Recent reports by the NLA and in the press suggest this combo is on the increase:
and I am definitely finding that tenants, both the ones already ensconced in my little flats and the ones coming to view are far more money savvy and focused, and are reckoning up every penny. Life has just become far more expensive, and I think those credit card years are coming home to roost. No longer are tenants’ flats in my young professional strata of the buy to let market filled with Selfridges bags, new electrical goods and M&S carrier bags – its internet shopping, Aldi and the same telly as when they first moved in.
I first starting noticing it 2 years ago, tenant moving back with parents or to houseshares instead of living on their own, or single occupied flats being taken over by couples saving cash on rent and downsizing into one bedders not two.
And tenants in arrears is on the up. I’ve had one vanisher this year, and even though I have a CCJ against him now, he has no address and no job, so what can you do. Got another who is behind, but this is looking positive, so fingers crossed – he paid off another lump sum this week – he was self employed and the work simply dried up. And another who has his own business and has struggled this month.
Another funny thing is that all my new tenants are still of the girl variety and all in the public sector; I blogged on it a few weeks back. There are a handful of exceptions but it seems a lot of the boys have gone back home or moved in with girlfriends – is the financial organisation required for solitary living too much for them 🙂 ?
Talking of which, off to make lunch for a smelly 16yr old who is surgically attached to my sofa and incapable of feeding himself more than Frosties.
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