Happy New Decade - and this is what rentals looked like in 2010

Here it is - the start of a new decade, a moment for resolutions and remembrance, and the last Bank Holiday for most of the UK until the middle of April.

Everyone at Letting Agent Today, the other ‘Today’ titles and at Angels Media wishes you and your family and friends a successful and prosperous 2020. Thank you for keeping us company during the past year, and please keep in touch over the next 12 months.

Our next edition is on Thursday January 2.

With a raft of industry changes planned already, plus a new highly-motivated government in place and Brexit on the horizon, there’s little doubt that 2020 will have plenty of news stories - we’ll be here to provide you with what you need to know, as it happens.

And just to show how much things change, here are some facts about the private rental sector a decade ago compared to now. As you can see, a lot happened in that decade … what’s in store for us in the next?

- Proportion of households privately renting - 14 per cent (now it’s 18 per cent and rising);

- Berkeley Group announced it would purpose-build 555 homes to rent, the first of their kind in the UK (now there are 148,000 and rising);

- CB Richard Ellis calculated the previous five years of residential property rental yield (2006-2010) at 6.8 per cent (now it’s considered to be around 3.5 per cent);

- Government figures showed 89 per cent of landlords were private individuals responsible for 71 per cent of all private rented dwellings, with a further five per cent of landlords being company landlords responsible for 15 per cent of dwellings (today it’s considered likely that some 80 per cent of landlords are private individuals, increasingly moving to company structures for their mortgage loans to minimise tax liabilities);

- Statistical consultancy Statista says the average weekly rent in 2010/11 in England was £160, rising to £193 in 2017/18 (the latest data available);

- In 2010 landlords could still write off against tax their full mortgage interest payments, enjoy a substantial wear and tear allowance and other fiscal advantages - all denied to them now.