Rental market declines as homeowners move in
Letting Agents - 02/08/2006 16:06:21
Manchester's letting agents are likely to see a decline in the number of properties for rent, according to industry experts.
Surveyors Shepherd Gilmore has noted that property investors are beginning to pull out of the city centre with owner-occupiers becoming the dominant force in the market.
And this will be bad news for letting agents who rely on the buy-to-let and rental sector to finance their businesses.
Homeowners now make up one-third to one-half of the city centre's population and this number is expected to increase as more and more property developers back away from the market.
Peter Gilmore, director of Shepherd Gilmore, said: "Investors can't make the rental income stack up sufficiently to justify their purchase prices.
"At the same time the capital values of apartments haven't been rising as fast as they once did."
However, the decrease in buy-to-let properties will have a knock-on effect for the ordinary buyers, with prices rising less steeply and a wider choice of spacious and well-designed homes to choose from.
Buy-to-let and investors had dominated the Manchester skyline for most of the last five years, acquiring as much as 80 per cent of newly built properties and generating business for the city's letting agents.
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