American landlords are 10 times more likely to let to cat owners than British landlords

Around 7% of UK landlords allow pets while 78% of landlords in Dallas, Texas allow pets. I'm not making a straight comparison but it is one which works for me and is accurate enough. My research indicates that in the UK around 7-10% of landlords allow pets into their flats. To be clear, this means that a very low percentage of UK landlords allow cat owners and their pets to rent flats. And this is as at September 2023.

American landlords are 10 times more likely to let to cat owners than British landlords. Image: MikeB

Also, as at September 2023, I'm told in a Daily Mail article that around 78% and 77.2% of landlords in Dallas and Fort Worth Texas respectively have a tolerance for renting out their properties to people with pets. That figure is around 10 times better from the perspective of a cat and dog owner then the UK.

In fact, 80.8% of landlords in Austin, Texas, USA allow people with pets to rent their properties. It is a pet-friendly rental housing stock in America in comparison to the UK which is, on the face of it, the opposite with landlords very reluctant to rent to people with cats and dogs.

How do American landlords do it?

And it is pretty clear to me why landlords in America allow people with their pets to rent their properties. It's because the landlords charge them more in rental! The landlords are covering any added costs that might be incurred if the cat or dog damages their property. They cover this extra cost by putting up the rental. They found that renters with animals pay nearly $2000 more a year than those without animals.

It would seem to me that landlords in America are much smarter than landlords in the UK. They realised that there are a lot of people with pets who want to rent properties and they are prepared to pay $2000 per year extra for the property of their choice. They are paying a premium to rent with a pet but they are prepared to do it. The landlord therefore gets his way. He has $2000 extra in his pocket every year to cover any damage to his property. It's a kind of premium or insurance policy.

The fact of the matter is that American landlords have seen that there are many more people wishing to rent than there were before Covid-19 and there are many more cat and dog owners then there were before Covid-19. And therefore, they have tapped into this extra marketplace. The same sort of increase in cat and dog ownership has taken place in the UK. In short, there are far more cat and dog owners in both America and in the UK than in the past.

In the UK property prices have gone up as usual and mortgages are harder to obtain and when you get a mortgage, they're more expensive so there are more renters with cats and dogs finding it difficult to find a property to rent. Landlords in Britain should let them rent and put up the rental prices for cat and dog owners to make them pay a premium. They will pay it. In this way they will be opening up the marketplace and making more money.