by Brianna Crandall — August 29, 2014—A new Web site was recently launched to give U.K. property owners the opportunity to compare insurance premiums before choosing a carrier. With the increasing rental costs in the U.K., landlords are said to be bringing in the highest annual return on buy-to-let investments in four years. As a result, many new buy-to-let landlords have emerged, and extant property owners have been increasing their portfolios across the board. This has led to an increase in demand for landlord insurance. The ExpertLandlordInsurance.co.uk site has opened up the possibility of further increasing profits by giving buy-to-let landlords an opportunity to get better prices on their landlord insurance.
According to an article released online by The Guardian, property rents in London continue to rise, having gone up a full 10% in the last year alone. The cost of rent has risen at such a pace that it has surpassed average earnings and now increases at double the rate of the average U.K. workers salary. The monthly cost of renting a home in the U.K. went up by an average of £10, reaching an average of £747 in June of this year — a year-on-year increase of 1.4%.
With the increases in rent and the fact that roughly nine million people in the U.K. are currently renting the property they live in, the buy-to-let investment sphere has reached a peak in profitability. Also reported by The Guardian, the average returns from buy-to-let property investment hit £19,475 in the last 12 months, which includes a rental income average of £8,158 and a capital gain of £11,317.
The article went on to state that “the average buy-to-let investor in England and Wales could expect to make a total annual return of 13.4% over the next 12 months. That is equivalent to £23,718 per property.” Furthermore, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) released statistics demonstrating that the number of buy-to-let mortgages has increased significantly, replacing remortgages at a rate of 21% per annum. These loans have risen a full 38% since May of 2013, a total of £1.1 billion in value.
