New figures suggest savvy property investors stand to make an average £4,500 renting out their homes during the London 2012 Olympics.
Online firm HomeAway Holiday-Rentals say buy to let and holiday home owners could expect to generate a healthy £2,000 a week during the 16-day event.
And separate statistics reveal nearly 90 percent of landlords in the capital expect to see the value of their investments continue increasing for the rest of the year.
The opportunity to make extra income during the high profile Olympics sporting event will come as very welcome news to the landlords of the 500 London properties currently available for rent on www.HomeAway.co.uk.
Tim Boughton, UK general manager of HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, said: “The switch from hotels to holiday rental has been steadily increasing, with particularly high spikes in demand around major global sporting events.
“For the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, many visitors sought out holiday rental properties as an alternative to a hotel, which meant the average weekly income generated per property soared by almost 150 per cent.
“However, even at this increased rate, holiday home rentals still often work out far cheaper than similar standard hotels, making them a highly attractive option for tourists.”
Boughton added that as London plays host to visitors from around the world, anticipated demand for London properties will rocket for properties in close proximity to the key Olympics sites, with good transport links to London’s top attractions.
HomeAway Holiday-Rentals has been tracking the growing demand for rental properties, with the site reporting that in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, booking enquiries spiked by over 1,000 percent compared to the same period in 2009.
Landlords quickly caught onto the demand driven trend, with property listings in the area increasing by 70 percent and weekly rental rates being raised by almost 150 percent.
Based on these figures, the average South Africa property owner renting out their home stood to make £1,700 per week during the 2010 World Cup.
And according to research conducted by the Young Group, 87 percent of residential landlords in the London area anticipate the values of their properties to continue increasing or remain at current levels during the latter half of the year.
This represents a 10 percent increase in confidence levels among landlords over figures published during the second quarter.
But unfortunately this optimism is not mirrored in parts of the UK, with 30 percent of landlords outside the capital expecting values to fall over the next 12 months or remain at current levels.
Yet even these figures show signs of improvement, as only 49 percent believed in property price increases near the beginning of the year.
Analysts suggest residential property prices in the London area will increase by approximately 2.5 percent next year, while real estate in other parts of the UK will likely see a modest 0.2 percent rise.
While this increase is minimal, it is still a marked improvement over much gloomier predictions published early in the year, when the housing market faced a decline in prices of around one percent.
And the Young report indicates Britain’s residential landlords are still in the buy to let business for the long-haul, with 95 percent indicating they planned to stay in the sector and would hold on to their properties for at least the next 12 months.
Just over half of all landlords anticipated keeping their real estate for the next decade.
