High levels of demand for rental properties has led to tenants renting properties within an average of 13 days in the first three months of 2011, compared to 17 days in quarter one of last year, reports Countrywide.
Countrywide’s 1,300 offices also saw a 51% uplift in demand from tenants in the new year, a greater increase than that seen at the start of last year (46%) from quarter four 2009.
Findings of the quarterly review also revealed a significant rise in the proportion of small-scale buy-to-let landlords coming back into the market, reflecting an increased appetite for lending to these investors.
These buy-to-let investors with small portfolios of one to three properties now account for 40% of all landlords, up from 35% at the end of 2010.
Overall, supply remains stable but low, with a shortfall of supply across all property categories, from studio flats to five-bedroom houses, with an average of five tenants vying for each available UK rental property.
Demand remains consistent with Countrywide’s observations throughout the last 12 months andremains strongest in the London and South-East, with above average supply shortages across all types of property.
John Hards, co-managing director of Countrywide Residential Lettings, said: “The number of rental properties becoming available is still extremely low, in comparison to high levels of tenant demand.
“There has been an increase in the availability of buy-to-let lending and there are indications that small investor landlords are coming back into the market.
“This uplift in activity in the buy-to-let market is welcomed and we hope that the Government will do more to correct the widening gap between supply and demand in the private rental sector.”
