Of those landlords who took part in the survey a third of landlords (36%) are looking to buy flats/maisonettes and a third (36%) expect to purchase terraced houses.
This has been a continuing trend for the past 12 months which could be attributed to the fact more families and diversified tenant types are now living in the PRS and these properties provide flexibility.
In terms of expectations for average portfolio size in the next 12 months landlords expect to have an average of 13.2 properties. Only 6% of landlords are planning to decrease the size of their investment portfolio in 2013.
The research also revealed that landlords are expecting tenant demand to remain high in 2013.
More than a third (41%) said they think tenant demand will increase over the next 12 months. Just 6% said they think demand will fall.
Commenting, John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages, said: “Buy-to-let remains a growth story in an otherwise moribund housing market.
“We can see that landlords have been building their portfolios in response to strong tenant demand but it is clear that more rental property is required to achieve a more balanced market.
“The recently published Census report for 2011 revealed that 15% of the population now rent from private landlords, increasing from 9% in 2001. This is only likely to increase in the future, so we need to see more investment in the sector.”
Driven by strong and sustained rental demand landlords continued to buy more property during the last quarter of the year, increasing their average portfolio to 12.7 properties compared to 12.5 properties in Q3 according to the Paragon survey data.
