Prudence is the key for buy to let investors

The latest Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) quarterly survey has been released.

And the results point to a resilience among investment landlords even with the current housing market downturn.

Of the 289 residential landlords polled only 1.3 per cent expected to sell due to the housing market downtown with the majority looking to hold on to their investments for a longer period, 17.2 years up from 16.7 years in the previous quarter.

Some 40 per cent are even expecting to increase their portfolio sizes in the next twelve months with about 7.5 per cent looking to alter their portfolios in some way.

Investment landlords are also reporting a lower loan to value ratio than many analysts had predicted. Three quarters reported that their loans were 75 per cent or less of the value of their investments and four in ten had loans to value less than 50 per cent.

This report backs up the market that shows that it is individual buy to let landlords, who entered the market at its peak, who are feeling the worst of the housing slow down rather than the long term investor.

July 04^th 2008

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