ARLA says the number of tenants struggling to pay rent has fallen to a record low having fallen from 65 per cent to 27 per cent in just under five years.
“Any overall fall in rental arrears is good news but 27 per cent is still high considering the economic climate in the UK remains challenging” says Ian Potter, outgoing managing director of ARLA who leaves his post in June.
ARLA’s latest quarterly report also says 46 per cent of letting agents say demand for rental homes still outstrips supply with more tenants than properties available at the end of 2013.
This is a slight decrease on the 52 per cent recorded in the third quarter of 2013 but is still far from historic lows of 10 per cent seen in 2009 and, says ARLA, signifies that there remains a significant under-supply of private rented sector accommodation.
“Competition for the best properties remains fierce but this shouldn’t tempt tenants to offer beyond their means. As well as rent itself, the deposit, utility bills and contents insurance should always be factored in to any budget to avoid any shortfall” advises Potter.
Comments
Since ARLA have only their own members statistics on which to base that comment and most use the tenant protection product providers, as Andy implies, the rent guarantee using the associated tenant referencing as the risk management control, has always been circa 1.5%. Any higher and the product would be considered un affordable by most landlords / agents.
As a press release / story, a nonsense really?
@Ray Cromer I agree with you regarding scare mongering etc. I also agree that professional letting agents have arrears under control. We issue some 5000 rent guarantee policies every month and the overall claims incidence is less than 2%; we do however only deal with professional agents. It’s the ‘all time low’ comment that I struggle with. The PRS has grown significantly in the last 5 years and the quantum also needs to be reported on. The article from ARLA is poor.
I'm not sure it is tripe; we keep hearing horror stories - usually from the likes of Shelter, Tenant Action etc - about a growing number of tenants struggling to pay rent, yet with a sizeable portfolio in Mitcham, SE London and another in Milton Keynes we are just not seeing any evidence of that at all.
Our arrears average has not changed at all in the last 2 years.
What is going on; not worth reading........
This just has to be complete and utter tripe.
"Record low"
Wasn't there something last week aboiut fears on record highs?