Massive drop in Homeownership in Gloucester

An Englishman’s home is his castle and when it comes to the UK we are still a nation of homeowners ‘(although wasn’t it Napoleon who thought we were all shop keepers!). It is interesting to note that up until the mid to late 1960’s, more people rented their home than owned their own. In fact, I was surprised to read that in 1921, over 75% of homes in England and Wales were privately rented with the remaining 25% being owner occupied.

It was only after the Second World War, that people started to buy instead of rent .. but instead of owning our property outright, we borrowed money from banks and building society’s to buy them and the roots of the growth of the private rental sector can be drawn back to the late 1970’s early 1980’s, when the council houses began to be sold off under the right to buy scheme.

In 2001, 74.6% of households were owner occupied in Gloucester, but ten years later, that percentage dropped massively to 67.2%. But here is the interesting part, when you look at the actual numbers of households, 34,177 households in Gloucester were owner occupied in 2001. Ten years later, in 2011, that number (who owned their own home) had actually only decreased to 33,858 households.

So why big drop in percentages but not in actual properties? An additional 4,598 properties were built in Gloucester between 2001 and 2011, but a lot of them were bought as buy to let investments, thus more than doubling the number of private rental properties in Gloucester. In fact, the number of properties in Gloucester, which were privately rented, jumped from 3,971 in 2001 to 8,012 in 2011!

With the council housing waiting lists being in the 5 to 10 year range for a decent property in a decent location and with no more council houses being built and an increasing number of people looking for a roof over their head, private renting is the only option.

With every report stating the rental market will continue to grow throughout the rest of this decade and beyond, linked with high demand and limited supply in the Gloucester, then it is still a good time to consider buying a property for buy to let investment in Gloucester. I am always happy to give you my considered opinion on which property to buy (or not as the case may be).. If you are a landlord, new or old, I am certainly more than happy for you to pick up the phone or visit the Gloucester Property Blog where you will find the best buy to let deals on a day by day basis from all the agents in Gloucester .