The fallout from the war on landlords

The rental crisis: Investors fleeing the market and the rise in rents are affecting us all.

Estate agent showing a house to a couple interested in renting a home
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Our business is primarily about buying houses and flats – though we do have a busy rental search department in London. 

Why would the majority of our clients be interested in the rental market, in London but also anywhere in the country? To paraphrase Trotsky on the subject of war, you may not be interested in the rental market but the rental market is interested in you. Though you might own your own house, your children may be trying to find somewhere to live after leaving university. You might like the theatre, but where are the actors going to live? And the nurses in the hospital you might need to use? Or anyone without access to some capital, the starting point for any mortgage? As rents go up, disposable income falls – not good if you are a consumer-facing business. You may not need to stand in a queue of 30 people to rent a damp slum but, in one way or another, it affects you.

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Charlie Ellingworth has a history degree from Oxford. He has over 30 years' experience in the property business. He started his financial career with Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong, and is a co-founder of Property Vision, the market-leading property search company, which was sold to HSBC Private Bank and then bought back by the existing partnership. He is a director and trustee of the Cadogan Estate as well as other property-based entities. He has written two novels, Silent Night and A Bitter Harvest, which were published by Quartet, and has written articles for the Financial Times and various magazines. He is involved with helping refugees, and is a keen sailor and pilot of small planes and paragliders. He lives in Somerset and London and is married with three sons.