It’s December. And despite all the festive frivolity, we have been chatting with local landlords who are planning to expand their portfolios in 2024.
A big focus has been on what is renting? On one hand, we could easily say anything and everything, however over the past 6-9 months we have seen a gradual change as to what tenants are looking for and it centres around affordability.
As this is becoming a regular conversation, we thought we would share our findings with you as rising rents and the cost of living are impacting the choices that renters make when selecting their homes.
- An increased number of families are choosing smaller homes. In the year to June 2023, almost half of families with a household income of between £30,000 and £70,000 chose to rent a home with 1 or 2 bedrooms. This is up from 43% in the first half of 2020.
- For many renters, the trade-off is to move to a lower-cost location. Renters over 30 were more likely to move to an area with lower rents in the year to June 2023 than to a higher rent location.
There is no doubt about it, as we head into 2024 we need more rental homes to suit demand. However, our message to any prospective landlords is that the biggest demand for rental properties surrounds affordability and there is a huge shortage of either affordable 3 bed homes or 1 and 2-bed properties priced below £700 pcm.
Can you help match this demand? We would love to chat as we have vetted tenants waiting!
Thanks for reading
Josh
