The most recent edition of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) UK Residential Market Survey has been released and with it another prediction of buy-to-let sell off and resultant rental squeeze.
The survey is carried out monthly and is a sentiment survey of Chartered Surveyors operating in the residential sales and letting industry across the UK.
January’s edition concludes that while buyer enquiries have stayed relatively flat across their respondents – and indeed showed the softest results since August 2016 – there is a relatively buoyant mood with the balance of respondents expecting an increase in sales with a 12-month outlook.
Unfortunately, this optimism does not extend to buy-to-let sales. January marked the fourth consecutive quarter when instructions by landlords failed to improve and respondents were morose in their expectations with 28% more respondents expecting landlords to decrease (rather than increase) their portfolio in the coming 12 months.
This does, however, add weight to our predictions last week that fortune may favour the brave. RICS respondents predict an increase in rental prices of 25% over the course of the next 5 years as sell-offs limit the rental housing stock available in the market. As a result – RICS reports – rental growth is expected to outperform house price inflation over the same period which is predicted as being closer to 20%.
Do these findings match your own predictions about the market overall? Have you seen any benefits in approaching letting agents at a time when rental properties are flat?
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