"We all live in a Robbie Fowler House!"

PA 125/09 The recession will likely signal the end for many of Britain's smaller buy-to-let landlords, and poses a grim threat to city-centre new build properties, warn experts at The University of Nottingham. New research suggests that while the buy-to-let market will survive the recession, a "property neutron bomb" will see the disappearance of many smaller private landlords. Professor Andrew Leyshon and Dr Shaun French from the School of Geography compiled the report — We all live in a Robbie Fowler House: the buy to let market in retrospect and prospect — and recently presented their findings to the Financial Services Research Forum at Westminster Hall in London. The research suggests smaller landlords will be simply outmatched by more established players in the market who will be waiting to snap up properties at rock-bottom prices, in order to bolster their portfolios and property empires. Speaking about the draw to the buy to let market, Professor Leyshon said: "In one sense you can understand why this is quite a seductive way for people to try and make money, because of the historical British attachment to property, and the fact that up until 2003, this was almost a license to print money, given the rapid advance in property prices. "But since 2003 it's become a more problematic proposition, because interest rates began ticking up from then on. That had an impact on yields and the fact that people were buying in to an already inflated asset, so housing prices were expensive but also then interest rates were becoming more expensive as well." But according to Professor Leyshon the squeeze on access to capital is now the major problem for buy-to-let mortgage holders.