As we head into what we all hope will be a sensible exit from lockdown, it’s inevitable that the past few weeks immersed within the confines of our own homes will have changed the outlooks, priorities and material needs of many homeowners and renters. And it will be interesting to see how these factors could impact the property market.

There are also other factors to take into consideration. Will remote working change the way businesses run and provide greater flexibility for a larger proportion of the workforce, therefore influencing the way people do, or don’t, commute. Or maybe people will require another room to incorporate that new office and realise that their current space is not enough for their future needs.

Last month we sat on the cusp of a Budget and landlords everywhere were hoping for some respite after the raft of recent Government pressure in regard to taxes, policy and regulation. Little did I realise then just how fast our world would change over such a short space of time. Whilst the Government has maintained a focal point on the mortgage market, this is only one of many areas of concern for our nation. To re-cap, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that mortgage lenders will offer “at least” a three-month break from mortgage repayments for homeowners experiencing financial difficulties as a result of coronavirus. The Government then decided that residential buy-to-let (BTL) landlords are entitled to the same three-month mortgage repayment holiday as residential homeowners if they have tenants struggling to pay rent.

As I was just about to start writing this piece an email flashed up in the bottom righthand corner of my computer screen. It was from my bank and had the subject line ‘How are you preparing for the future, Mr Tan?’ This was followed by the line ‘Take action today for a better tomorrow’.

This was both a very pertinent question and a particularly strong call to action, especially after I had just read some snippets of an OMS report: “Living longer: changes in housing tenure over time”. The report examines changes in housing tenure between 1993 and 2017 and what those changes might mean for older people in the future.

The main points from this being:

• Almost three-quarters of people aged 65 years and over in England own their home outright.

No two landlords are the same. There are those who fall into the ‘accidental’ landlord bracket and at the other end of the scale we have professional landlords who have built a business around their property portfolios. Somewhere in between, we have people who have purchased additional property for short-term investment/refurb purposes, for their children to live in when at university, to talk about at dinner parties and/or as part of a pension pot. In short there are many reasons why people have become landlords over the years.