Additional 743 St Neots Rented Homes Required by 2027

I have been doing some research, looking both at National and Regional reports on the demand and supply of property and people together with future projections on the economy, population and family demographics with some interesting results; According to the Office of National Statistics, in the last financial year nationally, private renting grew by 74,000 households, whilst the owner occupied dwelling stock increased by 101,000 and social (aka council and housing association) stock increased by 12,000 dwellings.

Despite all of this, it was the private rental figures that caught my eye - with eight or nine years of recovery since the Credit Crunch, economic recovery and continuing low interest rates have done little to setback the mounting need for rented housing. In fact, with house price inflation increasing much quicker than wage growth, this has probably made owning a home even more difficult, all at a time when the number of council/social housing has shrunk by just over 2.5% since 2003, making more households move into private renting.

There are 3,781 people living in 1,734 privately rented

properties in St Neots.

In the next nine years, looking at the future population growth statistics for the St Neots area and making careful and moderate calculations of what proportion of those extra people due to live in St Neots will rent as opposed to buy, in the next ten years, 1,620 people (adults and children combined) will require a private rented property to live in.

Therefore, the number of Private Rented homes in St Neots will need to rise by 743 households over the next nine years,

That’s 83 additional St Neots properties per year that will need to be bought by St Neots landlords, for the next nine years to meet that demand.

… and remember, I am being conservative with those calculations, as demand for privately rented homes in St Neots could still rise more abruptly than anyone has predicted or even decrease. So, one has to ask wonder if it was wise to introduce a buy to let stamp duty surcharge of 3% and the constraint on mortgage tax relief could curtail and hold back the ability of private landlords to expand their portfolios?

Well a lot of landlords are taking on these new hurdles to buy to let and working smarter. Buying the property at the right price and using an agent to negotiate on your behalf. Incorporating your property portfolio into a Limited Company is also a way to circumnavigate the issues of mortgage tax relief, but just look at the growth of Buy to Let properties in the Country since the Summer of 2016 ... something tells me smart Landlords are seeing these challenges as just that ... challenges which can be overcome by working smarter.