Innovation key for Malt sustaining economic gro

With the Budget tomorrow, I think it is fair to say that the rental market appears to be firmly on the agenda. With a White Paper recently launched on the subject, is it safe to regulate the market or should we leave the free market alone and allow it to correct itself?

I think it is important to properly segment the real estate market, the rental market in particular because as an economy we should expect different kinds of results and services from the different elements which compose the entire rental market. We need to stop talking about a generic property market as if it were one class. This means that we need a rental segment which serves relatively high-income earners who typically live in Malta for a limited period of time and are thus more likely to rent than buy. We also need another segment directed to affordable real estate, and which has a social nature. Perhaps the overall idea that home-ownership is the best possible form of management in the real estate market, given that rent reflects the flexibility of current individuals, means that we do not necessarily need to continue following the old mantra.

Should the government control prices? In my opinion, this should only be a last resort, a sort of atom bomb kind of solution that should only be used when everything else fails, when people are out on the streets; that is when one should intervene. There are many other reasonable solutions to undertake ranging from the provision of social housing at social rates, to rent to buy