Mar

CLAIM: Evictions ban ‘restricting supply’ as tenants opt to stay put

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A leading estate agency has said what most landlords have suspected for some time now, namely that the government’s long-standing evictions ban is beginning to significantly restrict supply within the private rental sector.

The comments have been made by one of Cornwall’s largest estate agencies, 12-branch firm Millerson.

One of its senior director, Jeremy Miller, whose family have run the firm for over three generations, says demand is significantly outstripping supply on his patch with 70 applicants per rental property at the moment.

Miller has told local media that he pins this imbalance on two key reasons – the evictions ban and a wave of city folk escaping London and Bristol for a more bucolic lifestyle during Covid.

He says tenants who might otherwise move home and free up stock are staying put, aware that during challenging economic times – particularly in an area of the UK like Cornwall – staying put gives them greater stability than moving home within the PRS.

“There is currently a colossal demand for rental properties and added to that is the fact there is not a lot of rental properties coming to the market,” Miller (pictured) told Cornwall Live.

“Part of that at the moment is that tenants know that they have protection from eviction.

“The rental market is very strong at the moment. One of my colleagues put a property in St Austell on the market to rent and by the time they’d returned to their desk they had 68 emails before the property came off the market again within hours.”

He also said the SW rental market faced a ‘perfect supply/demand storm’ driven by the evictions ban, high prices tempting landlords to sell up and increased demand from outsiders looking to escape from cities.

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