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Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Southampton Landlords celebrate 18th birthday of Buy-to-let




The year 1996 was the year that John Major was in power, a little known band called the Spice Girls stormed the charts and just 4% of the UK population had access to something called the internet. It was also the year that buy-to-let was born.
ARLA and a small select panel of lenders including Paragon Mortgages, were instrumental in recognising the growing demand from private landlords for specifically tailored mortgage finance to help meet the rapidly growing demand for private rented property.
Over the past 18 years the buy-to-let market has developed considerably, supporting growth in the UK’s Private Rented Sector (PRS) whilst driving up quality and improving choice and competition. Today the PRS is the second largest housing tenure in the UK – over taking the social housing sector for the first time since 1961 in 2012/2013.
In 1996 there were 2.4 million households in the PRS – 18 years later this has more than doubled to 4.9 million. At the same time the sector has seen the fastest rate of improvement in the quality of accommodation of all three major tenures, and tenant satisfaction in the PRS now exceeds those in the social rented sector.
The profile of tenants living in the PRS has also changed since 1996, with more families living in private rented homes. In 1996, 13% of tenants living in the PRS were families – this has now increased to 20%.
John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages, said: “The buy-to-let market has been a force for good for the wider UK housing market. Before the development of buy-to-let landlords had few options when considering how best to finance a rented property. The finance that was available was expensive and poorly matched to the customer’s needs. It was particularly difficult for new landlords to start to build a portfolio.
“Buy-to-let has changed all this. It enabled landlords to access finance that was better designed to meet the specific needs of the rental market at much more competitive interest rates and thus helped expand quality and choice in the PRS.


http://www.landlordtoday.co.uk/news_features/Buy-to-let-celebrates-18th-birthday

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