Landlords adding to their portfolios, claims Paragon

Thursday 14th June 2012

The average portfolio size of a landlord is now 14.1 properties, up from 12.9 at the start of the year, says Paragon Mortgages.

This time a year ago, the average portfolio size was 12.5 properties.

A fifth (21%) of landlords who took part in Paragon’s quarterly Private Rented Sector Trends Survey said that they were planning to add to their portfolios in the third quarter of this year, up from 18% during the same period last year.

Of those landlords who are planning to purchase buy-to-let property in Q3, 49% will be investing in terrace houses.
 
More than a quarter of landlords (26%) expect to buy flats or maisonettes, and 23% plan to purchase semis.
 
John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages, said: “The fact that landlords are planning to make further investments in their property portfolios is positive news. Whilst this will not solve the problems around supply, it will make a valuable contribution.”

The news may come as relief to those agents who say they are almost running out of properties, and are having to embark on a fee-cutting battle as a result.

Lighthouse Property Services in Lincoln is one of those. It has around 330 rental properties on its books, but says only 13 are available – with some of them not yet vacant.

The firm, which is now part of Countrywide, is appealing for more properties and has cut its management fees for a year to try and entice new landlords.

Simon Sewell, lettings director at the agency, said: “We actually have more properties on our books now than we have ever had, but it still isn’t enough to meet demand.

“We’ve now brought in an offer for new landlords giving them a chance to win their management fees at 10% for the year rather than 12%, to hopefully meet the demand that’s out there.”