Assetz® News » HOME | RSS Feed FEED | LIST ALL ARTICLES | ASSETZ HOMEPAGE
Investment Property News from Assetz

Assetz® Property News Service

Buy to let landlords have not squeezed out first-time buyers

6th February 2008 | back to article listings BACK    print this article PRINT

The National Housing and planning advice unit has backed our standing opinion that buy to let investment has not significantly affected house prices in the UK to the detriment of first-time buyers. With prices only an extra 7% higher due to buy to let investment the benefits of the buy to let sector outweigh the disadvantages.

The economic contribution to the economy of the private rented sector is well documented and with 3 million households housed by private landlords a much-needed service is being provided by investors putting money into the sector.

There is clearly still a housing shortage and if anything that is still getting worse with a slowdown in schemes being released by developers already under way and expected to continue for the next year or two. Buy to let landlords provide much-needed off plan pre-sales to developers - something first-time buyers are reluctant to do. If buy to let landlords didn't buy from developers early on before the scheme is built there would be far fewer schemes delivered and an even greater housing shortage.

We at Assetz are still seeing substantial demand from buy to let investors for the right schemes in the right places - what this really means is lower cost one and two-bedroom apartments, with reasonable rental income, in city and town centres which are, contrary to popular opinion, very high demand as opposed to being over-supplied. We concur with the recent RICS quarterly letting report that confirms apartments are likely to see the greatest rental growth over the next year or two.

Most rental households require one or two-bedroom properties and this is exactly the type of product that most investors purchase, leaving first-time buyers moving away from rental to purchase the larger properties as their first proper home - another reason why investors are not competing directly with first-time buyers.

Stuart Law

This news story has come from the property investment blog by Stuart Law, CEO Assetz plc.

Assetz® is a UK and International Property Investment Specialist. Please visit our property sites shown below.

Assetz for Investors UK Assetz France Assetz Spain Assetz Cyprus Assetz Bulgaria Assetz Germany Assetz Canada Assetz Portugal Assetz Ski Assetz Cape Verde Assetz Finance Assetz Fund Management

Accessing the news service

You can view all of the Assetz® UK, International and UK Property Investment Articles and News here.

We also provide an RSS Feed Feed of the news service, or you can view all articles. Click here to view more information on RSS readers and how they make reading online news more convenient.

eXTReMe Tracker