The rented property market and the Rent Restrictions Acts

Lettings, rent collection and property management were always very important to the general estate agency activities of the business from its foundation in 1901, but, from 1972, property management was developed as a specialist department. Peacocks’ first advertisement of a property to let appeared in The Bedfordshire Times and Independent on 20 September 1901, when 15 Whitbread Avenue, Bedford, was offered to let at a rent of one pound per month.

In the period before the First World War it was more common to rent than purchase, especially for the working class but also for many middle class people too. Wages were low and jobs insecure, and very few working class people could contemplate a purchase. Many properties were bought for investment purposes and there was virtually no difference between the value of a property with vacant possession or when let. Indeed, some properties would be more likely to attract a buyer if already satisfactorily let. It was a free market with no rent control or security of tenure, and a tenancy could be ended by a landlord simply by serving a notice to quit. A landlord could distrain on a tenant's goods to recover arrears of rent.

In Bedford, following the building booms of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, there was a surplus of larger houses in the Poets Corner and Saints areas that attracted interest from families drawn to Bedford by the Harpur Trust schools. A landlord would happily redecorate a house throughout if a tenant could be found for a three-year term at a rent of fifty to sixty pounds a year. A number of country houses were also available.

The First World War brought much change. The arrival of the 51st Highland Division in Bedford created a huge demand for accommodation. In addition to billeting soldiers with families, empty houses were requisitioned by the military authorities and owners were paid on the basis of ‘per head, per night’ for those accommodated. Many of the soldiers were unaccustomed to flushing toilets and running water from indoor taps in the bathrooms they found in Bedford. A number of the properties suffered badly from damage during the military occupation, but owners were compensated for dilapidations when properties were derequisitioned after the war. During the war rented housing became difficult to obtain and rents were raised.