As pets remain popular among people living across the UK, Build-to-Rent (BTR) developers are increasingly offering pet friendly homes to potential tenants. With the Private Rental Sector (PRS) typically considered to less fond of pets, this finding in recent research that almost 50% of BTR openly welcome pets is sure to be good news for many tenants in the lettings sector.
While many tenants will welcome the news of BTR landlords' positive take on pets, it could also be viewed as a good development for PRS landlords. That's because, if there are more landlords in the UK's lettings industry who are happy to permit pets into their rental property, it could remove some of the pressure from non-pet friendly landlords to consider allowing furry family members into their property.
Pet Friendly BTR Landlords
While interest in pet friendly rental homes has been gaining in popularity, particularly once the strict lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic was revoked, more recent research by Manor Interiors shows that nearly half of BTR landlords in the UK are now advertising their lets as Pet Friendly.
The furniture provider’s data shows that some 47% of BTR developers have pet friendly listed among their features to attract new tenants. In fact, it’s the most common feature advertised by the landlords, followed by parking as a feature in 40% of developments and an on-sight concierge in 33%.
While the research doesn’t detail the proportion of PRS landlords who advertise their properties as pet friendly, based on details over the past 12-18 months, it’s likely a larger percentage of BTR landlords are openly pet friendly than PRS investors.
“It’s clear that the build to rent industry has listened to these renter frustrations and responded by ensuring that their developments cater to the evolving expectations and needs,” said Farhan Malik, CEO of Manor Interiors. “We see this in the fact that nearly half of build to rent developments are pet friendly, an increasingly common renter demand that private landlords have long refused to engage with.”
Positive Development for Tenants and PRS Landlords
There’s no doubt that demand for pet-friendly lets has risen in recent months and this news that more of the still developing BTR sector is happy to home tenants with pets is sure to be welcome news to many potential renters.
However, it’s also a development that many PRS landlords will likely be happy with too. Why? Because it takes the pressure off them to allow pets into their property when they don’t want to manage the additional costs of wear-and-tear associated with pets. Not to mention the possibility of complaints from other tenants due to the introduction of pets into an existing PRS rental facility.
Of course, it’s unlikely this development will stop Andrew Rosindell, Conservative MP for Romford from continuing his work towards encouraging more PRS landlords to permit pets in lets. But it does mean that even though he will likely meet with some success in time, those tenants who want or need to move in the meantime should have some options available to them.
