Tales from the Front Line

Accidental Landlords

by Joanna Bishop
on July 31, 2009 in Rental Property

Over the last year, we have seen an increase in what we call ‘accidental landlords’ – those who prefer to sell their house, but will put it on the rental market for the time being. The effect of this has been to distort the statistics about how many rental properties there are on the market – they may be for rent but because they are tired family houses, they probably won’t let, particularly when they are contrasted with properties that are waiting for a tenant owned by a professional landlord.

The number of potential properties for rent is back to ‘normal’ levels, but this is not because these properties have been let, but because they have been sold – which is what those ‘landlords’ always wanted anyway.