As a tenant in London in the early 1980s, Yolande Barnes had to battle to find a home. She recalls rushing to potential properties as soon as listings had been published in the newspaper.
“Several times I was queueing round the block with all the other prospective tenants,” she said. “Apart from there being very little of it, private rented accommodation had a reputation of being very poor quality . . . properties could fall into chronic states of disrepair.”
Professor Barnes, now chair of the Bartlett Real Estate Institute at University College London, blames this struggle on rent controls at the time deterring owners from letting their properties.
