Landlords 'vital to UK housing market'

Buy-to-let landlords are vital to the continuing success of the UK housing market, industry experts have said.

Recently, some people have called on the government to remove tax incentives to landlords to try and ease the lack of available housing in the country.

However, ARLA's new data shows that landlords are vital to the UK housing market as "without them there would be little or no choice in housing".

The organisation's figures show that one in ten buy-to-let landlords have a portfolio of more than ten properties and around 60 per cent of landlords plan to obtain more property in the coming year.

"Again, our quarterly figures show that investment landlords are in the business of residential letting for the long term," commented Adrian Turner, the chief executive of ARLA.

"This is vitally important. Without these investors, who have helped to save the private rented sector by re-financing it, there would be little or no choice in housing.

"If that had happened, the probability is that house prices would have risen further and the social rented sector would have buckled under the pressure."

Elsewhere in ARLA's report, it was found that the current rate of return on a cash investment in rental property rose by 0.14 per cent to 11.32 per cent over the three-month period.