Landlords aim for bigger portfolios

Posted: 15 May 2006 10:58:37 GMT

Confidence in the buy-to-let sector is currently soaring, with landlords largely unconcerned about HMO licensing.

This is the conclusion of the latest survey from Paragon Mortgages, whose research indicates that 24.5 per cent of landlords have seen tenant demand rising in the last year.

An impressive 38.5 per cent of landlords have also seen a rise in achievable rents during the period, which has prompted many to look for new properties to expand their portfolios.

Landlords, on average, expect to increase the number of properties in their portfolios from 10.8 to 11.4 in the next 12 months, with the average portfolio value tipped to rise by 5.6 per cent to £1.4 million.

Encouragingly, there has also been a fall in average annual void periods, dropping from almost three weeks in the last two quarterly reviews to 2.8 weeks now.

John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages, suggested that reliance on rented accommodation is continuing to grow because of social and demographic trends. With young people increasingly seeing renting as a viable lifestyle choice, landlords are likely to experience high rental demand long into the future.

A third of landlords actually said that the new licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) would make things more difficult for them, but the strong confidence in the sector means that very few are overly concerned.


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