In 2019, the private rented sector accounted for just over four and a half million households or 19.9% of UK households, no change from the year before. Interesting, when compared to the proportion of private rented households in the 1980’s and 1990’s, when the proportion of private rented households was stable at around 9.5% to 10.8%.

Most of that growth in the private rented sector came in three main spurts. The first growth spurt was between 1999 and 2003 and that was caused when property values were increasing at 20% per annum, the second came from the migration of 1.69m people from the EU8 countries after 2004 and the final growth spurt came about because of the property crash of 2008/9. When I look at the local stats…

8.2% of Medway properties in 1991 were privately rented,

whilst the most recent stats stand at 17.8%

Apart from social housing, the other pillar of home tenure is owner occupation. Owner occupation is made up of two separate groups: outright owners and those who own their home yet are buying the property with a mortgage.

In 1991, 22.6% of Medway households owned their property outright and 55.4% of Medway households were buying with a mortgage, whilst current stats show 28.2% of Medway households are outright owners and only 38.8% are buying their Medway home with a mortgage

Looking at these numbers, two things are clear-

The increase in the proportion and number of Medway outright owners is at least somewhat caused by Medway’s baby-boomer population retiring, being able to pay off their mortgages and thus going into outright homeownership.

Overall homeownership is down. These figures will be of no surprise to many readers with heightened barriers to home ownership, as saving for the deposit became the prevailing hurdle to getting on the housing ladder together with a substantial increase in the amount of private rented accommodation, provided by an ostensibly ever-growing cohort of buy to let investors.

One place for more information is my Medway Property Market blog. If you are a landlord or thinking of becoming one for the first time, and you want to read more articles like this about the Medway property market together with regular postings on what I consider the best buy to let deals in Medway, then it is well worth reading. You can also email me at spencer@docksidekent.com

If you are in the area feel free to pop into the office which is based at Station Road, Strood, Kent, ME2 4WQ

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