Letter: Rent rise figures hard to believe when information is conflicting
I read with interest the report by David Seadon on falling incomes compared to rising rents.
I spent several hours trawling through figures from the Office of National Statistics trying to verify his claims, but I found it very difficult.
Nationally, wages rose by 1.5 per cent during the year to April 2012. In the West Midlands, incomes rose even more (by 1.7 per cent), but there is no explanation as to why Telford did so well (up 5.1 per cent) and Shropshire did so badly (down 5.1 per cent).
Even more unbelievable is that the gross disposable income per household apparently rose in the region by 4.2 per cent.
The second half of the article dealt with the claims by Shelter that average rents had risen by 2.6 per cent in the West Midlands. The detailed report claims that rents actually rose by 2.8 per cent in Shropshire and a more modest 0.7 per cent in Telford. Both these figures I find hard to believe.
Many readers will not know that the amounts paid to landlords for housing benefit claimants are based on the 30 percentile figure on the average of all the rents in the area. Based on a two bedroom house, these rates, which are reviewed monthly, have fallen consistently since 2011 from £475 per month to the current level of £465.
It does not matter which type of housing you look at, they all have decreased in the last two to three years. Are we to believe Telford housing officers are juggling the figures to give the impression rents are falling or do we believe Shelter with there 2.6 per cent rise? Even if we accept the Shelter figure, for Telford rents this rise looks fairly modest compared to retail price index rise of 3.2 per cent and the projected council tax rise of 2.5 per cent.
As for tenants being unable to save for a deposit for a new home, this is often a matter of lifestyle spending choices. While in the south east, I accept it is difficult to save enough money to get on the housing market, in Telford there are dozens of two and three bedroom houses for sale at between £80,000-£100,000, which young couples could buy with a deposit as low as £4,000.
Stephen Evans, Horton
