With the General Election just one week away, a new poll shows the top landlord priorities when it comes to voting and politics.

Almost two thirds of landlords (62%) have decided who they’re voting for already, with one third (31%) still undecided. 

However it seems that even the 62% of decisive voters aren’t feeling optimistic about what they’re voting for. When asked which party has the best approach to housing policy, 30% said none of them, followed by 27% who were unsure. 

20% said the Conservative housing policy was the best, followed by 10% in favour of Labour and Reform just behind on 9%. 7% of landlords even said they wouldn’t be voting in this election.

Some 84% said they’d be influenced by policies outlined in the private renting sector, and 83% said they’d be inclined to vote for a party that reinstated tax relief for landlords.

The housing crisis (61%) came third in a list of key issues to be addressed by the government, with landlords putting the NHS (70%) and Cost of Living Crisis (64%) ahead of housing.

When it comes to the priority actions landlords want to see the new government implement, top of the list was ‘reinstate tax reliefs for private landlords’ (73%), followed by ‘get rid of 3% stamp duty for second homes if they are rental properties’ (65%) and ‘retain Section 21’ (63%).

Meanwhile, a separate poll asked renters what they considered most important in a flatmate, and it turns out that partying comes ahead of politics when it comes to flatmate-hunting. ‘Similar political views’ came fourteenth in the list of priorities with just 9% of people citing this as an important characteristic – falling well behind the likes of having a ‘similar attitude to having a house party/quiet house’ (57%) and similar standards of cleanliness (78%).

The surveys were conducted by flatshare website SpareRoom and a spokesperson says: “Based on the data it seems that only around 30% of landlords are confident in their vote next week. Whilst more than twice as many have already decided which party to vote for, the stats indicate a discrepancy between landlords knowing who they’re going to vote for, and landlords believing in the housing policies of the party they’ll be voting for. Either way, the General Election is prime time for both landlords and renters to have their say and drive for change.”

The studies were conducted amongst 768 live-out landlords and 3,234 renters.