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Forty-something flatsharers drive 300% rise in North East renting

The number of North Easterner’s living in rented homes has almost trebled in ten years – thanks in part to an explosion in the number of 40-somethings living in shared rental accommodation.

Research by property group Knight Frank shows that one in six Brits - some 10m people - now live in homes rented from private landlords, twice the number of a decade ago.

The figures show that 13% of people in the North East live in rented homes, up from 5% ten years ago.

Flatshare website Spareroom.com this week reported that the number of over-forties renting properties through them has also more than doubled over the last five years.

The changes have been attributed to rising house prices, difficulty securing mortgages, relationship breakdowns and a shortage of homes – but Ajay Jagota of property firm KIS Lettings believes wider social and cultural changes may also be responsible.

The firm manages properties for 700 landlords from branches in Sunderland, South Shields, North Shields and Welwyn Garden City and was named Letting Agent of the Year at the national Landlord and Letting Awards 2013.

Ajay said: “Britain has got used to thinking of itself as a nation of home-owners but increasingly more and more people are not buying their own homes because they can’t, but because they simply don’t want to.

“There are other reasons for this huge rise in renting, however. The UK has an increasingly weightless workforce. People are a lot more mobile in terms of their careers than they used to be and more and more of them are renting somewhere to live for work during the week and return to their own home at weekends.

“Where relationships do break down and people need to move out of their family home, a lot of older renters do find themselves more comfortable living with flatmates as it can be a lot more like the family life they’ve become used to than living alone.

“All of this is very positive news for landlords – or people thinking about taking the plunge as property entrepreneurs.

“Not only are their more potential tenants looking for homes, many are more likely to treat your home as if it was their own, as they have owned their own homes in the past, or in many cases still do.”

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