Landlord Confidence Recovers by A Fifth In The Wake Of Covid – Foundation And BDRC Data Q2 2020

Research from Foundation via BVA-BDRC shows an increase in confidence from 2020 Q1’s previous all-time low.

A survey of more than 1300 landlords revealed that landlord ‘confidence in their own business’ has increased by up to +18 in just one quarter – and this was prior to the announcement about reduced stamp duty.

Year-on-year, confidence is up for Rental Yield prospects, the UK Private Rental Sector and landlords’ Own Lettings Business. However, landlords’ area of concern is the UK Financial Market: only 7% feel ‘good’ or ‘very good’ about prospects in the next 3 months.

The percentage of landlords who would rate their own business expectations for the imminent 3 months as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ now stands at 37%, up from 19% in Q1.

Landlord confidence in their own business had risen to 31% in 2019, only for it to take a dramatic drop to 19% as the UK went into Covid lockdown.

However, in a promising upturn, the landlords now report that they anticipate the impact of Covid to be less severe than originally thought. 7 in 10 of them now believe that their lettings business will be negatively impacted by the pandemic, down from 8 in 10 in Q1. Also only a fifth of landlords expect a ‘significant’ negative impact of the pandemic now, half as many as thought so in Q1.

Landlords in the North West & Yorkshire & Humber particularly are most confident in their own business, where half of landlords rated their business expectations as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ compared to a quarter in some other areas.