Wednesday, Aug 12, 2009
Housing shortage will ease further as lodger numbers double
Telegraph: Households take in lodgers to beat recession
Families are taking in an extra 500,000 lodgers amid the recession to help meet their mortgage costs....Analysts suggested lodger numbers could double in the next year as renting out a room becomes even more popular.
Posted by mountain goat @ 09:31 AM (1209 views) Add Comment
12 Comments
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1. mrflibble said...
You have to be careful with this one, look what happened when Wallace & Gromit took in a lodger *lol*
2. jack c said...
A couple of vital points most people will miss (no mention of it in the article) is that where a mortgage is involved the borrower should notify their lender that they intend taking in a lodger or lodgers and seek permission first - the least that the mortgage lender will very likely insist upon is a consent to mortgage form signed by the lodger. In addition the insurer(s) also needs to be notified or the insurance (in the event of a claim) will likely to be found void.
3. japanese uncle said...
As mentioned eariler when economy goes south, consumers' affordability in terms of living space inevitably shrinks, thus forcing people to shift from three beds to two, two to one, one to studio, studio to bedsitting or lodging. Just a logical sequence.
4. mark wadsworth said...
Tee hee, I wonder what effect this will have on rents.
Re what JU says, that's the mystery here - if he is right, then we will end up with a load of vacant properties once everybody has downsized. What's the point of that?
5. mountain goat said...
MW - What's the point of that?
hpc?
6. japanese uncle said...
mw
Of course rents along with HP goes south as well. Number of emmigrants will fall because of the recession/depression, as well as the inevitable change in government policy after the next general election, while we are seeing thousands of newly builds are still flooding the market. No other conclusion.
7. mrflibble said...
So at some point we will have a firesale of the vacant properties then?
Any guesses as to when the belief in 'prices will recover' gets changed into 'lets get shot before we loose our shirts'?
8. timmy t said...
Could also be written as... An additional 500,000 people cannot afford to buy or rent so are choosing to lodge until prices return to a sensible level.
9. need-a-crash said...
@8. Quite agree. Love the way these articles are written as though everyone owns property!
The supply side of their income only exists because FTB's have been priced out. I've been lodging for the last 5.5yrs in 3 different properties and in all of them my salary has been higher than the landlord's, but because I was born approx. 6yrs later than my landlords, they're the owner and I'm not!! Crazy, crazy world we live in!!
10. mander said...
Is this not "unfair" competition to Buy-To-Let?
11. uncle tom said...
Impressive headline numbers - if they are correct - some of the other data is a bit ropey..
..16 million households in UK? Actually, there's 26 million, and anyway, where do you find 16 million lodgers in a population of around 61 million??
Assuming the increase of 500,000 is correct (although it feels a bit extreme..) it does reflect the compressible nature of the UK's housing needs.
Shortage does not propel house prices, but greed does...
12. mr_smith said...
well when we tried to get a new flatmate for our flat to cover the fact that I am a student this year it was really competitive trying to get someone of gumtree. we had to go to the wanted section on gumtree rather than the offered as no one replied to our add.
my theory was it was lodgers and also share houses where one person had lost a job and retreated to mum and dads for free rent. for sure if you want to be a lodger you can get a really good deal. I don't think it is having that big an effect on rents of whole flats though.