Buy-to-let landladies on the rise

CityLiving: More women are getting in on the property game says Edel Morgan

2006 has been declared the year of the landlady in the UK by Landlord Mortgages which has found that women bought just under a quarter of all buy-to-let properties since the beginning of the year. Naming a year after a group that bought just 24 per cent of investment properties is going overboard, but the figure is a 4 per cent increase on last year. It also only takes individual women buyers into account, failing to capture the true extent of female involvement in the residential property market given that almost 40 per cent of investors purchase and manage a portfolio as married couples.

The word "landlady" still carries all sorts of unflattering connotations. After conducting a straw poll on the matter, I've found that when people think "landlady" they think of an interfering old busybody in hair rollers. These days women investors are far removed from that stereotype. Hair nets and aprons are no longer de rigueur and, even if they wanted to, most landladies wouldn't have time to snoop on tenants.

Landlord Mortgages claims to be the UK's biggest buy-to-let broker and says its study of 20,000 investors found that female property investors paid more for property with an average price of €205,361 (£142,000) compared to €174,638 (£120,739) for men, which Landlord Mortgages deduces as "they preferred to purchase properties in rentable condition rather than undertake extensive renovations". Landladies, who took out 44,760 buy-to-let mortgages last year, were more cautious than their male counterparts, putting down a larger deposit and thereby reducing their monthly payments "realising that a larger deposit means smaller monthly payments and less stress".

On a regional basis, the south-east, London and the north-west have consistently had the highest number of landladies since 2004. However, the number of female property investors in London appears to be declining, possibly in reaction to its sky-high property prices.

With investment opportunities for both sexes dwindling in this country as a result of soaring property prices, it is hard to believe that Irish landladies will have substantially increased in number over the last year. Estate agent Rose Independent we may be but "cautious", "sensible" and "safe" are also words that keep cropping up in the same sentence as "women and property investment".

A few years ago a report by NCB stockbrokers - Women, the Economy and the Stockmarket - found that working women are likely to become a significant investor base in Ireland in the future. The report estimated that over 80 per cent of women will have primary responsibility for their household's finances at some point in their lives. It also found women are more prudent investors, opting for a broader spread of investments with a higher weighting in lower risk products than men.

Research on investment clubs in Ireland and Britain has also found that women make more money than men on the stockmarket and that investment clubs do better if they have a majority of female members. While women buy less shares than men, the reason they do better is they choose ones that are low risk. They also buy a greater variety of stocks and do more homework whereas men are more likely to plunge headlong into high-risk stocks.

We know that, as first-time buyers, single women are a force to be reckoned with. Last year a survey by IFG mortgages found that an increasing number of single women are going it alone when it comes to buying their first place. In the first six months of the year, 45 per cent of single first-time buyer applicants were female compared to 38 per cent in the same period of 2004. In relation to single mortgage applications, Galway had the highest number of female applicants at 53 per cent compared to Navan at 36 per cent.

They found that women are buying their first property younger than men, are doing their research before buying and are more single-minded in their pursuit of getting their own place. Young single men buying a property tend to view it is an investment, even though they may live in it for the rest of their lives whereas women tend to buy for security.

But lest you think that all women prefer to play the conservative card it appears there are still quite a few who are prepared to take a walk on the wild side. IFG Mortgages recently found that unmarried Dublin women under the age of 35 now make up 57 per cent of all single 100 per cent mortgage applicants. Elsewhere around the country, 37 per cent of applications for 100 per cent mortgages by single people were made by women. IFG says the number of women applying for mortgages is rising much faster than the number of men.

There are several routes to becoming a landlady. Inheritance is one, while often women who get married, meet a partner or decide they want a bigger place will hang on to their existing home as an investment.

But is there a danger that landladies are more likely to be viewed as soft touches by their tenants? "Far from it," says one management agent. "While the advantage to their tenants is that they may have a better eye for detail than a man and might present a better looking property, in my experience they tend not to suffer fools gladly. If tenants breach any of their obligations, it's often a case of shape up or ship out."