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Information on Letting Agents |
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Letting Agents are truly middlemen, not
too dissimilar to Mortgage brokers.
The Letting Agent is there to marry two partners, namely the
Landlord and the tenant or tenants.
In the last decade we have seen a Buy To Let boom resulting from
changes in the law, relaxed lending and strong house price growth: - History Legislation created the Assured Shorthold
Tenancy. The
Assured.Shorthold Tenancy gave the landlord much needed power; it
allowed him or her to evict the tenant if; circumstances changed,
tenants became unruly or the outing tenant decided not to pay his or her
rent. Prior to this the
balance of power was certainly favoured towards the tenant.
The rebalancing of power also gave comfort to the mortgage
companies, specialist mortgage lenders decided to arrange Buy To Let
mortgages. |
Click the above link to find LETTINGAGENT.COM
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ARLA, the Association of Letting Agents,
discussed at great length how mortgage companies could lend money to
landlords. In 1996 plans
were set and the Buy To Let mortgage was created.
Lending by today’s standards was cautious with lending not
exceeding a few properties per a landlord per a mortgage company.
Also the amount you could borrow, as a percentage of property
value, was a conservative 75%. As the Property boom of the late 90’s
took hold and landlords started buying small one, two or three bed flats
and houses for multiple occupation the demand for a middleman grew
rapidly. Many Estate Agents
started to diverse heavily into property management and more specialist
Letting Agents were created. Today the Lettings market in very competitive for Letting Agents and the emergence of the web has made it easy to ‘surf a property’. Whilst the number of properties being built will ensure the future growth of the lettings business Letting Agents will need to raise their standards or ‘go out of business’.
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