With election fever starting to heat up, the majority of residential landlords believe that that a Conservative government would bring them the greatest benefit according to the latest Young Index survey of residential investment sentiment.

The survey found that 84 percent of respondents thought a Conservatives government would create the right conditions for the private rented sector to flourish, 13 percent of landlords expect a Labour government to do the same and 3 percent believe that the Liberal Democrats would be good news for landlords.

The Young Index survey also reported that buy to let landlords are treating their property investments as an increasingly long term investment and are cautiously optimistic about the future of the property market, especially in the capital.

They expect base rate to remain well below its long term average for at least the next 12 months. Almost all respondents (94 percent) expect the Bank of England base rate to be higher than the current all time low of 0.5 percent by the beginning of 2011. 10 percent of respondents believe that it will have risen to more than 2.0 percent by Q1 2011 (up from 6 percent who expected such a rise last quarter) but only 1 percent expect the base rate to have risen to in excess of three percent, still well below the long term average of 5.0 percent.

Landlords appear resigned to the fact that access to mortgage finance is unlikely to be unlocked quickly and remain concerned that access to appropriate finance will prevent them from purchasing additional property.
At the beginning of 2008, 65 percent of investors were investigating mortgage options as regularly as every three months.

That figure has plummeted to just 5 percent, with 43 percent now investigating mortgage options less frequently than annually.

Discussion regarding regulation of the property sector has come to the fore and it appears that landlords appear ready to embrace regulation. 93 percent believe that Estate Agencies should be regulated, 86 percent cite that individual estate agents should be subject to regulation and 68 percent agree that landlords themselves should be regulated.