Rent controls are back in the headlines as housing campaigners, the Labour Party as well as the Mayor of London endorse them as the answer to the nation's housing crisis.

By crisis, they mean that rents are becoming jaw-droppingly expensive for many private renters particularly in London and the South but also in many other heavily-populated areas of the nation.

For example, in London the average rent for a single property is £1,617. This is £100 a month greater than two years ago and £650 a month more than the national average.

But how do you crack this nut? There are those who believe the answer is to build more homes to rent, which would therefore relieve pressure on the private rented housing market and force rents downwards.

On the other hand, there are others who want to use the law to force rents down, or at least stop them from going up any more. These measures are generally known as rent controls.

Can Khan do it?

One champion of the rent control route is the current Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. He recently revealed that he wants new powers to regulate the private rental market including a new ‘police force’ that would keep a list of landlords, their properties and the rents they charge, and either ‘cap’ rents or, more controversially, force them down.

“It is high time for private renting in London to be transformed - Londoners need fundamental change that is long overdue,” the mayor said.

But these rises are not confined to London’s crazy housing market.

For example, rents in Manchester have increased by 5.76% over the past year, according to GoCompare.com, much more than national wage inflation, which is currently running at 2.5%

Should we build more rental homes?

The answer is, we are already. A huge building programme is underway all over the UK to construct apartment blocks designed and managed just for renters.

Some 35,000 have already built, mainly in London, but another 110,000 are underway across the UK and, according to a recent report by Savills within the next 10 to 15 years some 1.75 million are to be built in and around most of our towns and cities. If this doesn’t help alleviate the upward pressure on rents, then nothing will.

Why don’t we try rent controls too?

The arguments: For

Rent controls sound like a good idea. By freezing, capping or reducing rents through legal controls across a city, and allowing people’s wages to catch up, rents will become more and more affordable and stable.

Landlords would also benefit because tenants would stick around longer; a recent study found that most landlords who seek out longer-term tenants are happy to keep rents the same, or increase them occasionally, in order to keep tenants loyal.

“Renters cannot enjoy a stable home unless they have some certainty about what they'll be paying in future years,” says campaigning group Generation Rent.

The arguments: Against

It is argued that rent conrols put off private landlords providing accommodation and forces them to either invest the minimum amount possible in the upkeep of their properties or leave the market entirely.

This in turn will lead to lower supply in the market, higher rents, and poorer quality accommodation.

This is the view of letting agents, whose trade association ARLA Propertymark, says: “Rent controls do not work, they hit those that they are designed to help the hardest [and] the Mayor of London has failed to learn the lessons of history," it says.

“The last time rent controls existed in this country, the private rented sector (PRS) shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded.

“At a time when demand for PRS homes massively outstrips supply, rent controls will cause the sector to shrink.”

CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score

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CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.

Remember the information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.