Estate agents are gaining some respite from the stagnating property market by putting empty homes on the rental website Airbnb while they await a sale.
Hunters, one of the largest independent estate agents, has begun renting out homes on behalf of its clients to “unlock extra value”.
After a trial in Manchester, Hunters is to extend the initiative to other cities. It is working with Lavanda, a short-term rental co-ordinator that uses Airbnb and is backed by Kenny Bruce, the co-founder of the estate agent Purplebricks; Sir Terry Leahy, the former chief executive of Tesco; and Harry Hill, founder of the website Rightmove.
Guy Westlake, chief executive and co-founder of Lavanda, said that the recent slow sales market had led to swathes of prime property sitting empty, which was bad for the “reputation” of agents. He said he hoped that renting out empty homes would be fruitful in London, where more properties were vacant and the rate of house sales had dropped 22 per cent.
Housing experts forecast that the slowdown will continue as the uncertainty over Brexit and the changes to stamp duty on second homes continue to take their toll. According to the Office for National Statistics, the rate of growth in house prices has been slowing since the middle of 2016.
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Britain already has more than four times as many Airbnb rental locations as hotels with 168,000, which have accommodated almost six million visitors in the past 12 months — an 81 per cent rise on the previous year.