In Wales, some 44% of tenants would prefer to commute for less than half an hour, while in the North East, the proportion is 37%. But in London the majority of tenants, 43%, are happy to travel for between 45 minutes and an hour to the office each day.
The survey by YouGov for real estate firm Knight Frank also shows that the majority of tenants outside London commute by car, while in the capital 52% use the London underground for part or all of their journey.
Two fifths of respondents said that the ability to store their bike in their rental property was important to them, although this rises to 46% of those aged 35 to 44 across the country.
A third of respondents said they would be willing to pay extra in rent to keep a pet in their property as sometimes landlords charge more to cover the cost of the extra refurbishment needed after a tenant who has had a cat or dog vacates the property. Indeed, 4% of those in the private rented sector already pay extra to have their pet live with them, and this rises to 7% for those aged over 55.
The results of the Tenant Survey also show that, for the majority of respondents, their ideal length of tenure is up to one year, and this is particularly true of younger tenants, highlighting a preference for increased flexibility in the sector.
breakdown of the figures shows that 69%) of tenants aged between 18 and 24 said they would prefer a tenancy agreement of up to a year, with 61% of 25 to 34 year olds saying the same. Respondents said that their preferred timeframe for a break clause, which would allow tenant or landlord to end the lease early, is six months.
Some 38% of tenants have lived in five or more rental properties. While the majority of respondents had moved within a mile of their previous property, 19% had moved more than 60 miles, indicating a relocation for work or study, highlighting the flexibility of the private rented sector a tenure.
The survey also found that 24% of Londoners are prepared to pay 50% as a maximum amount of their gross annual income on rent, up from 22% last year.
A quarter of tenants do not want to, or don’t know if they want to buy a home in the future. Of those that express a desire to eventually buy a home using a mortgage, less than half are currently saving towards a deposit.
The research found that a quarter of those living in the private rented sector live alone, while 34% live as a couple without children. Some 43% of 18 to 24 years olds share with other adults in a flat share type of arrangement.
The private rented sector is continuing to grow in size, with around 5.4 million, or 20% of households now being let out to private tenants and there has been a generational shift in the private rented sector. More households are now living in rented accommodation for longer, and while housing affordability is certainly a factor here, rented accommodation is also becoming an established flexible form of tenure, an attribute welcomed especially among younger workers.
In terms of supply, the report explains that the private rented sector is largely made up of private landlords, many of whom have one or two properties. This direct investment in property was driven by the rise in the availability of buy to let mortgage loans in the late 1990s.
However, the report points out that new regulations on mortgage interest relief for buy to let investors from 2017 could lead to a modest slowing in growth in this market. ‘However, this will likely be overshadowed by the rapid expansion of large scale investment in the sector, with institutional investors such as pension and investment funds increasingly looking to purchase and hold purpose built rental accommodation over the longer term, bringing the UK in line with markets such as the US and Denmark where residential rented accommodation is a specific asset class,’ the report explains.
Overall investment in the Build to Rent market is set to more than treble in the next five years. Knight Frank estimates that the sector will be worth £50 billion by 2020, accounting for 5% of the total private rented sector market by value, up from 2% currently.
A survey of investors indicates that major investors looking at the sector are working hard to provide fit for purpose rental accommodation which they intend to hold and run for a long period of time with 71% of investors intending to hold for more than 10 years.
‘We can identify that the major risk to the emergence of high quality bespoke and long term rental accommodation is government legislation. This manifests itself through the 61% of investors who would no longer invest in Scotland, 62% of these as a direct result of the Private Tenancies Bill being proposed by the SNP,’ the report says.
