In a sign of the times, one of Britain’s biggest home builders may be turning their attention to the residential letting market, and at the same time giving a boost to landlord insurance providers.
It is no secret that the housing sector is in a bit of a mess at the moment. The situation across the UK is one of contrasts. On one hand more and more people are looking for quality housing, so much so that many town and city councils are being overwhelmed by the numbers joining the waiting list for accommodation. On the other hand house prices are dipping again and the construction industry is now building fewer houses then at any time since the Second World War.
Good time to be a landlord
The situation in general has been a bit of a boost for the private landlord. He has suddenly found that providing he takes care of his properties, gets decent rented property insurance and advertises in the right places, then void periods are a thing of the past. Combined with this, rental yields are slowly climbing upwards as the market forces prevail.
The situation has obviously not gone unnoticed by the national house builder, Barratts. For many years they have been one Britain’s biggest house builders and have always been successful and forceful in helping interested parties to complete a deal. They are now looking at a different sort of deal altogether, they seem set to become private landlords in some guise.
Two ways to approach the change
At the moment according to the chairman of the builders they are looking at two new ideas based around the London property market. The first idea will involve Barratts developing a site in the normal manner and then selling a percentage of the development to a private landlord in a joint venture. The second idea mooted is to build and sell from the outset to a private concern.
If Barratts do go through with the plan then they reckon they could easily provide over 1,000 houses per year to the private sector in this way. They would be the first big builder to get involved in the rental private sector without encouragement from the public purse and will certainly go up in the eyes of property insurance agents across the UK.