Landlords: how much are you giving back?

It's official - landlords make a valuable financial contribution to local communities

Landlords get a lot of flack. The bad ones – who in our experience are very much in the minority – are given more than their fair share of column inches in the press. Even the Government often seems to be helping create an unhelpful ‘them and us’ culture in the PRS. So here’s a good news story for a change.

Letting Agent Today reports that mortgage company Aldermore has carried out new research, identifying how much of a financial contribution private landlords make to their local economies. The company polled 1,000 UK-based landlords to find out more and the results make interesting reading. Here’s what they found.

More than
80% of landlords who need to repair or renovate their rental homes use a local
company. On average property owners in the rental sector spent £1,443 in the
last 12 months on plumbers, builders, letting agents and other tradespeople.
And they all hired suppliers from the local community for most of their
requirements.

Landlords
spent the most on letting agents – around £900m in the last year. This was followed by:

• £442m on small-scale repairs


•  £396m on plumbers


• £375.4m on electricians


• £377.3m on builders


• £243.2m on cleaners

Almost a third of landlords responding to the survey said they are keen to actively support their local economy by using local tradespeople and one in four say they tend to be cheaper than big-name nationwide alternatives. So next time landlords are being given a hard time, they now have some ammunition to fight back with.

04/02/2020
Author : Mary-Anne Bowring

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