Estate agent Strutt and Parker compared Land Registry housing data for the past decade across England and Wales to show how private rented homes started as clusters around major university cities and then rippled out across the nation.
The first map shows the state of private rented housing in 2001, with London as a major hotspot and eight other main areas with more than a 20% proportion of rented to owned homes.
The second map shows a dramatic change in the landscape with more than 50 buy to let hotspots a decade later.
During that time, the number of rental properties has doubled from 1.9 million to 3.9 million.
To push the point home, comparing the two maps side-by-side shows a complete reverse of white and coloured areas – with much of the country having little or no private rented housing in 2001, but now little or none of the country not having private rented homes now.
Buy to let clearly started in university cities or major business hubs, said the estate agent, but many new hotspots are seaside towns, like Torbay, Eastbourne and Hastings.
Stephanie McMahon, Strutt and Parker’s head of research said: “The private rental sector has changed dramatically over the past decade, and although this brings us more in line with our northern European peers we are still some way off the scale of the rental sector in countries like Germany and Switzerland. In our view it is likely that overall home ownership will remain between 60% and 70% over people’s lifetimes, but we will see much more openness to rental at different life stages and for longer time periods.”
“It is widely acknowledged that long-term rental is increasingly common, driven by factors such as whether the younger generation are able to raise deposits to buy, or indeed the older generation releasing capital from their homes for care and pensions. The varied growth of this market across the UK clearly points to a need to understand local markets rather than just the big picture.”
Click here for 2001 map
Click here for 2011 map
