There are 2.5m private landlords currently operating in the UK, collectively spending almost £880m on letting agent fees last year.
Research by Aldermore Bank that questioned 1,000 landlords found almost a third (31%) had used a letting agent in the last 12 months, spending an average of £1,135.
The research also shows the contribution that landlords make to local economies, spending on average £1,443 in the last 12 months on services such as plumbers, builders, letting agents and other local tradespeople.
Of the total amount paid to local service providers, landlords spent the most on letting agents, followed by £442m on general handy-workers and £396m on plumbers.
Landlords spent £375.4m on electricians, £377.3m on builders, and £243.2m on cleaners.
Damian Thompson, group managing director of retail finance at Aldermore, said: “Landlords are an integral part of local communities across the UK, providing investment and fulfilling the demand in the expanding private rented sector.
“Around every landlord is an ecosystem, in which they pay local tradespeople, like plumbers, builders, decorators, for jobs, and those companies in turn train up employees and pay their own local suppliers for services also.
“The contribution landlords make to local communities extends much wider than merely providing rental accommodation.
“Our findings show supporting local economies also brings benefits to landlords’ own businesses.
“Local workers bring a lot of value to landlords with respondents to our survey citing in particular the quality of work, cost effectiveness and the understanding of local areas as key benefits.”
Landlord expenditure on local services in the past 12 months
| Service | Percentage of landlords that used service in past 12 months | Average amount spent annually by landlords that used service | Total UK wide annual spend for service by landlords |
| Letting agent/ property management | 31% | £1,135.40 | £879.9m |
| Handy-worker | 40% | £442.40 | £442.4m |
| Plumbers | 51% | £310.70 | £396.1m |
| Electricians | 47% | £319.50 | £375.4m |
| Cleaners | 19% | £512.10 | £243.2m |
| Builders | 26% | £580.50 | £377.3m |
| Roofers | 16% | £537.60 | £215.0m |
| Gardeners | 12% | £476.50 | £143.0m |
| Carpenters | 18% | £481.80 | £216.8m |
| Architects | 4% | £764.10 | £76.4m |
| Structural Engineers | 4% | £877.20 | £87.7m |
| Interior designers | 5% | £1,020.00 | £127.5m |
| Other | 3% | £494.90 | £37.1m |
At last, a report that doesn’t demonise landlords! It doesn’t however, recognise our further contribution to shops in buying materials, furnishings and fittings, showing that we add even more value to the economy!
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Whilst I agree whole heartly with you we landlords are also a massive contributor to taxation income for the Government. But all these things are used for manipulation. Take the BBC Panorama program last night, the British (landlord) Bashing Corporation focused on emergency housing again attacking a landlord on providing emergency accommodation – did it focus and how scummy some of the tenants were?, did it focus on the fact this accommodation is used by councils (those who proudly want to license us landlords by demonstrataing they have no morals by pushing people into this type of accommodation and often moving these poor souls well out of borough)?, Did it focus on the fact it was keeping many unfortunates off the street and putting a roof over their heads? Of course the biggest manipulator of all time SHELTER just referred to the so called gross income of a company providing this type of accommodation with no reference to expenditure (the company referred to 2% profit). Did it explain the fact Shelter do not provide accommodation to anyone and only shout about it and attack those people who do provide a roof over people’s heads? Did it focus that the level of expenditure and capital investment taken to convert the building ? Did it focus on the employment generated in running their business? We live in a world where manipulation rules and journalists and those expert at manipulation, like Shelter, use their views to assignate anyone less expert in the art of manipulation. After all journalism never focuses on the good new story does it. It is called politics!
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