dixon put the principle simply: “Residents shouldn’t be left worrying about homes with dangerous, flammable cladding, just because their building isn’t tall enough to qualify.”
Funding won’t follow automatically from being under 11 metres. Government’s own position is that most buildings that short don’t carry meaningful external wall risk, so applicants need a Fire Risk Appraisal of the External Walls to PAS 9980:2022, produced by an assessor on the CSS Panel, showing a serious life-critical risk before an application can even be made. National Housing Federation chief executive Kate Henderson welcomed the shift: “Height alone is not a reliable measure of risk, and will ensure capacity is directed to where it’s needed most.” Campaign group End Our Cladding Scandal was less impressed, telling Inside Housing it was a “small step forward” but warning limited funding risks “more years of delay.”
My read: this is the same argument I flagged yesterday over evacuation lifts — height is an administratively convenient proxy for risk, not a reliable one, and the sector is slowly, unevenly, correcting for that. The catch for anyone managing a block under 11 metres is that a FRAEW takes time to commission and complete properly, and the application window is only eight weeks.
What I’d actually do
- Weighing whether to sell or hold rental stock amid the rent-control noise? Nothing is legislated yet, but build a scenario where rent growth on that property is capped for a few years and check the numbers still work, rather than waiting for a formal announcement to do the sum.
- Selling or buying near London? Don’t extrapolate from the capital’s headline index, especially with prices and rents there now moving in opposite directions — get current local comparables instead.
- Considering an auction sale of a let property? Get legal advice on which Section 8 ground actually applies before assuming a lot listing solves your timing problem, and remember vacant possession still tends to fetch more than a tenanted lot.
- Freeholder or managing agent of a block under 11 metres with any external wall concern? Commission a FRAEW to PAS 9980:2022 from a CSS Panel assessor now, ahead of the 17 August funding window, rather than starting that process after applications open.
- Landlord anywhere in the South East? Expect the rent-control argument to keep running through the summer — it’s noise for now, but noise worth tracking rather than ignoring.
If any of this touches your own plans — a building survey ahead of an auction purchase, or an EPC ahead of a letting — the practice offers building surveys and EPCs across the South East. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 23 July 2026.