MIPIM 2016: Housing and planning minister Brandon Lewis has challenged build-to-rent operators to come up with a unified view to present their requests to government.
The minster made the comments amid concern that changes in the Budget would stifle investment in the sector. Developers were hoping for an exemption from a rise in stamp duty of 3% for buy-to-let operators.
Lewis said the policy was about fairness for big and small landlords, but added that it should not affect institutional investment.
“What we have been clear about from the beginning is that we want to see more institutional investment, a more professional rented sector,” he said. “Where you have got institutional investors involved as part of the development, obviously stamp duty is not an issue because they are not buying these properties, they are developing them, so they pay the stamp duty on the land.”
He added: “But what I would like, and what we have been arguing for, is more institutions involved in the development from the beginning all the way through the process.”
He said the private rented sector did still have an important part to play in housing supply, but that the sector needed a clear voice on what it wants.
“The sector itself is split pretty much 50/50,” said Lewis. “So the challenge I have laid out to the sector is that it needs to come together and take a unified, cohesive view if it wants to ask government for something it thinks is important. Players need to be clear about what that one thing is.”
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