Homeowners with properties they are unable to sell in the current climate are being encouraged to become landlords until the market picks up again by letting specialist Leaders.
Some property experts believed that the rise in ‘accidental landlords’ was now on the decline, but Leaders says the sales market is still slow, with a disappointingly low level of enquiries from potential purchasers throughout the normally busy spring and early summer months.
The company predicts that there is unlikely to be a significant improvement as sales tend to fall during the summer holiday season and into the autumn months.
Leaders’ MD Paul Weller said: “Demand for rental property is stronger than ever and good quality properties are being snapped up by tenants as soon as they become available.
“Whilst the sales market is suffering, the rental market is buoyant because more people are choosing to rent for a number of reasons. People are still uncertain about the economy and are either unable or unwilling to commit to buying a property. Renting is a more affordable and flexible option as it does not require a huge deposit and it allows people to move on easily for work opportunities.
“We are seeing exceptionally strong demand for all types of properties in the areas we cover, from studio flats to large family homes, with many tenants choosing to extend their tenancies indefinitely.”
He added that vendors who were unable to sell could let for six months - or longer if it suits - until the sales market improved and in the meantime get a useful income from the rent.
Leaders are advising homeowners that if this option appeals to them they need to act sooner rather than later. Rental demand is particularly high at present whilst property stocks are lower, therefore premium rentals are being achieved.
• Just days after a report that a woman’s Tottenham home was let to eight Romanians by a bogus buy to let landlord comes news that three more tenants have been taken in by conmen posing as landlords in London.
The Evening Standard newspaper reported that New Zealander Daniel Simpson and his girlfriend Cristina Monachello, who are expecting their first baby, lost £2,500 savings after paying it to two men claiming to be the landlords of a vacant property which had in fact been broken into.
After moving in to the property the ‘new tenants’ returned to find their belongings on the street. Another group of four women paid £2,240 and a couple from New Zealand paid £2,400 to the same people.
Detectives, said the London newspaper, are hunting two men who ‘let’ the two-bedroom garden flat, in a Victorian house in West Hampstead, after advertising on the Gumtree website.
It is believed the bogus landlords, who are thought to be brothers, broke in to the property in Camden and changed the locks.
