Member Article

Buy-to-let investors will be encouraged by green policy roll back, says My Property Box boss

Ben Quaintrell, the founder and managing director of estate agency group My Property Box, which operates across the North East and North Yorkshire, has welcomed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to scrap the introduction of mandatory energy efficiency upgrades involving all new rental properties.

He said that this, together with the delay in replacing gas boilers with more expensive heat pumps, would encourage more buy-to-let investors to return to the market.

“Demand has long outstripped supply in the rental market and there have been reports that some landlords have quit the sector because of the uncertainty and the huge costs involved in reducing the carbon emissions of rental properties.

“While improving energy efficiency of a home is important, it would have required many thousands of pounds of investment within a short timeframe.

“For many landlords in the North East it was an almost impossible demand, as much of our housing stock is pre-1960s and requires extensive upgrades. For example, many terraced houses were built with walls one brick deep while others don’t have the necessary minimum gaps for cavity wall insulation.

“To try and achieve an EPC rating of C for many would have been unachievable. Likewise, landlords were also facing huge costs in being forced to upgrade from gas boilers to heat pumps.”

Under the new rules, property owners, including landlords, will only be required to replace gas boilers with heat pumps once they have worn out and then not until 2035.

The government is also increasing its existing boiler upgrade scheme by 50% to £7,500.

Ben added: “I think these measures will give landlords more time to fund improvements over a more realistic time frame. The measures previously created a great deal of negativity and hopefully this reassurance will encourage more investors to return to the buy-to-let market and help fulfil the demand for rental properties.

“In addition, many landlords would have had no other choice but to pass on the cost of such measures to tenants in the form of rent increases, just at a time that many are least able to afford it, so this policy change is definitely good news for landlords and tenants alike.”

Following the decision by the Bank of England to hold interest rates at 5.25% , he added: “This is great news for the property market and, on the back of a fall in inflation rates, I hope this signals a return to normality for the economy. It too will act as further encouragement to those who have been holding off investing in the property market.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by News Gathering .