The motivations and attitudes to letting of private landlords in Scotland

There has been a resurgence of interest in the residential lettings market in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, yet until very recently little detailed knowledge was available about private landlords. Policy debates on private renting commonly employ stereotypical images about the nature of private landlordism that are not grounded in empirical research. This paper presents findings from the first national survey of private landlords in Scotland, giving special attention to their motivations for letting and their attitudes towards it. It was found that the owners of residential lettings are a diverse collection of households and firms, not all of whom would regard themselves as 'landlords'. Letting residential property is a largely small scale and part-time activity and there is little involvement by the financial institutions in this sector. Less than half of all landlords regard themselves as property investors but most hold fairly positive views about letting residential accommodation. A substantial minority of landlords are apparently unaware of the major changes that have taken place in the residential lettings market in Scotland since 1988 and are relatively ignorant about the law of landlord and tenant. There are some important differences between landlords in urban as compared with rural Scotland.