News
Demand from tenants for longer tenancies
Monday 13th March 2017
Tenants are demanding longer tenancies according to new research from the English Housing Survey. Tenants are looking for assurance and stability and it seems landlords are quite happy to oblige.
The data shows tenants are remaining in the same property for an average of 4.3 years, up from four years 12 months ago. It also highlighted around two thirds of tenants have been in their existing property for more than three years and half for five or more years.
This result could be linked to the fact more families are renting homes and don't want to keep moving once children are settled into schools and jobs have been established. The number of tenants with children has increased from 30% in 2005/2006 to 36% in 2015/2016 and equates to around 945,000 households.
Landlords are seeing the benefits of having families as tenants as the majority of private renters are working and offer guaranteed rent thus avoiding empty periods. The Residential Landlords Association agree with chairman Alan Ward commenting "It is time to focus not on heavy handed legislation, but looking at what more can be done to break the barriers preventing landlords offering longer tenancies, such as restrictions imposed by mortgage lenders. Landlords are stepping up and providing the stability that many tenants need and want".