Rents Fall For First Time In 11 Months
Published: 21 January 2011 By MoneyHighStreet Staff 1 Comment
Rents fell in December, the first fall for eleven months, however the trend upwards is expected to resume soon.
Rents decreased by 1.2% in December according to the latest Buy-to-Let Index from LSL Property Services, which owns the UK’s largest network of letting agents.
This is the first fall seen in the rental market since January 2010 and is attributed to the fact that some landlords reduced their rents to attract tenants in the pre-Christmas period, thereby avoiding an expensive void period.
Despite this decrease, rents in December were 3.8% higher that a year ago and are expected to resume their upwards trend once tenants get over the costs of Christmas and return to the rental market during the next few months.
The poor weather conditions didn’t help landlords with vacant properties to let, says David Newnes, estate agency managing director of LSL property services:
“December is traditionally a slower month for the rental market. Many prospective tenants are either away from home, or prioritise Christmas spending over budgeting to move. This year, the added arctic weather temporarily dampened demand, deterring many renters from hitting the streets and viewing properties.”
“Nevertheless, with the supply of mortgage finance to both first-time buyers and would-be landlords still constrained, we are likely to see rents re-start their upwards march before the spring.”, he added.
They say that traditionally December and January is a very quiet time for house moves and that house hunters are non-existent, well at Houseflys.co.uk we beg to differ. We’re an online Private Property Lettings platform for private landlords and tenants to link up in Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire.
This has been our busiest month for tenant visitors to our website, and we have had the most requests for ‘accommodation wanted’ from searching tenants than we have had sinced we started this service last January 2010. We even had searching tenants visiting Houseflys on Christmas and New Year’s day in their search for a property to let!
So whilst it may have been quiet on the High Street it wasn’t online. Local newspapers also slow down for the Christmas/New Year festivities, but it doesn’t mean that tenants aren’t desperately looking for properties; they are just left dangling whilst everyone ‘shuts up shop’!
Landlords should be aware of this and consider listing their lettings online during this period to ensure that their properties are filled. More and more tenants are trying to avoid letting agents because of their high fees, so are actively searching for private landlords online. But, as landlords tend to be of the more mature generation they can be slightly intimidated with using computers and the web.
The younger, transient generation of professional tenants are using Social Media exclusively to find their next property letting and don’t necessarily resort to local newspapers, especially if they don’t live in the local area. Plus more are relocating out of London to places like Milton Keynes and Bucks to reduce their housing costs.
They don’t accept that they have to trudge around from viewing to viewing when they can view properties online, see the images and link to Googlemaps or Streetview before selecting a comprehensive list of quality properties that they actually want to see. It’s great if you’re relocating to a new area, as you don’t even have to travel, snow or no snow!
Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking about [after viewing your article]. PS I wanted to tweet about your article but you don’t have a tweet or blog button for me to link too.