News

16/03/2010 17:15:31

New landlords 'struggling to pay creditors'

Landlords who have entered the rental market in the last three years are struggling to cope financially with the economic downturn, it has been suggested.

IVA.com recently reported that during March of this year there was a 53 per cent increase in the number of buy-to-let investors having difficulties paying their creditors.

Mark Garner, managing director at LettingZone, suggested that financial difficulties would be more likely for new landlords as if they "didn't really have the cash flow there to maintain it then obviously they have got problems now and, if they were reliant on capital growth, they have desperately got problems".

However, he added that long-term professional landlords have never been in a better situation as interest rates are at an all-time low.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors recently found the number of new rental properties being made available on the market had fallen for the second consecutive quarter.