New rents map shows low wage homes lock-out

new info picked up by Dave Hill's London Blog - a new rents map by Green Assembly member Darren Johnson has published an interesting new London Rents Map analysis.   Johnson has also worked out that a young Londoner earning the national minimum wage could afford a room in shared accommodation in only four of London's 32 boroughs. New Colour-coded borough maps (pdf) illustrate his findings and an interactive one enables you to figure out where you could afford to rent in the private rented sector.

A household with one low wage earner requiring a two-bedroom home could not afford an average rent for such a dwelling in any of the capital's 32 boroughs, according to the government's definition of an affordable home as one that consumes no more than 35% of a person's take-home pay after tax. That's even if they're being paid the London Living Wage. 

Meanwhile Shelter has conducted research showing that Barking and Dagenham ranked number one in the country for repossessions, with 8.44 repossession claims per 1,000, followed by other London boroughs Lewisham (6.46), Newham (6.07) and Greenwich (5.88) - as Shelter says, "Higher rates of possession claims are strongly associated with higher and increasing rates of unemployment," and those tend to be higher in the authorities with the highest rates of possession claims.

Read the repossession hotspots research here.


According to Red Brick blog, later this month the Montague review into private rented housing will be published.  Recommendations include pushing councils to change their housing strategies to promote new private rented developments - waiving affordable housing commitments to do so. It will also recommend the government offers loans, rather than grants, to support large-scale new build PRS schemes - a possible threat to grant funding for affordable homes.