A front page headline in the March/April edition of Residential Property Investor magazine proclaims “A booming market – more family tenants as private sector overtakes social renting”.

Firstly, it reports an English Housing Survey covering 2011/2012 which states what we already know, that more families have deserted owner occupation in favour of the private rented sector. Then according to a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) survey, titled “Who lives in the Private Rented Sector” 20% of households are forecast to live in the private rented sector by 2020, up from the present 14%. However, social housing has become a casualty of government cutbacks and for the first time, according to the English Housing Survey, the numbers in private rented accommodation (3.84m households) exceeded those in social housing (3.8m households) in 2012.

It is certainly borne out in my experience that family accommodation is easy to let. I let a 2-bedroom family house last week, before I even reached the stage of giving it to the letting agents I work with, to market. Our properties have had stable tenancies with no house moves over about the past 18 months (previously there would have been one or two per year). This appears to be the recent trend.