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Don't blame us for housing shortage, say landlords

3rd August 2007 | back to article listings BACK    print this article PRINT

If you are one of the many Britons that has some of their money tied up in a buy-to-let investment, the chances are that you have pretty strong feelings about allegations that the lettings industry is somehow responsible for the plight of first-time buyers.

You aren’t alone - in a recent survey of buy-to-let investors undertaken by Instant Access Properties (IAP), most respondents overwhelmingly rejected the notion that their investments were causing a shortage of housing stock and serving to inflate property prices.

Just three per cent of respondents were found to be leaving a property empty on purpose, with an eye solely on asset growth and resale profit. The rest either had tenants in all their properties or were actively marketing their properties to get tenants into them.

IAP said it was not surprised by the doubts of the study, as it "simply makes no sense for investors to leave properties empty". A spokesman likened buying a property and then leaving it empty as being akin "to throwing money away". For most people, buy-to-let is a popular and successful option because it offers "both capital growth and rental income".

The government recently announced plans for an intensive programme of affordable homebuilding over the coming years. In the long-term, the aim is to have three million new homes completed by 2020, according to prime minister Gordon Brown.

He said that this will be accomplished in part by releasing 550 brownfield sites currently owned by public sector entities such as the Ministry of Defence and the NHS. Pierre Williams, Head of Communications for IAP, applauded "the government's acceptance that the problem is a fundamental lack of housing supply".

He added: "We have been increasingly aware of mounting criticism of so-called greedy buy-to-let investors. Although it must be tempting for social housing groups to try and find scapegoats for Britain's housing crisis, these accusations do nothing to help solve the problem."

This was a reference to comments made recently by housing minister Yvette Cooper, who said she was concerned at reports that investors were buying properties and then leaving them empty, an accusation refuted in the IAP poll.

The minister announced an investigation into the practice, saying that there is "a problem if investors are buying up lots of property on a speculative basis and are not renting them out". Statistics would seem to give the lie to this though. A report in the Times on Thursday noted that one in four Britons lives in rented accommodation - hardly a market any sensible investor is going to ignore.

This is a press release by Assetz also available at http://press.assetz.co.uk/articles/3672.html. Alternatively, please see our full press release archive.

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