Celebrity landlords

Would you be prepared to pay a premium on your rent for the cache of renting a home from a celebrity? I certainly wouldn’t – but it seems I’m in the minority, as many tenants would be happy to happy to fork out a whopping 12.9 per cent extra to rent a home from Hollywood silver fox George Clooney – shame the same doesn’t go for Sir Alan Sugar…

Now, it’ll come as no surprise that the vast majority of (mostly female) tenants willing to pay that bit extra to rent from Clooney would be hoping he would turn up, stepladder in hand, tight T-shirt on, when anything needed fixing at the property.

I’m telling you ladies – a Hollywood A-lister (who once rented a house to the Beckhams) would not be doing his own mending, so you’ll likely never get a glimpse of the heartthrob you are paying a premium to be ‘close’ to.

The research, carried out by property services site Smartlandlord.co.uk, found that just one celebrity attracted tenants willing to pay a premium – Clooney – whilst most had the opposite effect.

Tenants were definitely less enthusiastic about renting from property magnate and Apprentice supremo Sir Alan Sugar, with most saying they would request a 5.1 per cent discount to rent from him.

The ‘celebrity’ (and I use that term very loosely in this case) that most tenants would ask for the biggest discount to rent from was Anthea Turner’s other half, Grant Bovey, who recently lost his property company to the credit crunch.

Despite the public’s fascination with footballers, tenants are the most unenthusiastic about footballers as landlords – on average they’d demand 10.46 per cent off the rent to live in a footballer’s property.

Wayne Rooney’s real estate investments in London and Florida are estimated to be worth £25 million.  But despite the scale of his investments, tenants said they’d need a 15.4 per cent discount to move in to a property he owned.

Men demanded a larger discount (17.5 per cent) than women (14.5 per cent) while teenagers said they’d want nearly a third off their rent (30.4 per cent) for living in a Rooney property.

Michael Owen proved to be the most popular footballer – women would demand only 4.8 per cent off their rent if Owen was their landlord.  Men were less enthusiastic about the Manchester United striker and would demand as much as 14.4 per cent of their rent if they found out that he was their landlord.

Keshav Thukaram, Managing Director of Smartlandlord.co.uk said, “Despite the so called culture of celebrity, tenants insist they’d demand a discount from most celebrity landlords.

“Having said that, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d turn down the opportunity to live in a property owned by George Clooney.  Just ask the Beckhams,” he added.

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-ENDS-

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