Landlords not Worried about Help to Buy Scheme

Research from the National Landlords Association (NLA) has found that private landlords are not worried about the affect of the Government’s Help to Buy initiative on the private rental sector.

Landlords not Worried about Help to Buy Scheme

Only one in five (21%) of landlords have said that they’re concerned about the Help to Buy system causing an impact on the market, together with just 15% worried that it will cause damage to their own lettings businesses. These figures are based on research from the NLA Q3 Landlord Panel of 1,019 respondents.

The Government’s new home ownership scheme has already seen more than 2,000 offers, contributing to a reported £365m worth of mortgages. Concern has been raised over whether these statistics might affect the demand for private rented properties.

The Chief Executive Office of the NLA said that it is too early to know whether Help to Buy will have a definite impact on the need for private rentals, and the findings “seem to confirm our belief that it will only affect the margins of the private-rented sector and that it doesn’t present a major concern for landlords at large.”

The Help to Buy scheme is currently creating a discussion on whether another housing bubble will arise. Lambert insists, however, that this debate is motivated by a bigger issue: “There are simply not enough homes for people, regardless of whether they want to rent or buy.”

This indicates that the private-rented sector will still play a crucial role in meeting the demand for more housing. “It is likely that renting for longer periods will become a normal part of our housing biographies,” says Lambert. “As such, the priority for the NLA is to ensure that rented homes are both enjoyable places to live and viable places to invest.”1

1 http://www.landlords.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/help-buy-no-problem-landlords