A recent look at trending data from England’s HMO market appears to show that it is shrinking. This is despite a widespread need for more affordable rental accommodation, where HMO rooms can make a valuable contribution. As always though, the devil is in the detail.
Looking simply at the number of properties classified as an HMO; in 2019/20, there were an estimated 510,776 such properties across the whole rental market.
By 2020/21, this number had fallen by nearly 2% to a total of 501,993, and then fell again over the subsequent year. The latest figures show that with a further 2.4 % annual decline, there are now only 489,701 HMOs across England.
This means that, over two years, England’s HMO market has shrunk by over 21,000 properties. The issue with this data of course is that it doesn’t report the number of rooms available. It is possible that it shows a trend to larger HMOs, with smaller HMOs reverting back to residential owner occupied or with some being otherwise repurposed or perhaps extended. The number of rooms available may not have changed much or could possibly have increased over the period.
There are regional variations though which paint a more detailed picture.
The East Midlands has seen the largest reduction in HMO properties, levels down 26.1 per cent in one year. This is closely followed the North East; HMO stock has declined by 15.8 per cent. Certainly, in these two regions, it is unlikely that the overall number of rooms has not also declined.
However, some regions have seen increases in property numbers, with HMO stock levels climbing over the last year across the West Midlands (up 16.9 %), Yorkshire and the Humber (up 11.2%). In both of these regions it seems likely that this also equated to a net increase in rooms available. We will report again on this slightly confusing picture when more data – and particularly room data – becomes available.
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please email admin@thepropertylifeboat.co.uk
