Landlords who had prepared for Olympic gold are now dealing with the fall-out of a non-event.
According to London agent Felicity J Lord, part of Spicerhaart, not one of the 2,000-plus people who registered as applicants in the run-up to London 2012 expressed any interest whatsoever in short-term lets.
Mariella Petralia, divisional lettings director for Felicity J Lord, said: “There was so much hype in the run-up to the Olympics about short-term lets and how much prospective landlords could make.
“In the end, it just didn’t happen with visitors simply not prepared to pay five, even ten times the normal rate for the duration of the Games when they could quite easily book into a high-quality hotel in London for less than £100 per night.
“This has left some landlords with the prospect of potentially expensive void periods as they look for tenants and in all likelihood a fall in average rental rates due to a surplus of properties coming on to the market now that the Olympics are over.”
Comments
This is so sad - all those hard working landlords who struggled day and night to issue eviction notices to dreadful tenants who thought they had a right to a roof over their heads just because they paid the agreed rent every month! Oh, the shame of it......
I'm sure their investments will be safe though - I mean, it's not like the Olympic Village and half the Olympic Park is about to be redeveloped as residential property......
As well as all the voids they are going to be suffering big equity falls in their properties. Who would of predicted this? ;)
I have to say I am filling up but what I really want to know is the location of these “High Quality Hotel for under £100 a night”.
It is hard not to laugh isn’t it?
OK so The Bard predicted this over 400 years ago.
Well at least I predicted it as soon as it was first announced earlier this year (as did others in fairness).
Anyone claiming to be an agent who even remotely encouraged this from landlords, never mind discouraging it, should be investigated as they are clearly totally incompetent.
This avarice
Strikes deeper, grows with more pernicious root.
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth