20-12-2007
Landlords may be affected by oversupply
News by Adfero for Simply Business - independent providers of business insurance, business finance, landlord insurance, buy-to-let mortgages & commercial mortgages.
Landlords who have just gone into speculative investment will be the ones most affected by the current oversupply of flats in the UK, according to the editor of a property website.
Tom Entwistle, who edits landlordzone.co.uk, suggests that those who have jumped on the property "bandwagon" recently will be the most likely ones to suffer financially.
He also indicates that property owners may lower their expectations of tenants, which could result in a reduction in quality of the process.
For established landlords, who may have had landlord insurance for a number of years, the outlook could be different.
"[The] established landlords that are running this as a business, as opposed to the ones who have just gone in for the speculative investment, they are happy with [the current situation]," said the editor.
"It doesn't really matter what the price of your property is if you are renting it for the long-term. And if they do drop, some of them will be buying in."
Mr Entwistle's comments follow this month's research from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors which shows demand for flats has dropped recently.