From time to time during the long boom in house prices, I came across people who casually let slip that they owned not just the property they lived in, but one, two or three others they were letting out. Many had not intended to become landlords, it had just happened: an inherited property did not sell, so they converted it into flats; or, after getting together with a spouse, they decided to keep the other’s property, just in case.

These accidental landlords probably made up a significant proportion of the private-rental sector and they are on the rise again. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) noted in its second-quarter residential-lettings survey, published last week, that new instructions to let property were rising at the fastest pace in the survey’s history, with 43% more surveyors reporting a rise rather than a fall in such instructions, up from 30% the previous quarter.

There are frustrated sellers out there, and there are frustrated buyers, with 37% more surveyors reporting a rise in tenant lettings, up from 30% in the previous quarter. Interesting, too, that tenant demand is growing fastest for family homes rather than flats.

Rics expects that if the supply of rental property continues to increase at a rapid rate, it will put downward pressure on rents, which so far have been doing pretty well during the downturn.

Tenants will be in the equivalent of a buyers’ market. Cluttons says this is already happening in parts of London.

That may not matter too much to accidental landlords, most of whom have substantial equity in the homes they are letting out. Their main concern will be to keep the property ticking over until such time as they can sell, although, as I discovered during the long boom, inertia and the fact that some of them get a taste for it can mean many hang in there.

Meanwhile, the Council of Mortgage Lenders released figures for gross mortgage lending for July, showing a total of £24.8 billion, 5% up on June, but 27% down on July last year. Despite the big annual fall, it looks likely that gross mortgage lending will not be far below £300 billion this year. Strange as it might seem in the light of the credit crunch, that would be the third-biggest year on record, exceeded only by 2006 and 2007.

home.economics@sunday-times.co.uk

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