Landlords 'have done better than investors under Blair'

Over the time Tony Blair was prime minister, investors would have been better buying property and becoming landlords, instead of putting money into the stock market, a financial expert has argued.

Writing in the Telegraph, Tom Stevenson argued that, when Mr Blair took office in 1997, shrewd investors should have "sold all their shares and put down a deposit on one of the newfangled buy-to-let mortgages emerging at the time".

Indeed, over the last decade, the FTSE 100 index risen by just 47 per cent. In contrast, house prices have risen rapidly over the decade. In 1997, the average house price was £74,000 - now it is well over £200,000.

Mr Stevenson wrote: "If you borrowed three-quarters of the cost of that average house in 1997, covering your mortgage with your tenants' rent, you would have turned the £18,500 deposit into an equity share worth £164,500, a nine-fold return on your original investment."

Furthermore, recent reports suggest that the increasing house prices under Mr Blair have forced more people to live in rented property for longer.

Earlier this year, the chief executive of ARLA, Adrian Turner, explained: "Increasingly, renting is seen as a long-term option across all age groups.