Greedy landlords disappointed by Olympic rentals

Greedy landlords who ejected tenants in order to gather up fat rents from Olympic visitors are being left bitterly disappointed. Estate agents say only a tiny proportion of homes offered for rent have been taken.

Just nine days before the opening ceremony, one dedicated website was listing more than 4,200 rooms still available in the capital. Landlords now face substantial void periods and the spectre of rent falls as a glut of unwanted Olympic rentals are returned to the market.

“It has been a total waste of time,” says Guy Watson, managing director of Champions estate agents in Chelsea. “We have let a total of one house — to a South American Olympic committee.”

Nick Verdi, manager of Keatons estate agents in Stratford, said 400 would-be Olympic landlords offered their property for rent through the company but only two dozen were successful.

And while rents were high — about £2,000 a week for a two-bedroom flat normally worth £1,500 a month — Verdi pointed out that once tax, agents’ commission and expenses were taken into account, the profits were small. James Hyman, a partner at Cluttons, said: “The problem is that no one with serious money would want to be remotely close to the Olympic village.”

The only good news for the greedy is that late summer is a traditionally busy period in London’s lettings market as a new crop of graduates arrives in the capital and the corporate letting market swings into action. Landlords are likely to be able to find themselves new tenants in the autumn.

But Mason Brooks, lettings director at Hurford Salvi Carr, believes areas where large numbers of properties have been rented by journalists - particularly Limehouse, Canary Wharf and Tower Bridge as well as Stratford itself - may suffer short term price falls of up to 15 per cent when it's all over.

Nicky Upton of Strutt and Parker, in Chelsea, says: “Prices were so inflated it saturated the short let market and, if anything, put people off. From our selection of short let properties, not one has been let for this period.”