The rental market here on the Isle of Wight has shrunk by 83% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, new figures have revealed.
In an Isle of Wight Council document, officers say the Island’s housing situation has fundamentally changed in the last 18 months, leaving very few rental properties.
Data acquired by the council, from estate agents, show rental property availability has dropped from an average of 350 homes a month in December 2019 to around 60 in October 2021. Rising costs for private landlords as well as increasing regulations and taxation introduced in the last 12 months have prompted many to leave the private rented sector altogether.
Traditionally, the private rented sector has accommodated for 18% of all households — roughly 15,000 families — but the authority estimated around 5,000 properties have been sold and lost to the rental market.
An impact of the regulatory changes, officers say, has led to owners and landlords shifting into the ‘staycation’ market where there are higher weekly profits and, at the moment, less regulation.
The council has reportedly seen a 44% increase in the number of properties registered as holiday lets from May 2019 (915) to May 2022 (1,134). While short-term holiday lets are not the only reason the Island faces a housing crisis, the council says, it has added to it for many working low and median-income families, including key workers in health and social care and other essential public services.
Latest council figures show, at the end of June, there were 2,465 people on the council’s housing register who urgently needed housing.
To keep houses available in the rental market and available for Islanders, the council is proposing to require holiday lets operating for more than 140 days a year to get planning permission.
It is also setting out a policy that would restrict the ownership of second homes on the Island, keeping them away from new build properties.
These policies are part of the Isle of Wight Council’s draft Island Planning Strategy which is looking to set the council’s planning policies developers and builders have to abide by for the next 15 years.
The planning strategy is waiting to be approved by the full council before it is sent off for final approval by the Planning Inspectorate.
“Traditionally, the private rented sector has accommodated for 18% of all households — roughly 15,000 families — but the authority estimated around 5,000 properties have been sold and lost to the rental market.”
This is certainly untrue. Up until the early 1980s the private rental sector was tiny, barely covering a column in the County Press.
Most rental on the Island was affordable social (Council) housing.
Then Thatcher happened.
more like Ernie Wise and one of his plays..
Sort it out, you lot need to get over yourselves. I Get it, Mrs Thatcher destroyed your dreams of a socialist utopia and your bitter and resentful, but for the vast majority of normal people this was a good thing. Being able to own your own council house put hundreds of thousands of families onto the property ladder that otherwise would never have had the opportunity. All the left seem to want is a country of people who rely on the state for all their needs, like a bunch of slaves.
Well – perhaps if we didn’t keep seeing benefit sponging asylum seekers turning up here at taxpayers expense or other benefit leeches arriving from other parts of this country at our expense then there would be plenty of rental properties available for born and bred islanders.
Where are you getting this twaddle from?
have a look at other places Sam….the culture and communities ruined by unfettered immigration policies, decided by people who are unaffected.
towns and cities that were once filled with indigenous British people who had lived and worked there for generations, wrecked and destroyed by do gooders who seem to think they have some right to impose their will and policy on others.
research white flight…if you want to know what the end result of open door policies on immigration achieve.
Racism isn’t acceptable, people have the right to move around the planet, often seeking asylum and normality because their homes and towns have been violated. If we looked at our own DNA we are part Chinese, German, French, our ancestors were Nomads. A more diverse community is more interesting and culturally rich.
BOLLOX !
saz – read up on it – all those so called asylum seekers have come from france and they had every opportunity to claim asylum in the first country they arrived in after leaving their own – they are only turning up here for the benefit money.
funny how all those dinghy people, are clean, nice clothes and mobile phones in hand – don’t look like they are struggling or had to leave in a hurry.
go and look at places like leicester – guess that integration policy worked well – you just don’t get it saz – your idealistic view of integration isn’t shared by various different faiths and races from different countries when they all show up here and in the same place
diverse community often means small scale segregation and powder keg.
People from around the world have no right to come to others countries, they should stay where they are and fight for their own countries not slink away like cowards. As for your “diversity” and being cultural enriched try having a conversation with one of the over 100000 young white girls who have been subjected to years of sexual abuse by Muslim rape gangs that were allowed to roam freely in our country and covered up by the labour party. Try talking to English people living in our cities who are being driven out of their homes by immigrants and the crime and disorder they bring with them.
It’s easy, rather than trying to adopt policies that either kill the tourism or kill any chance of genuine Islanders succeeding then why not propose limits on the proportion of retirees coming here from the island and produce homes for working island families then the island may have half a chance of covering the ever increasing costs caused by the in flux of elderly from the mainland, I pretty sure pound for pound it costs a lot more for the elderly than the young, and a lot of them have never even worked here and contributed locally, one final thing, maybe there should be published a table showing exactly how many of the current Councillor’s own more than one property and are acting hypocritically
And how many Asylum Seekers live on the IOW?
Great deflection – you must be a scumlord.
I don’t know how many are on the island, maybe you could enlighten us on the number? To be honest I don’t need you to tell us, I like the majority of people have fully functioning eyes and it is plainly obvious that the onslaught of immigrants is well and truly under way on the island. It starts with the large towns like Ryde Sandown and Newport then spreads out like cancer to infect destroy and replace the rest of the islands culture, history and indigenous people.
Isle of Wighter is correct. Many retirees come here purely because they no longer felt comfortable living in towns, cities and villages where they were made to feel the outsider.
People living here are still atm, shielding from such, but ask in private or try listening to the retirees who come here and they will tell you why many of them came here and it is exactly as Isle of Wighter suggests it is. FACT.
Totally true. All this rollocks about “true islander” – “genuine islander” etc is just rhetorical rubbish.
I am a “true Londoner” but realised 40 years ago the influx of multi cultural non Londoners were being housed as a priority in council housing so the only option was to invade the Isle of Wight where I have lived, worked and paid taxes happily as an outsider for most of my adult life.
Back on the topic of lack of rental housing, is that such a surprise when often the landlord gets nothing but grief and non payment of rent.
Last time I looked on Rightmove there were over 300 flats for sale from £80,000 – £120,000. But, of course, there is always an excuse why true islanders don’t earn enough money to get a mortgage etc etc.
DITTO .
What the less educated fail to see is that Isle of Wighter’s viewpoint is indeed correct when suggesting the reason so many people are now here. Yet much is in an indirect way.
Thus whilst blissfully the Island has thus far escaped the quantity of enrichment that many mainland towns, Cities and villages have been inundated with, the indigenous folk who had lived there, often for all their lives, now feel the outsider, and often threatened, so do indeed understandably choose to retire to destinations such as here to escape their very real concerns.
It is disgusting that they should have to feel that need, but many do, and many have horrific stories to tell if only the P.C brigade would care to listen.
By far the worst problem on our island is that genuine Islanders need homes, whether it be affordable to rent or affordable to buy, the problem is you have an administration with what appears to be Jarman trying to pull all the strngs hell bent on stopping housing being delivered. He spends all his time trying to spin various policies which ultimately all come back to the same thing, STOP ANY DEVELOPMENT ESPECIALLY IN THE WEST WIGHT.
Jarman just wants to turn our Island into a glorified retiremet home for the likes of all his cronies in “Sustain My Freshwater Retirement Home Value” so let’s now destroy the only thing that generates revenue, Tourism, build more homes for our genuine Islanders not the fake retiree ones like Jarman
Islanders need homes, How about Islanders need jobs. 70% that come to interview’s are from the big island. When I offered jobs to local folk guess what. No reply.
How this Island is going to generate the massive amount of revenue required to look after the retirees who keep moving here, now all Jarman wants to to is bring down housing delivery to virtually nothing with a load of cherry picked figures from a survey that was not carried out for this purpose. He based his whole argument on the amount our population has increased, he does he not look at the reasons behind this, Oh because it doesnt suit his argument, tere are a limited number of homes on the island then by default there has to be a finite number of residents, throw into that the homes will go to those with the most money, ie Jarman and his retiree friends from the mainland, so young Islanders have to leave which helps Jarmans population
Whilst the elderly need more medical treatment than the young, that is paid for via central Government, NOT our council tax.
Whereas the young social housing influx costs US locals a fortune as their hoards of children need assisted school transportation, meals, uniforms, most claim subsidised council tax, subsidised rent, and many of their children are involved in vandalism, drugs, drunkeness and breeding the next generation for us to also fund from puberty upwards. Many drive like maniacs and kill and cause costly life changing damage to people.
So I would suggest the wealthier disposable income OaP’s arriving are far far cheaper to ‘keep’ than the young families arriving now.
This is reactionary nonsense. The council has to fund Adult Social Care and that currently takes up a quarter of the council’s entire budget. That is inextricably linked to health outcomes, especially when half the beds in St Mary’s are taken up with those elderly that are medically fit for discharge but are awaiting a social care package or placement. Plus the retired are economically inactive, not paying national insurance and require a much bigger slice of local services. Plus those services are delivered by younger people, working in social care for example. People claiming universal credit need to work 15 hours per week minimum to qualify, that’s a 15 hours bigger contribution to servicing the island’s needs than those retired.
Rubbish. 15 hours @ even £15 per hour, equates to just over 220 pw, So those on tax credits or universal credits pay nothing in tax and now, nothing in N.I.
YET they then get free rent, free council tax, extra heating allowance, £20 p.w for each child and around £ ten thousand each year with working tax credit and child tax credit OR U/C
A Pensioner, gets what THEY have paid in for in state and private pensions, AND often own their home so not a massive NEGATIVE drain on society as are parents on tax credits who need costly schooling, transportation to school, uniforms and free food for their ‘costly contribution’ to society.
Many grow up to be feral troublesome beings, used to be kept from cradle to grave
I would rather have mainland retirements on this island any day over the low life, drug taking, chav breading benefit scrounges this island produce. Even if there were house’s to rent or buy, this lot would get it for free and trash the the place. It is sad for the few hard Woking young out there, but let’s face it this island pays low wages. You only have to look at the low wages HMP pays compared to the main land.
Having worked for some landlords in the rental market, when you factor in all the outgoings and the unending list of council requirements, I sometimes wonder why anyone would want to rent their property out? Also, when dealing with benefits, those that are on benefits are paid their money directly, and not to the landlord. This means that some having got the money then fail to pass on all or any of it onto the landlords. When the inevitable happens and they are asked to leave due to lack of rent, it always ends in acrimony.
I have been out to rental properties where anything not fixed had been broken and all the door locks have had to be changed…all additional expense for some waster that thinks everyone owes them a living. Why bother?
The Government have given so many ‘rights’ to tenants, most of whom abuse such to the max, that it is no small wonder that landlords have given up renting to social supported families.
Whilst some are ok, a huge and growing proportion are vile, dishonest, disrespectful, and I would not rent them a cardboard box, let alone a property which has cost me hundreds of thousands, for them to outbreed it’s bedroom space, then move on without paying what they owe, and trashing the place out of pure spite that someone has gone without to get on in life, whilst they just breed their drug or drink retarded clones for a lucrative lazy living.
Well said tide and time
so many today seem to have some sort of entitled mentality – they think the country owes them a home and money – they need a real good recession and a clear out, which will put these spongers on the real breadline – then they can experience real and genuine poverty – a job will be the only thing they want then.
Agreed. Landlords are painted as the bad guys and hit with rules and taxes that make it not worthwhile. Lo and behold they vote with their feet and move into holiday lettings or just sell up.
Ps. I can’t believe you’ve been down ticked by some idiots
So regulations on letting were introduced which prompted landlords to move away from the rental market to staycation market or whatever, and now almighty solution is to introduce regulations to that market?
Well, one can hope this time you’re 101% sure sure you got it right.
Given that property is a sound investment, and given that there are thousands wanting to rent, so a guaranteed return, why don’t the council, instead of investing in shopping centres etc on the North Island, set up as ” developer/ landlord”, buy up the spare land, much of which they already own, build and rent , to locals first , employ local people to build and manage, thus all returns, back into County Hall. And then they could call them Council Houses, or has that been tried before. Probably won’t work as it would mean an end to the brown envelope scheme, so would get voted out..