Buy-to-Let investors boost the health of the whole market.

Buy-to-Let investors boost the health of the whole market.

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Nick Says...

No one gives this much credibility, however, it's true we are "propping up" the market.

Take out the "doom mongers" rants and put together the stats, all you have left is fact.... the market place is strong.

Buy to let investors should ignore commentators' suggestions that they received favourable tax treatment, said the Association of Rental Letting Agents (ARLA).

The ARLA Review and Index, published last week, said buy to let investors were vital to the health of the whole housing market, and without them there would be little or no choice in housing.

The latest quarterly results showed that 42 per cent of all investment landlords had one or two properties to let, while one out of ten landlords had more than ten in their portfolio.

Results showed that four out of ten investors in the buy to let market had mortgage borrowings with a loan to value ratio between 51 and 75 per cent. A further quarter had borrowed that account for less than half of the value of their residential property investments.

Six out of ten of these investors expected to acquire further properties over the next twelve months and the average life expectancy of these investments was longer than seven years.

Adrian Turner, chief executive of ARLA, said, "Again, our quarterly figures show that investment landlords are in the business of residential letting for the long term. This is vitally important. Without these investors, who have helped to save the private rented sector by re-financing it, there would be little or no choice in housing.

“If that had happened, the probability is that house prices would have risen further and the social rented sector would have buckled under the pressure. So, we must ensure that investors are neither misled nor panicked as a result of ill-informed criticism of the sector."

"Also, it should be made perfectly clear that these investments are taxed on profit and capital gains in precisely the same way as any other investment or business," he said.