Goodlord’s annual State of the Lettings Industry Report, based on a survey of more than 3,000 letting agents, landlords and tenants, reveals that 45% of agents have seen tenant enquiries increase, compared with 26% reporting a decline. At the same time, half have experienced a fall in rental availability. Only 28% report an increase.<\/p>\n
And, as a result, the data shows rents are rising, with the average in England up by 5.5% in the year to September.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons for the current strength of demand is that relatively few tenants expect to move into homeownership in the near future.<\/p>\n
Goodlord found that 39% intend to remain in their current home, and another 24% plan to move to a different rental property.<\/p>\n
Only 22% see buying a home as their next objective, and 60% believe they are unlikely to purchase a property within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
Renting has also become a longer-term arrangement for many households. Some 70% have lived in their current property for at least two years, including 48% who have been there for four years or longer.<\/p>\n
The supply of rental properties, however, is heading in the opposite direction. Goodlord found that relatively few landlords are looking to expand their portfolios, with many instead reducing their holdings.<\/p>\n
Of those surveyed, 27% have reduced their portfolios or are attempting to do so. That includes 11% who have already sold at least one property during the past year and another 16% who are trying to sell.<\/p>\n
In contrast, 3% have added properties to their portfolios, and just 3% are looking to buy. The majority, 67%, have made no changes.<\/p>\n
Among those landlords reducing their holdings, 47% intend to leave the sector within the next two years.<\/p>\n
The Renters’ Rights Act is the most common reason given for cutting back on investment, which was mentioned by 65% of these landlords. Concerns about further legislation come next at 51%, followed by 49% who cite taxation changes and 37% higher running costs.<\/p>\n
Not every property sold by a landlord leaves the rental market, as some are purchased by other investors. Even so, Goodlord warns: “Unless supply grows, tenants moving into homeownership may free up too few properties to ease competition.”<\/p>\n
For those landlords remaining in the sector, the good news is that the increasing imbalance between supply and demand is helping support rental growth.<\/p>\n
And, moving forward, Goodlord found that 42% of landlords expect to raise rents on existing tenants annually. The introduction of periodic tenancies has also made 28% more likely to carry out annual rent reviews.<\/p>\n
However, the survey clearly shows there are limits to what tenants can afford. Of the tenants surveyed, 53% spend more than 30% of their take-home income on rent, and 54% have less than \u00a3500 in readily accessible savings and investments. More than a third (35%) say a rent increase of 6.5% would cause them financial distress.<\/p>\n
You can read the full report here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Letting agents are reporting increasing enquiries from prospective tenants just as the supply of available properties is falling. Goodlord’s annual State of the Lettings Industry Report, based on a survey of more than 3,000 letting agents, landlords and tenants, reveals that 45% of agents have seen tenant enquiries increase, compared with 26% reporting a decline.… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4233,"featured_media":13380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,2,4,765,766],"tags":[712,791],"class_list":["post-6108547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news","category-buy-to-let-landlords","category-investment","category-property-investment","category-uk-rental-market","tag-rental-market","tag-rental-market-update"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4233"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6108547"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6108555,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108547\/revisions\/6108555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6108547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6108547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6108547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}