NLA defends buy-to-let
- 17th October 2007
- Landlord Property News
The idea still persists in some areas of the property market that the buy-to-let investor is the sole reason first time buyers are finding it difficult to get on the housing ladder.
The National Landlords Association defended buy-to-let landlords against this accusation; Simon Gordon of the NLA believes this is not the case: “This is too sweeping a statement. A great many buy-to-let properties, particularly in London, are not the type of properties that first-time buyers will be buying.”
Mr Gordon cited the ‘buy-to-leave’ investor, those property speculators that leave property empty in order to sell when prices rise, as more at fault.
Second home owners could also be part of the problem, a recent report published by Nationwide confirmed that one in ten people in the UK now owns a second home that is only used at weekends, a sort of part time buy-to-leave investor.
It would seem that there could be a number of reasons for the dearth of first time buyers which include: buy-to-let, buy-to-leave, holiday lets, weekenders. That is without including the recent uncertainties about the economy. Mr Gordon summed the situation up: “What people are doing is they’re treating the UK housing market as one market, but it’s not one market.” The buy-to-let investor is not all to blame.
They’re treating the UK housing market as one market, but it’s not one market.”
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