Landlords 'face competition from homeowners'
News Category: Industry News
Published: 03-Aug-2007
If interest rates continue to rise, landlords may find they face competition from private homeowners who could opt to rent out spare rooms.
That's the opinion of propertyfinder.com, which carried out research that discovered that 24.6 per cent of homeowners are thinking about renting out a spare room if interest rates continue to rise.
A further 19 per cent of homeowners would happily enter the rental market but think their home is too small.
"There are at least 26 million spare rooms in the UK, on average that's one for every household. Around half of these belong to those with mortgages," explained Warren Bright, chief executive of propertyfinder.com.
"Mortgage borrowers are feeling the pinch of higher repayments and many are looking around for sources of extra cash.
"Of course, it's a huge change to consider taking a stranger into your home so in practice, only a tiny proportion of homeowners would do it."
Equally, rising interest rates would prevent more people from buying a property, expanding the market for private rental property.
