While the runaway housing market is booming, other UK property news headlines suggest a decline in the potential occupancy rates of homes in the UK, a shortage of rental accommodation, and the need for some landlords to be available around the clock for their tenants.
Tenants face supply crisis amid calls for 230,000 extra rentals a year
The shortage of accommodation to rent is so dire that an extra 230,000 such homes will be required to meet expected demand, according to a story in the Mail Online on the 15th of February.
With the currently marked imbalance between supply and demand, hopeful tenants have much less choice when it comes to choosing a home to rent and will have to face paying more for it.
Following a succession of changes in legislation, many landlords have decided to quit the buy to let sector. As a result, only around 5,000 additional let properties have been added to the housing stock each year in the five years from 2016 to 2020. This compares with a total of 205,000 homes that were added during the previous ten years.
Council says HMO landlords must be on call 24 hours a day
Landlords of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) in Belfast must be prepared to respond 24/7 to complaints about anti-social behaviour following a court ruling in favour of the city council, reported by Landlord Today on the 28th of February.
The provision of an out-of-hours emergency telephone contact number has been made on the council’s conditions for granting an HMO licence and was prompted by a recent spate of complaints about allegedly rowdy behaviour by students in the Holyland district of Belfast.
The council’s imposition of the 24/7 contact requirement was challenged by the Landlords Association for Northern Ireland but upheld in the High Court.
Nearly 9 million bedrooms lost in the UK
One of the unexpected consequences of changing lifestyles caused by the Covid pandemic and successive lockdowns has been the loss of bedrooms from homes the length and breadth of the country.
In a survey conducted by online listings website Zoopla, the results of which it published on the 17th of February, an estimated 9 million bedrooms have been converted into home office spaces, entertainment suites, and gyms.
The loss of bedrooms is a result of around 41% of all homeowners adapting their homes in some way to meet their changing needs and lifestyles during the pandemic. In the place of former bedrooms, there are now an estimated five million home offices and more than a million gyms or exercise rooms.
Across the country, a total of some £36.5 billion has been spent in making these changes – and that’s the equivalent of an average of £3,714 per home.
While some 70% of homeowners believe that employers should contribute to the cost of home improvements to create offices for working from home, around 30% of employers have done so.
Rightmove predicts UK property market boom after record 2021
The housing market in the UK in 2021 saw record prices and an unprecedented volume of transactions. Yet 2022 will continue that boom, according to a news piece by Yahoo on the 25th of February.
Taking full advantage of the surge in demand for homes, online property listings website Rightmove scored a 67% annual increase in profits in 2021.
Pre-tax profits for the year ending the 31st of December were £226 million, following a 50% leap in annual revenue to more than £305 million.
Compared with pre-pandemic performance in 2019, revenue for the complete year was up 5% but rose by more than 48% compared with 2020 – thanks chiefly to the discounts offered to many estate agents during the lockdowns of the pandemic.
