O&S(meme) - rental demand vs supply mismatch

The disparity between available properties and the demand to rent somewhere to live has got steadily worse over the past few years. In most areas the situation is an unsustainable crisis.
Despite landlords being able to charge almost anything for rentals, the stock of available properties for longer term lets continues to shrink.
Several reasons for this, in my opinion. Starting with saint maggie's great sell off of council [social] housing under the "right to buy" without allowing councils to build replacements. Currently, the number of buy-to-let landlords is not only decreasing overall but a lot of properties have become short term "airbnb" lets as that is supposedly far more profitable.
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