Landlords in Scarborough are moving away from the PRS and into holiday lets after becoming fed up with shouldering rent arrears, bad tenants and detrimental government policies.
Just like in many parts of the West Country where many landlords evicted tenants to capitalise on the staycation boom, the Yorkshire seaside town is now suffering from a renting crisis, reports Yorkshire Live.
As demand for holiday lets and Airbnbs has surged, one local letting agent explains that she has lost 10-15 properties in the past few months from landlords realising they could make more money and suffer less stress.
She says there are now not enough properties on the letting market. “Landlords have had enough,” says Mary. “The way they have been treated by the government, especially during Covid, has made a lot of them sell up.”
The agent says shouldering the burden of rent arrears during the pandemic and growing numbers of rental properties being left ruined by bad tenants has been the final straw.
Mary tells Yorkshire Live: “As much as they get the mortgage paid for at the end of tenancy, they are having to spend a lot of money to get properties ready and back into a state where they are able to let them.
Crazy demands
“We get the craziest demands from tenants who feel because they are paying the rent, that means that the landlord is getting the rent as an income, but it’s not, it’s paying the mortgage and paying the insurances.”
Last October, LandlordZONE reported that Devon had seen a staggering 70% drop in private rented properties in two years as landlords swapped to short term holiday rentals.
It prompted Tory MPs in the South West to declare war on landlords in holiday resorts who were kicking out tenants to convert their properties into Airbnbs after complaining that locals were left homeless by soaring property prices.
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