The buy-to-leave myth

Claims that buy-to-let investors are worsening Britain’s housing crisis by deliberately keeping properties empty, are false.

Following Government promises to investigate the alleged problem, Britain’s biggest buy-to-let company, Instant Access Properties Ltd, surveyed 500 of its members to find out whether the allegations were true.

Of the 484 members who responded, just 15 (3.1%) said they were deliberately keeping any units in their portfolio empty to benefit from capital growth only. The overwhelming majority of 469 (96.9%) said their properties were either tenanted or were being actively marketed to let.

The decision to poll members was taken following Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper’s decision in April to investigate claims of buy-to-leave and subsequent coverage of the issue in the media.

Yvette Cooper, said: “I am concerned about buy-to-leave rather than buy-to-let. There is a problem if investors are buying up lots of property on a speculative basis and are not renting them out. We want local councils to take strong action and put more pressure on landlords who are leaving property empty for a long time.

“If they are deliberately leaving them empty that is not fair for all the young families and young couples looking for affordable homes.”

Pierre Williams, Head of Communications for Instant Access Properties Ltd, said: “We have been increasingly aware of mounting criticism of so-called ‘greedy’ buy-to-let investors. Although it must be tempting for social housing groups to try and find scapegoats for Britain’s housing crisis, these accusations do nothing to help solve the problem.

“We applaud the government’s acceptance that the problem is a fundamental lack of housing supply and its aim for the construction of three million new homes by 2020. Nevertheless, it would be helpful if all their efforts could be focused on achieving this ambitious target rather than chasing the red herring of ‘buy-to-leave’.

“Although to our knowledge this is the first study to discover the truth behind the claims of buy-to-leave, we never doubted the results. It simply makes no sense for investors to leave properties empty. Even in the rare cases where investors can afford to keep units empty, there is no incentive to do so as it simply equates to throwing money away. Buy-to-let has proved popular and successful because of both capital growth and rental income.”