In a survey of 160 letting agents carried out by Goodlord, 75% of respondents said they didn’t think the government understood the pressure facing the sector.

A further 19% weren’t sure. And just 6% said they thought the government truly understood the challenges the market is facing.

This poll follows a lacklustre Budget where housing barely featured and ongoing delays and uncertainty around the Renters (Reform) Bill.

Goodlord managing director of insurance Oli Sherlock commented: “Given the delays, confusion, and rotating cast of housing ministers over recent years, it’s no surprise to see that the majority of agents have little faith in this government’s grip on the challenges facing the housing and letting market”.

He added: “Landlords are under pressure, agents are contending with increasingly complex legislation, and tenants are fighting to secure homes. All stakeholders deserve more joined up thinking and a long-term, bipartisan plan if we want renting to be done right.”

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Market insight from Monta Capital, the property investment manager, reveals that 85% of tenants in the UK are renting through necessity, unable to afford to buy their own home.

Monta Capital recently surveyed 1,586 UK renters to find out whether renting was, for the majority of people, a lifestyle choice or necessity.

The results reveal that many tenants have been renting for a long time. Some 24% of respondents have been renting for 6-10 years; 22% have been renting for 10-15 years; 13% have been renting for up to 20 years; and 20% have been renting for more than 20 years. 

While renters are renting for long-periods of time, very few appear to do so through choice. Indeed, 85% say they are renting through necessity, with just 15% saying that rent is a choice. 

The overall cost of renting was cited by 33% as their biggest concern. 

An even more common pain point is the lack of security provided to renters through short tenancy agreements, with 35% saying the chance that their landlord will turf them out for no good reason is the worst part of renting. 

As such, 41% of renters insisted that the best way to improve the renting experience would be for landlords to offer longer tenancies thus giving people far more security in their home.

However, despite the drawbacks, tenants do attest to enjoying some aspects of the rental lifestyle.

At the top of this list, as cited by 31% of tenants, is the ability to live in a home or an area that they would not be able to afford if buying a home.

Of those surveyed 26% said they appreciated the benefit of being able to avoid the debt of a mortgage, and 24% cited the flexibility of renting as its biggest perk, free as they are to move to a new place with relative ease and freedom. 

When renters are asked if they have any plans to one day buy their own home, 43% say no. And by far the most common reason why they have no plans to buy a home is because they can’t see themselves ever being able to afford it (70%).

Of the 57% who say they do have ownership aspirations, 19% say it will be up to 10 years before they think about doing so, and even then, less than 60% (59%) believe they’ll actually be able to achieve home ownership within this timeframe.

Commenting on the survey’s findings Monta Capital chief executive Thomas Balashev said that there needed to be more developers and public stakeholders willing to create rented homes with the same level of respect they do for-sale homes. 

“Currently, rented homes are not held to the same high standards that for-sale homes are where quality directly impacts value. Instead, the only metric in delivering rented homes is the price point. 

“We should also be looking seriously at creating longer tenancies in order to give renters the security they desire and deserve. To this end, we would love to see government legislation move with the times and push for the provision of longer tenancies”. 

Not only would this benefit tenants, Balashev argued, but it would also be a huge boon for property investors.

“For residential investors, not least in the build-to-rent sector, a building that has tenants signed up for five or seven years provides much more investor security than a building where tenants only sign up for a year at a time,” he concluded.

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This regular survey found fewer homeowners are worried about being able to meet their monthly mortgage payments, and there has also been a drop in the number who see mortgage affordability as a barrier to home buying.

The tracker also found that the numbers of people expecting house prices to rise in the year is increasing, although the BSA said that while housing market sentiment is improving, it remains weak. 

Data from this property tracker shows that 9% of respondents were either ‘not very confident’ or ‘not at all confident’ about paying their mortgage over the next six months. This is a decline in the 12% expressing these concerns six months previously in September 2023. 

Those who rent their home are a little less assured though, with just three-quarters (74%) confident about meeting their monthly rental payments. However, this is the highest confidence score since March 2022 — with the BSA noting with a corresponding decline in the number who said they were ‘not confident’ about meeting these payments.

The survey shows affording a mortgage remains the biggest barrier to buying a home. But this was now cited by 62% of respondents — a significant decline on the 71% recorded in September.

The report also revealed that other perceived barriers to home ownership also appear to be diminishing. Fewer people cited concerns about future falls in property prices as a potential barrier — figures were down from 18% to 12%. This is the lowest level it has been for eight years.

However raising a deposit remains a significant barrier to buying a home, cited by 60% of respondents. This remains virtually unchanged since December last year.  

The tracker found that 41% of people expect house prices will rise over the next 12 months — a significant increase from 33% in December 2023. The BSA says this is the highest proportion expecting a price rise since June 2022. 

There was a corresponding shift in those expecting house prices to fall in the next year, with only 14% believing this to be the case, compared to 24% in December.

Overall the BSA says this tracker shows that sentiment in the housing market remains weak, but has improved since December. 

The proportion of people who think now is a good time to buy a property is 19% compared to 16% in December 2023. This is the highest it has been since December 2021.

BSA head of mortgage and housing policy Paul Broadhead says: “The overall reduction in mortgage rates following the peak in 2023 has been welcomed by homebuyers, and has seen an improvement in confidence in the housing market.

“While consumer prices remain high, wage growth has been strong meaning many households are now in a stronger position than six months ago. There is also an expectation that if inflation continues to fall, the Bank Rate may be cut this year, further easing pressures on borrowers and increasing mortgage affordability.

“Whilst affordability of mortgage payments remains the biggest barrier to house purchase, it is reassuring that this has reduced over the past six months. Expectations around house prices reflect this more stable outlook for the housing market.

“Whilst there has been a welcome reduction in those that are concerned about meeting their mortgage payments, lenders remain very aware that there are a number of homeowners who are struggling.”

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Available to all applications received by 27 March, the promotion will apply on all loans within £10m, with Glenhawk covering up to £3,000 (inc VAT) in legal and valuation fees for new unregulated product requests.

This initiative has been launched in direct response to market feedback and is aimed at reducing upfront costs for borrowers.

This is the third promotion of this type Goldhawk has offered borrowers in the past 18 months, in terms of reducing valuation charges, but the first time that the company is eliminating upfront costs up to £3,000 (inc VAT).

The savings is expected to benefit property investors, developers and homeowners, who continue to face a challenging financing environment for acquisitions and refurbishment projects.

Last month, the company also overhauled its unregulated and regulated product range. This included reducing rates across the board with unregulated products starting from 0.83%, increasing the LTV on its regulated product to 75% and maximum loan size to £2m.

Additionally, exit fees were removed for Glenhawk’s heavy refurbishment product, as well as a newly launched mixed residential product for mixed use assets with more than 50% residential.

Commenting on the latest changes Glenhawk chief executive Guy Harrington said: “Reducing upfront costs will support residential investors and developers in their transaction journeys, while speeding up housing market transactions and project delivery.”

He added: “The general feedback from our broker network and their borrower base has been that valuation and legal fees remains a considerable cost and we will put the interests of our clients first wherever we can in the current macroeconomic environment. We are witnessing a continued recovery in transaction volumes, as demand for competitive financing solutions remains robust.”

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Overall the group’s pre-tax profits fell by 64% to £55.4m, which Savills said was due to “challenging” property markets worldwide. 

Its full year results show that revenue from the UK residential part of its business stood at £171m at the end of December 2023, down from £208.3m the year before. 

This means underlying profit for this part of the business reduced by 45% to £19.4m. However this still representing an underlying profit margin of 11.4%. 

In the UK, Savills said this downturn reflected the decrease in market volumes due to successive interest rate rises dampening demand, and leading to fewer mortgage approvals. 

Second-hand sales revenues declined by 23%, with the number of exchanges down by the same percentage. In total Savills saw 4,735 second-hand transaction in 2023, down from 6,124 the year before.  

The issues of declining revenues was further exacerbated by the decrease in the average sales value of these transactions. The average transaction in 2023 stood at £1.61m, down 4% on the 2022 figure of £1.68m. In London the average lot size transacted by Savills was down 3% to £2.23m, and by 8% in the regions to £1.27m.

Revenue from the sale of news homes was also down, by 14% year on year, reflecting a decrease of 27% in the number of exchanges, most of which occurred in the regional market. Savills said that London remained more resilient, showing an 8% increase in the average value of new home transactions. 

While Savills saw transactions, revenue and profit reduce in the UK residential market, the group did see growth in some of the less transactional parts of its business. For example its property management business saw revenues increase by 11% and its consultancy business by 4%. 

Group chief executive Mark Ridley says that Savills remain “resilient” in the context of “extremely challenging real estate markets, which saw the lowest levels of transaction volumes for a decade”. 

He adds: “Current economic and geopolitical conditions remain uncertain and although we expect this to continue for some time, most markets appear to be past the moment of peak uncertainty.

“There are some early signs of underlying market improvements, which should set the course for a broader recovery during the second half of the year and into 2025.”

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The FTSE 250-listed lender — which includes OneSavings Bank, Kent Reliance and Charter Court Financial Services – added that “rising costs of living and borrowing were reflected in subdued purchase activity across all mortgage market sectors,” in its full-year results statement.  

Buy-to-let originations fell 13% to £1.6bn in the period “as overall market segment volumes reduced significantly”.  

It added that BTL borrowers continued to favour five-year fixed-rate mortgages, which represented 74% of Kent Reliance completions in 2023 (down from 83% a year ago), “however an increasing proportion of customers elected to take shorter-term mortgages in anticipation of falling interest rates”.  

However, the group’s statutory loan book grew by 9% to £25.8bn, which comprises landlord, commercial, residential development and funding line loans to non-bank lenders.  

The firm expects underlying net loan book growth of around 5% in 2024, based on current application volumes and against the backdrop of a lacklustre mortgage market

The business posted pre-tax profit down by 30% to £374.3m, blaming adverse effective interest rate adjustments.  

OSB Group chief executive Andy Golding said: “The group’s target professional landlords continue to demonstrate resilience, supported by high levels of demand in the private rented sector, long-term income improvement and a reduction in the cost of borrowing towards the end of the year.”  

Shares fell 17.4% to 380.60 in early trading.  

The business added that chief financial officer April Talintyre will retire at its annual meeting on 9 May, deputy chief financial officer Victoria Hyde will act in her place until a permanent replacement is appointed.  

Meanwhile, the group said that Precise Mortgages will rebrand as Precise, with a new brand image, while its broker website has been rebuilt to include new tools and updated functions.  

The move follows the launch of OSB Group’s registration portal, introduced last month, which allows new brokers to register with Precise, KRFI or InterBay, or all three, using a single registration process. 

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Samra joins from NatWest, where she was a business development manager. Prior to this she worked as a mortgage business development manager for Prosperity Wealth, working with UK and overseas clients, and has also held roles at Barclays and The Royal Bank of Scotland. 

In her new role she will report into MPowered Mortgages sales director Matt Surridge. 

Surridge says the appointment was part of the company’s plans to expand its reach in the Midlands and improve the services it offers brokers in the region. 

He adds: “[Sumra’s] knowledge and extensive experience working with foreign nationals across global markets will be invaluable as we look to support foreign nationals fulfil their aspirations to be homeowners in the UK.”

MPowered has recently updated it criteria for foreign nationals which included increasing LTV to 90% for foreign nationals.

Surridge adds that MPowered remains committed to using technology, including AI to speed up the mortgage process for brokers using its mortgage original platform.

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The changes mean that loans up to 90% LTV will have a maximum loan amount of £1.25m, and loans up to 85% LTV will have a maximum loan amount of £2m. Increasing from £675k and £1m respectively.

The changes in detail:

.            Maximum loan for loans up to 90% LTV increased from £675k to £1.125m

.            Maximum loan for loans up to 85% LTV increased from £1m to £2m

.            Maximum loans for new build properties will stay at £1m at 85% LTV and £675,000 at 90% LTV.

Commenting on the loan enhancements Metro Bank director of mortgage distribution Charles Morley, said:

“Today’s changes will support those higher earning customers who are borrowing £1m or more but may have a smaller deposit than many more mainstream products might allow. Ultimately providing greater flexibility and choice for the customer while also ensuring the health and vitality of the mortgage market.”

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Gould has worked for Openwork, Quilter and 2plan Wealth Management in a range range of business development and recruitment roles. Most recently he worked as adviser recruitment director at AFH Wealth Management.

In this new role we will be working to bring new member firms into the network and DA club, as well as supporting existing firms and working on new training requirements.  He will work with the account management team and report to Amanda Wilson, director of The Right Mortgage. 

Wilson says: “National Account Manager is a vitally-important position within the business. [Gould] brings a wealth of experience to this role and will be working on providing the necessary support to our existing AR and DA firms, and highlighting the strength of our proposition to other advisers and firms.”

Gould says he has worked in the network and distribution space for 20 of the 30 years he has worked in the financial services industry. “I have worked with many large- and medium-sized distributors and networks having built and grown the firms through recruitment and development.” He adds he is looking forward to the challenge of expanding the mortgage network as it moves towards 1,000 advisers. 

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