Greedy landlords who got rid of perfectly good tenants in order to achieve inflated rents from Olympic visitors have been left bitterly disappointed, and now face substantial voids.
Agents say only a tiny proportion of homes offered for rent for the Olympics have been taken. In Stratford, there are still 300 short let Olympic properties available, from £4,000 to £6,500 a week – in an area where the normal going rate is £1,700 a month.
According to one agent, trying to cash in on the Olympics market has been ‘a total waste of time’. His Chelsea-based business, Champions, has achieved just one Olympics let.
At Stratford, Keatons say that out of 400 landlords offering properties as Olympics lets, just two dozen were successful.
The Foxtons website still has a dedicated Olympics lettings section, showing over 2,000 unlet properties apparently still available for ‘summer 2012 rental’. The most expensive is a six-bedroom boat moored at Canary Wharf available for £60,000 a week. The cheapest is a two-bed flat in Islington at a mere £750 a week.
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Comments
Greed?!?! ... in the housing market?! NEVER!! :) That's why house prices doubled between 2000 and 2007. That's why the housing market slump is blamed on "mortgage affordability", rather than extortionate prices.
Uk Housing Market = Basket Case
This made me laugh so hard a little bit of wee came out
Well thats greedy "foreign" landlords for you. I know someone who has a Turkish landlord and they where chucked out of their 2 bed "dump" in Bethnal Green that they were paying £1260.00 for. They moved in with relatives but have now found a nice 12th story flat in the Bow Quarter at £200 less per month that overlooks the Olympic site.
Also estate agents are just as bad, they where hoping to jump on the bandwagon to get commission on rentals. Now the wheels have fell off the bandwagon they now have egg on their faces.
The rents in London are unsustainable in anycase, I seem to recal when Bethnal Green was a working class area and the people worked, now it's filled with DSS claiments, fiddlers and other detritous. So it's a case of swings and roundabouts. Estate agents and landlords been greedy....Lol, it hasn't worked!
We had one Landlord evict a great tenant who rented the flat next door. He offered them the chance to move back on a reduced rent as he just cant find anyone - Olympic visitors or normal AST
Oh, how we smiled when he asked for a refund in our commission and pointed out the clause which says - not if the Landlord invokes the break clause!!
Another good point is the fact that its a tax on time. I would rather get a hotel in say Luton and get the train than pay stupid rates and queue for just as long at a station or for a cab.
Interestingly, one the points in Bushells articles was a really good one.
Many of the Docklands / East London workers are from overseas - who would pay £1000,s when they can stay with friends or relatives?
Excellent observation.
LOL - love this! Our landlords have been thanking us for advising them against this.
Frankly - the greedy Landlords who have lost deserve all they get - or rather dont get.
We had one with a flat worth £250 per week wanting £1000 per week - he then said "I am not paying you more than 5% and I am not paying any admin fees"
I wonder what happened to him.....
Well, we warned of this in December
http://www.bushells.com/newsarticles.php?id=24430
And again in June
http://www.bushells.com/newsarticles.php?id=29252
The Olympics killed the Docklands market - in a month, there will be a surge of properties and a buyers and tenants market will follow.
And are we suprised? why pay over £4000 a week for a flat when you could get a hotel room for the same period for substantially less.
'Twas ever thus as those of us with any common sense have been saying from the moment this madness surfaced a few months ago. Obvious all along that as far as the Olympics were concerned this would be a non event.
Thousands of hotel rooms even at reasonable (inflated) prices are empty, so how foolish can a Landlord be to get rid of good tenants in the hope - and it was never more than that - of finding mugs prepared to pay x4 the monthly rent but only for a 2-3 week period?
Given how impossible tickets have been to come by no-one was ever going to stay more than a week at most - unless they were competing and made it through their heats to the second week!!
And what of the agents in all this? Where have they been as far as their Duty of Care is concerned. Best thing for all these Landlords with voids is to seek compensation from their agant for breach of contract and threaten regulatory body and TPO complaints if they do not cough up.
What a shambles - the lettings industry's equivalent of G4