The latest report by the UK’s leading surveying organisation confirms that the boom in the residential letting market shows no sign of slowing.
Figures produced by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) show that landlords experienced their seventh consecutive quarter of growing rental yields as tenants in every corner of the UK find themselves paying out more for decent accommodation.
The report shows a big increase in family sized homes coming on to the market and a healthy proportion of surveyors reporting increases in rental yields in the period up to November 2011. It appears that vendors are still struggling to sell their properties and are turning to the rental sector to get an unwanted house off their hands. This explains the rise in family sized homes coming on to the market and contributes to the rise in average rent achieved by landlords as the homes are often at the top end of the market.
Property investors who take out landlord insurance quotes on homes in the London area still managed to achieve bigger increases than landlords in the rest of the country, but modest increases were achieved in almost every region.
James Scott-Lee, a spokesman for RICS, said: “Tenants were not happy about having to pay more for accommodation but had little choice. Indeed, despite a measure of resistance to rising rent levels from tenants, in some parts of the country the imbalance between demand and supply for rented property suggests that for the foreseeable future landlords will have a good if not increasing return on their investments in comparison with other main stream options.”