Homeownership in the capital will fall below 50 per cent in the next 12 years, if a prediction by an industry expert comes to fruition.
Speaking at the Council of Mortgage Lenders Conference and Exhibition, Nick Jopling, executive director, Grainger plc said that, at present, London had just 50 per cent homeownership, with the figure in steady decline.
Jopling was part of an expert panel put together to discuss the buy-to-let market, which is recovering from its low-poing in 2009.
“There are over a million families living in the private rented sector,” said Jopling, who was opposed to the regulation of the buy-to-let mortgage industry.
“Regulation for regulation’s sake is always dangerous and can mean a tenant is more likely to wonder into a bad landlord situation, which gives us all a bad reputation”.
Richard Lambert, CEO of the National Landlord’s Association agreed.
“The buy-to-let market shouldn’t be regulated in the same way, that’s why we lobbied hard to maintain it.
“The structure we have works. We need to take individual cases rather than a blanket approach.”
Recent figures released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders revealed that the number of buy-to-let mortgages taken out in the third quarter of 2012 totalled £4.2 billion, an increase of 8 per cent on the preceding three months.
The number of loans advanced in the three months to the end of September totalled 34,400, 2% more than in the second quarter of 2012 (33,600).
The data means that the value of buy-to-let lending in the first nine months of 2012 amounted to £11.8 billion, 19 per cent higher than the £9.9 billion advanced over the same period in 2011.
But buy-to-let activity is recovering from a low base and remains subdued compared to the pre-credit crunch era. Buy-to-let lending this year is likely to total a little over one-third of its peak in 2007.
Loading ...