Its good news, bad news and a who done it mystery from DevDosh Ltd HQ today. Recent reports indicate that the overall number of landlords in the United Kingdom has dropped considerably. It seems that the governments attempts to squeeze out the little man are working, or is that the case?.
There was a time when an Englishman’s home was his castle. His second and third property were his livelyhood and legacy. However that social mobility and inter-generational responsibility has been stripped away from the everyday man in the street and given to an ever decreasing number of landlords with ever growing property portfolios.
New figures show that even though the overall pool of available rental property has decreased, the number of rental properties owned by landlords has increased. In fact last year 30% of landlords owned more than one buy to let property.
The actual number of landlords in the UK is at a seven year low and the number of privately rented homes has dropped by over 155,000 since 2017.
Has buy to let been negatively effected by the governments tax and regulatory changes in 2016, or in fact was the buy to let sector another victim of Brexit. Both Brexit and the buy to let regulatory and tax changes were announced in 2016 shortly before the start of a four year sector decline.
Whatever the reason it was good to see that 5700 buy to let mortgages were approved in December 2019 which was a 3.6% increase month year on year; and 13,300 remortgages were signed which is an increase of 2.3% on the same metric.
So some signs of post election positivity even if they are being contained in a smaller circle of people. For now at least.
DevDosh Ltd will not provide the excitement or the stress of owning and renting out property. We will give you a 10% yield annually in a super safe fixed income investment product. If that sound like the type of thing you’d like to hear about. Contact us today.