What really keeps landlords awake at night?

For many people buy-to-let continues to look an attractive income investment at a time of low saving rates and stock market volatility, and yet many landlords get a lot of anxiety trying to manage their property portfolio.

The introduction of higher stamp duty purchasing costs, the scrapping of the wear and tear allowance, and the phasing out of landlords’ mortgage interest tax relief, are among the main issues taking their toll on landlords, according to fresh research undertaken by Upad.

The study by the online letting agent also found that a fifth of landlords saw levels of client demand as their primary concern.

Encouragingly, however, despite these concerns, 66% of landlords had no intention of cutting their portfolios in the coming two to five years

What was revealing though was that of those planning to continue in the buy-to-let market, an overwhelming majority felt that managing and mitigating void periods would be the factor most likely to keep them awake at night. 

Some 13% cited this as quite important, whilst 74% claimed it would be a very important consideration moving forward.

James Davis, founder of Upad.co, said: “It’s easy to assume that landlords are most troubled by the big issues of the day, those topics which the industry and media become all-consumed by. 

“Whilst these issues clearly do concern landlords, it is often the more mundane aspects of renting a property that have an impact on how a landlord chooses to manage his or her portfolio to reduce the stress-levels associated with doing so.

“We work closely with our landlords to ensure that we provide them with the tools to make the management of their property portfolio easier. 

“We can’t change the tax regime, but we can deliver market-leading technology that allows landlords to quickly identify the right tenant and successful let their property – we believe this research demonstrates just how vital this is.”

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