Surge in proportion of landlords purchasing family-focused property

Paragon’s Trends research shows the types of property landlords are looking to invest in during the third quarter of the year are more suited to meet the needs of families moving into the private rented sector.

Of those landlords planning to purchase during the quarter, 41% (up from 28% in Q2) are looking to invest in semi-detached houses and 22% (up from 9% in Q2) are looking to buy a detached property.

It is a common perception that the PRS is largely made up of young people and couples. However, Paragon’s research shows that a significant proportion of landlords are letting to families and this looks set to increase during the coming months.

With increasing strain on the social housing sector, a constrained owner-occupied mortgage market and continuing wider economic difficulties, more families are looking to the PRS as their tenure of choice.

Paragon’s research shows that landlords let to a range of tenant types across their portfolios, with families a popular tenant choice. Nearly half (45%) of landlords have families as tenants, making them the fourth largest tenant type.

Over half of landlords let to young couples (55%), with 52% letting to professionals and 50% to young singles.

Nigel Terrington, Paragon Group Chief Executive, said:

“It is interesting to see more families relying on the PRS, and this is certainly a trend which I expect to stay.

“Young couples and single person households will continue to account for a large proportion of the PRS, but I think over the next few years we will see more families making use of the flexibility and affordable accommodation that the PRS provides.

“With a rising UK population, which is set to grow from 62.3 million today to 65 million in 2016, landlords need to react quickly to a changing tenant demographic as otherwise demand will most certainly exceed supply quite considerably.”