Landlord Expert - Free UK landlord Information, Advice & Support: Property Investor Show London a wash out

Property Investor Show London a wash out
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landlord on 26/10/2009 08:58:00
 
Myself and a colleague visited the Property Investor Show on Friday. It was
billed as the biggest landlord and buy to let show in the UK and after seeing
the turn out for ourselves it has to be said, if this was the biggest I'd hate
to see one of the small shows.
There were around 130 exibitors - down from the usual 250-350. The aisles were
predominently empty. A stark contrast on last years show when the whole event
seemed to have a nice buzz. There were certainly plenty of people walking around
inside and outside the venue.
However, the main shock of all was that almost every company was selling
overseas property. Traditionally this show has targetted landlords and investors
in the UK, whom generally like to expand on their UK interests as opposed to
forgeign alternatives. Dissapointing then to see a show which focuses it's
promotional campaign on attracting UK landlords to be populated by Brazilian
condo investment companies and the like.
Okay, I understand that the show was partnered with OPP (Overseas Property
Professional) but I can't help but feel that landlords arriving at the event
would have had the same feelings as me. The clear lack of interest from landlord
and UK property firms was bolstered by masses of overseas property agents. The
Property Investor Show? I would say a more accurate title would be The Overseas
Property Investment Exhibition.
But why such a wash-out? Well, 'new-business' is hard to come by if you operate
in the landlord and investment markets and hard to get financing for if you are
a landlord or investor. Diversifying portfolios is just not that easy anymore -
in fact, it's darn right hard.
Visitors numbers to our site (LandlordExpert.co.uk) have been consistent over
the past 12 months. We have even experienced an increase in activity over the
past 8 weeks. Landlords and investors are still very active, but are more
interested in improving their current situation rather than adding to it with
more property - whether overseas, or not.
As one exibitor said to me at the show when I asked him why it was so quiet -
"there just isn't a real need to be in attendance at a show like this anymore.
More people source their information online and it's cheaper and saves time". It
certainly offers one explaination.
Dean Evans - for the TLA weekly Blog
If LandlordExpert.co.uk was to be compared with an exhibition, we would have
more than 1 million visitors over the course of the year, every exhibitor would
be seen by every visitor and nobody would have to move from the comfort of their
home or office ;-)