Buy To Let Unaffected By Brexit, Say Letting Agents

According to letting agents, the first post-Brexit snapshot of the buy-to-let market passed off with a good bill of health.

Although the number of homes available to rent in July was at the highest level for the year so far, this was probably influenced by the rush to beat the stamp duty hike earlier in the year.

According to the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) research, tenant demand was marginally down from the previous month.

The average letting agent had 184 homes to rent – a 5% jump from June but a slight year-on-year drop from the 189 homes available in July 2015.

The number of tenants seeking homes nudged down from 37 a branch in June to 36 in July.

ARLA reports rents, the supply of rental homes and the number of tenants seeking property were all static for most letting agents.

However, 44% of letting agents disclosed landlords wanting to rent out homes were uncertain about the market following the Brexit vote to leave the European Union at the end of June.

ARLA managing director David Cox said: “Despite reports that the housing market is spiralling out of control post-Brexit, our results paint a very different picture and indicate that the future is bright for the rental market.

“Supply is up, as we’d expect at this time of year, and the number of tenants experiencing rent hikes hasn’t changed in three months.

“While we need new houses to balance the growing gap between supply and demand, what’s positive is that the situation isn’t worsening as a direct result of June’s Brexit result.”

ARLA is a professional body for letting agents, representing 3,500 offices throughout the UK.

Meanwhile, specialist lender Accord, part of Yorkshire Building Society, plans to increase lending and claims buy-to-let is more popular than ever with investors.