There is a gender gap among residential landlords in the UK with women’s income from property investment lower than that of their male counterparts, according to new research.
The average rental income for male landlords is £24,050 a year compared to an average of £22,550 for women, the data from property investment firm Knight Knox’s annual survey of landlords shows.
Compared to the results of last year’s survey, the income gap between male and female landlords has increased from 1% to 6% and the survey report points out that the figures echo Britain’s current gender pay gap among full time workers which stands at 9.1%.
‘Inequality and gender pay gaps have been a huge topic across the media over the past year and these figures seem to signal that similar issues may have made their way into the investment and buy to let market,’ said Andy Phillips, commercial director at Knight Knox.
‘That being said, the income does seem to be aligned with experience. Male landlords have almost two years more experience on average, and this is likely to have some impact on the returns generated by renting out property,’ he pointed out.
They survey also revealed that renting out property is the main source of income for 31% of female landlords, whereas just 17% of men rely primarily on their property investment and overall women were underrepresented in the results, with the gender breakdown showing 40% female participation.
‘Property investment is clearly a male dominated market and there is potentially more to be done to attract female investors to level out the playing field,’ said Phillips, who added that recent research by YouGov showed that women take less risk and are more focused on avoiding losses than generating gain from investments.
‘Women will dig deeper to understand the market before diving into the unknown, so accurate and jargon free advice tends to be more important than when dealing with male investors,’ he concluded.
