42.4% of Solihull tenants in the private rented sector are on Housing Benefit

“What does the ideal Solihull tenant look like?”, asked one of my landlords from Copt Heath the other day, to which he carried on before I could reply, “Let me guess, a professional couple, both in their 30’s, flawlessly tidy, pays their rent early, doesn't complain or fuss, who has no plans to move and cheerfully accepts annual rent rises”.

Before I can answer that question properly, I have always believed all a landlord wants (and expects) of their tenants is to pay their rent on time and look after the property as if it were their own. In return, the landlord provides a property that is warm, clean, damp free and comfortable whilst also rectifying any issues with the property (such as repairs) quickly and without fuss. 

Back to the tenants, who I have found tend to fall into several groups... 20 something professionals; young and middle aged families; corporate tenants (i.e. an employer finds their employee a house to live in); students; older singles/couples and lastly housing benefit claimants. Whichever category they fall into, they all come with different needs and wants. So, choosing who best suits your Solihull property and avoiding problem tenants is a big factor in making property investment a successful venture.

Bearing these groups in mind, one topic that I am often asked is should a landlord accept tenants on housing benefit?

It might interest the landlords of Solihull that of the 7,795 private rented properties in the local council area, 42.4% of the tenants of those properties are on some form of housing benefit, according to the Office for National Statistics.

(3,310 properties to be exact). I do know of several landlords who have suffered late rent payments with tenants on benefit, especially since 2008, when local authorities started paying housing benefit to the tenants rather than directly to the landlords. However you cannot ignore the fact that housing benefit tenants make up a significant proportion of the Solihull rental population. My professional opinion is that the final decision of accepting such tenants lies solely with the landlord but it must be remembered that you cannot tar every tenant with the same brush and to approach each decision independently (I will always give you a balanced opinion if you should ever seek it).

Interestingly, it might surprise some readers of the Solihull Property blog, when we compare Solihull to the national picture, Solihull’s housing benefit claimants are higher proportionally to the national average of private tenants claim housing benefit. Nationally, 39.2% of the tenants of the 3,891,467 rental properties in Great Britain claim some form of housing benefit (specifically 1,526,915 properties).

Now, let us look at the occupations of Solihull tenants, which makes for even more fascinating reading. Of the 7,795 privately rented properties in the Solihull area, 5,918 head tenants (the head tenant being classified as the head of the household) are in employment (the other 1,877 rental property head tenants either being retired, long term sick, students or job seekers).
Splitting those 5,918 head tenants down into their relevant professions, 3,021 of them are managers, directors, senior officials, professional or technical professions, 567 in administrative and secretarial occupations, 572 in skilled trades, 546 in the caring, leisure and other service occupations, 376 sales and customer service occupations, 372 process, plant and machine operatives and finally, 464 in elementary occupations.

The one anecdote I have always known, but until I did my research, never had anything to back it up with, was the high proportion of professionals and skilled tradespeople renting property in Solihull! Maybe in future articles, I will look deeper into the corporate tenant market, young and middle aged families, students and older persons rental markets.... but in the meantime, if you want more news, views and commentary about the Solihull property market, there are many similar articles like this on the Solihull Property Blog http://solihullpropertyblog.blogspot.co.uk/.