CAMPAIGNERS have called for rent controls and more social housing to protect tenants, after surveyors warned rents are likely to rise sharply despite the cost-of-living crisis.

Sixty-three per cent of professionals expect rental prices to increase over the next three months, marking a fresh record high since records began in 1999, findings from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) indicate.

Generation Rent deputy chief executive Dan Wilson Craw warned that many tenants are being priced out of their homes and forced into the lettings market to compete for a new place to live.

“At the same time a lot of people who want to move can’t because rents on new tenancies have risen so rapidly,” he said.

“That has a knock-on effect for the number of homes coming on to the market.”

He called for more social housing to allow more people to escape private renting as a long-term solution.

“But the government can help people now, by protecting renters from unaffordable rent increases and making sure housing support through the benefits system actually covers the rent,” he added.

Housing campaign Acorn head organiser Nick Ballard warned that rents have been outpacing wage rises for years now, adding: “It is clear that this is only getting worse.

“We already know that when the cost of housing reaches a third of people’s income, homelessness levels begin to skyrocket – and in many cities across the country, this is already the case.

“We need serious rent controls, and we need them now.

“We cannot allow our housing system to line the pockets of profiteers at the expense of people who need a place to live any longer.”

A spokesperson for the London Renters Union said called it “unfair” that tenants are forced to sacrifice as much half their earnings for housing that is “insecure and in many cases dangerous.”

They said: “Many feel unable to plan for the future because we do not know when we will next have to move house due to a no-fault eviction or an unaffordable rent increase, while those of us at the acute end of the market face poverty and homelessness.”

“We need the government to prioritise our right to a decent home over the profits of landlords and introduce rent controls to bring the rents down.

“In the long run, we need to see a massive shift away from the reliance on private landlords towards a system with a far greater number of public homes.”

Living Rent secretary Aditi Jehangir said that while Scotland’s rent cap has been a relief for many households, “it has completely failed to cap rents between tenancies.”

She said: “As a result, Edinburgh and Glasgow have seen the first and third biggest annual rent increases across the whole of the UK.

“People who move, who enter the market or have seen a flatmate move out have been forced to pay sky-high prices.

“Any further increases are completely unaffordable.

“It is no wonder that just under half of people under 40 have given up on the idea of owning a home when a third to half of their salary goes on rent.”

Ms Jehangir called for a points-based system of rent controls attached to the property rather than the tenancy, for more social housing and a proper rent adjudication system.