Landlords come in all shapes and sizes: some good, some mediocre, and a few terrible ones. Life as a tenant is not always a bed of roses, especially if you have to deal with a landlord in no rush to fix a faulty boiler or call in a pest control company, but things could soon be very different.
Corporate Renting Comes to the UK
According to an article in the BBC, corporate renting is about to come to the UK. If it takes off, corporate renting could change the landscape of the UK rental market forever. So what is corporate renting?
Corporate landlords are companies not people. It is common in the US, but not here. However, one UK company is preparing to offer as many as 5,000 corporate rental flats in London. The flats are described as ‘up market’ and have been carefully designed to encourage tenants to stay for as long as possible. Costs will be kept down – the company will even change light bulbs to reduce tenant breakages.
On the face of it there are many advantages for tenants. After all, the landlord isn’t likely to put the property on the market and there are no letting agents charging hefty fees. Tenants will also get problems sorted quickly.
However, critics say most of the flats will be far too expensive for ordinary tenants on ordinary wages. The company behind the scheme disagrees: they argue that their properties will be marketed at middle earners rather than wealthy tenants.
Will the Idea Take Off?
Unless hundreds of other companies jump on the bandwagon, probably not, but if the scheme proves to be successful, investors may decide to dip a toe in the corporate rental market.
