Only 7% of homes that came on to the rental market this year were listed for sale in the previous six months.
According to Hamptons International which did the research, it points to the first fall in the availability of rental properties owned by accidental landlords in five years.
Last year, 8.6% of homes were previously advertised for sale before they went on the rental market.
Every region recorded a fall in the proportion of homes let by accidental landlords, with London seeing the biggest drop – although London is still the accidental landlord capital of the country.
So far this year 10.1% of homes listed to rent in London had been up for sale during the previous six months, down from a peak of 12.6% in 2018.
Hamptons said that over the last few years, a slowing sales market encouraged some vendors to let their homes instead before eventually selling.
However, people who might otherwise be considering renting their home out before selling, now have a strong incentive to beat the taxman – and have only a few months left in which to do it.
Changes introduced in last year’s Budget and set to be implemented next April, will increase the amount of Capital Gains Tax that landlords who have previously lived in the property will have to pay if they sell.
The bill will come on top of the 3% Stamp Duty surcharge that home owners already have to pay if they buy an additional property.
Comments (4)
Hate the term “Accidental Landlord” My lettings department used to moan at this, yet would NEVER pass the commission over to sales because they didn’t want accidental income or accidental bonuses.
Surely only applies to someone who ended up with a sitting tenant.
“Short Term Landlord” or “Reluctant Landlord”
Totally agree.
I have a close friend who has 4 investment properties (Which HE purchased). He calls himself an accidental landlord.
Numerous times i have challenged him on this and he gets quite upset.
His reasoning behind calling himself an accidental landlord is he has no other choice but to buy property and let it out, he cannot avoid doing it otherwise his income drops.
At best he in my opinion is a reluctant landlord or a massive hypocrite who is greedy and in denial.
My guess is also that a lot of these are not accidental landlords anyway. They are current landlords trying to sell their renters towards the end of their tenancy and as they can’t sell them they just retentions them. Anyone got a stat showing whether they had been up for rent before coming to the sales market during the previous 12 months?
ABSOLUTELY!!!
More like “Take a punt Vendors”.