New system for rent allowance

Justin Collery

I have a suggestion re rent supplement. I have read somewhere that the state rents about 50% of all properties rented in the state. Even if it is not that large, it is sizable and growing. By giving a fixed figure for this the market is hugely distorted. The only people to gain from this are landlords. The people who loose are private renters, private buyers, and, on a much bigger scale, the state.

Why not put these 'out to tender'. Any landlord who wishes to rent to the dept. of social welfare registers (preferably though a website). When a house is needed in their area, they get notified, and can enter what price they are willing to rent at. The lowest rent gets the deal. There would obviously need to be some checks and balances, no. of bedrooms, facilities, property quality etc. etc.

By allowing the rent to float like this, the recipient gets essentially the same house but the government saves on pure expenditure, and possibly more importantly, does not artificially raise prices for the rest of the market. This leaves more money in peoples pockets which drives growth in the rest of the economy (read more tax receipts, faster growth).

Why not do this?

mikemac

We already have this.
Rental Accomadation Scheme, RAS

It's for people who have been for rent allowance for 18 months or longer.

A landlord will meet the council, the place will be inspected and a rate will be agreed.
The landlord gets a secure tenant, the tenant gets a long term place to live and the council will pay the agreed rate. The tenant still makes a contribution, much the same way they would pay rent in a council house

It's up to the council inspectors to ensure they don't pay above market rate, in fact they should be paying below market rate as they are giving the landlord a lot of security and no vacancy periods.
The house needs to meet the general standards, can't be in poor condition

Dymo

In theory it might work but since they started paying rent directly to the tenant a lot of landlords won't touch people on rent allowance and with good reason. Putting things out to tender really only works when you have similar products but when it comes to property there are too many variables for this model.

Justin Collery

@Dymo
Changing the scheme does not change the landlords who will or will not rent to councils / dept social welfare.
I do not believe that there are so many variables that this cannot be done, 10 questions should cover it
- location
- no of beds
- length of tenancy required
- special needs / disability friendly
you could add a couple more and everything else is covered by the quality audit on the house

@feelingstressed
This strikes at the heart of how I think the system can be improved. A single or small group of people in the council are not as good as the market at determining what the fair price is. The country is littered with examples of councils paying way over the odds for house building / building rent and much else. By letting the market decide, we as tax payers are guaranteed the best price. At the end of the day, the councils job is to provide services at the best price they can, and I do not believe that is happening at the moment.

Scarab80

jcollery wrote: »

I have a suggestion re rent supplement. I have read somewhere that the state rents about 50% of all properties rented in the state. Even if it is not that large, it is sizable and growing. By giving a fixed figure for this the market is hugely distorted. The only people to gain from this are landlords. The people who loose are private renters, private buyers, and, on a much bigger scale, the state.

Why not put these 'out to tender'. Any landlord who wishes to rent to the dept. of social welfare registers (preferably though a website). When a house is needed in their area, they get notified, and can enter what price they are willing to rent at. The lowest rent gets the deal. There would obviously need to be some checks and balances, no. of bedrooms, facilities, property quality etc. etc.

By allowing the rent to float like this, the recipient gets essentially the same house but the government saves on pure expenditure, and possibly more importantly, does not artificially raise prices for the rest of the market. This leaves more money in peoples pockets which drives growth in the rest of the economy (read more tax receipts, faster growth).

Why not do this?

Excellent idea. Now go get it implemented!

Sleepy

I'd imagine daft.ie could implement a system which would work within a couple of weeks were they asked to...