15 Aug 2013

L&G To Become Landlords

Insights, Property, Publications

Legal & General has told the BBC it intends to become a large-scale landlord.

L&G head Nigel Wilson said that while house price rises may be welcome news in some quarters, for many young people they exacerbated their problems.

“Instead of applauding ourselves when house prices go up, we should try to develop a system where house prices don’t go up for the next few years and we increase the supply – instead of 120,000 house a year, up to 250,000 a year, a sizeable portion of which should be rented,” he added.

Mr Wilson also commented that planning in the UK is probably as difficult as it gets anywhere in the world.

Source: BBC News

We say: Sentiments with which I entirely agree: but can’t help thinking that L&G announcing that it’s piling into the market in order to become a “large-scale landlord” isn’t exactly going to cause pressure on house prices to relax. Now, if they’d said they intended to commission the construction of 250,000 houses for rent over the next X years, that would be a different matter.