RLA News Service

Landlords in Britain’s capital are evicting tenants so they can cash in on this summer’s Olympic Games by charging tourists many times the usual rent.

Homes in the east London boroughs where many events are to be held are fetching between five and 15 times their typical rates as properties are rebranded as short-term “Olympic lets.” Some landlords are also enforcing expensive “penalty” clauses for tenants who want to remain during the gathering of the world’s top athletes.

The accommodation crunch is expected to be so severe that some residents are planning to rent out their backyards to campers during the Games – which begin July 27.
“We’re [seeing] landlords beginning to evict their tenants,” Antonia Bance, head of campaigns for housing charity Shelter, told msnbc.com. “Lots of letting agents are writing clauses into contracts being signed saying you can live here with the exception of this period [during the Olympics].”

helter’s Bance described the case of a couple in the Newham area who will be renting out the three-bedroom house they own in a former public housing project for 15,000 pounds ($23,600) for three weeks. The average rental price of a three-bedroom property in the borough is 1,189 pounds ($1,870) per month.
In the Dalston neighborhood, one-bedroom apartments that normally fetch around 300 pounds ($475) per week are now being advertised at 1,625 pounds ($2,575) per week.
And in Kentish Town, which is a 25-minute train journey from the new Olympic Stadium, a five-bedroom home is being advertised at 10,000 pounds ($15,845) per week during the Games.
It is difficult to know how many Londoners will be priced out of the city as landlords woo Olympic visitors, but interviews with property experts, real estate agents, tenants, prospective landlords and tourism-industry specialists suggest it will not be an isolated problem.

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