With Maidenhead youngsters not able to buy their own
property, my research would suggests the progressively important role the
private rented sector has been playing in housing people in need of a roof over
their head, especially at a time of increasing affordability problems for first
time buyers and growing difficulties faced by social housing providers (local
authorities and housing associations) in their ability to secure funding from
Westminster and then compete against the likes of the Shanly’s and Berkeley’s
of this world to buy highly priced building land.
Renting isn’t like it was in the 1960’s and 70’s, where
tenants couldn’t wait to leave their rack-rent landlords, charging sky-high
rents for properties with Second World War wood chip wallpaper, no central
heating and drafty windows. Since 1997 with the introduction of buy to let
mortgages and a new breed of Maidenhead landlord, the private rented sector in Maidenhead
has offered increasingly high quality accommodation for younger Maidenhead
households.
So whilst I knew in my own mind that the type and class of
tenant has improved over the last 20 years, I had nothing to back that up ...
until now. According to some detailed statistics from Durham University just
released, for the The Royal Borough Council Maidenhead and Windsor area, the
current situation regarding social status of tenants shows some very
interesting points. Using the well known Demographic ABC1 grade classifications
which refers to the social grade definitions (which describe, measure and
classify people of different social grade and income and earnings levels, for
market research, social commentary, lifestyle statistics, and statistical
research and analysis) this is what I found out.
Of the 14,236 tenants who live in a private rented property in
the The Royal Borough of Maidenhead and Windsor area, 39.54% (or 5,629) of
those tenants are classified in the AB category (AB Category being Higher and intermediate
managerial / administrative / professional occupations), compared to 37.59%
owner occupiers who own their property without a mortgage or 7.40% who rent
their property from the local authority. Fascinating don’t you think?
Looking at the C1’s (C1’s being the Supervisory, clerical
and junior managerial / administrative / professional occupations), of the
already mentioned 14,236 tenants in the area, an impressive 4,637 of them are
considered to be in the C1 category (or 32.57%). Again, when compared with the owner
occupiers who own their property without a mortgage, that figure stands at 32.97% and 21.11% who rent their property from the
local authority. So, if we use the conventional
measurements recorded by the white-collar “ABC1” i.e. middle class ….
This means 72.11% of tenants are considered middle class in Maidenhead
I could go through all of the social categories through to ‘E’,
but I don’t want to bore you with too many numbers. The fact is that private
tenants are moving up the social ladder and whilst back in the 1960’s and 70’s,
the private rented sector in Maidenhead (and the rest of the UK) has
customarily been viewed as a temporary tenure for 20 somethings before they
bought a property, the increase in renting in Maidenhead, which I have talked
about many times in the Maidenhead Property Blog may be a reflection of
increasing difficulty for this group in accessing other tenures, but may also
be a reflection that people nowadays choose to rent long term instead?
Maidenhead Landlords need to be aware that tenants now
demand more from their properties, the agent and their landlord and whilst
affordability for first-time buyers and tighter controls on lending may mean
that potential first-time buyers are in the private rented sector for longer,
they will still pay ‘top dollar’ rent for a ‘top dollar’ property.
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