Should I increase the rent?

Well said, and let's not forget the likely doubling or tripling of the assets value over the next twenty years or so. Often with mjnimal expenditure.

Now look at those yields again as a long term jnvestment...hum not so bad 😁

The only idiots exposed to misery ,and really shouldnt be in business because they dont see it as a business,are those who've taken on too much debt .Unfortunately these are often the ones who inflate the market rate.

I think you're an absolute pushover.

That article doesn't list all the actual costs either, only the compulsory ones, so the real profits are much lower.

I take your point about greed, although personally I object to the greed of landlords who do not maintain their properties, or do basic repairs in a timely manner to save money. I don't object to market forces as they can go down as well as up, and the landlords have to cope with these lows as well as the highs. Also, there are an increasing number of bad tenants these days which is why many landlords are selling up. This will make the problem worse.

The thing we probably both agree on is that there is a housing issue, and that people are often stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of housing affordability. The government (in fact successive governments) have exacerbated this by under investing in social housing and relying on private landlords to pick up the gap.

My rent has increased each year since I lived here. They calculate it with the RPI index. Its gone from 1100 - 1210 - 1290 and the 1290 is only that figure because we pushed back from a 9% increase proposed. We pay on time every month and I would go as far to say we are amazing tenants. We get on well with them but it does sting to see them raise it so much which we struggle with, and then take the Aston Martin out at weekends for a "jolly". However, this is the price we pay to have a nice house in a nice area. It stings but its just one of those things, if you don't have to increase the rent I wouldn't, but I've never owned a house and I'm coming from purely a tenant perspective

It was from this: https://manorestateagent.co.uk/the-most-profitable-places-to-become-a-landlord/

Its from 2022 so presumably pre interest rate hike.

My point wasn’t about whether or not it’s profitable to be a landlord though. If you look at my original post we were discussing whether the OP should charge market rent just because it’s the market rent.

Landlords do extremely well in popular places in London & Brighton where there’s a housing shortage and huge demand. They can make vast profits because the ‘market rent’ is so high.

In my eyes it’s greedy - I don’t agree with pricing out people and hiking up rent because you can. I get it’s the same as anything else in life - why wouldn’t you maximise your returns. However, people do need somewhere to live and we need people to do low paid jobs as well. Moving is a huge ordeal so having big increases and forcing people to move as a result is awful. I don’t agree with landlords who just see $$$ when they rent out a property.

That’s not all landlords and it’s certainly not the OP!! But we would have a much fairer world if some people were a little less money grabbing and a bit more reasonable.

I'd like to see where your statistics come from. Everything I am reading suggests that profits are at a record low, and well below the averages you quote.

Those numbers look more like income numbers (I.e. average rent charged) than profit (I.e. what's left after expenses).

@Amelie2024 I think it is most definitely not me that needs to grow up!

The average landlord in London makes £996.76 in profit per month, in Manchester £423 - so yes I think we can safely say they are lining their profits nicely!

Obviously on an individual basis it will depend when they brought the house, how big the mortgage is etc. Places where they rent out the rooms and have more occupants will make more profit.

Landlords that brought ages ago, barely do maintenance and keep hiking up the rent are definitely lining their pockets!

@Squiggles23

Grow up.

But they aren’t just paying the landlords mortgage, in most cases they are paying vastly more to line the landlords pockets

this is NOT 'Basic Economics'. It's just bullshit.

You crack me up @Amelie2024 !

I can tell you what I said is basic economics!!! Back to school for you

@5128gap

No, that's not all she said. She also said...

I'm torn between raising the rent slightly to help cover increasing costs associated with the property

it's clear she is out of pocket on the house.

My landlord increases the rent every year. It's like £50 extra per month that it goes up each year.
Definitely not unreasonable for you to increase the rent, you're not doing it maliciously or because you hate them and they're nasty! It would be because the costs of everything is increasing and you're just keeping in line with that. You need to be receiving your money worth, I'm sure they'd understand.

OP - you need cloning.

Raise the rent. You’re not a charity nor are they your family/mates. There are 3 working adults in the property (which would break my tenancy agreement, only 2 allowed in my 2 bed property). Raise the rent to near comparable market value.

Some people appear to live in a dream world of pretty colours and unicorns.

But the supermarkets DO that. Loads of retail businesses do. Including the petrol suppliers. Buy in bulk and buy cheaper, but still ramp up the prices later on (even though their surplus was bought cheaper.) Ditto the energy companies.

I thought this was common knowledge.

Most years!?!

I think you are a great Landlord! Sensible and fair

@Everywheretwice that's a great solution and fair. Like you I don't feel the need to raise rents just because and a good tenant is worth so much more than a couple of hundred extra quid a month..

Great and excellent outcome

Those that say the BS to you are just jealous and know naff all.

You are one of the millions of good LL's around and a credit to your community.

What you are is, a very caring, thoughtful, helpful, sensitive, sensible, astute and decent person. Do not let anyone else tell you any different

Whether or not a landlord has a mortgage is actually none of a tenant's business, but for the "all landlords are bastards" persuasion restricting lets to only properties owned outright would be even worse

You can hear it now: "They're lucky to own a property which some will never have, so why should they make money out of it?"

I don’t disagree that more housing needs to be built, but the government will never build its own houses - it will use the existing house builders to do that, which it already does. Whether right or wrong all new estates have to have 10% social housing, though it’s down to council and local one here makes it 30%.

3 adults working full time, that’s a £50 per month each increase, after six years, sounds reasonable to me.

This in spades.

There's a current London thread where the Op is asking about areas to relocate in North London

She has a rental budget of £4k a month. She's only here for 2 years so renting is ideal.

For those of you who say banish BTL where do you propose she live? She could hardly rock up to the LA and ask to rent a council property.

Not everyone renting is on NMW, UC with 4 kids and 2 dogs squashed into a 2 bed flat.

RandomButtons
Without private landlords rent will be controlled by mega rich property investors who will over inflate rental prices more.
Or the Government could stop subsidising the market and build its own houses, only 17% of households in England live in social housing so plenty of room for competition to be introduced into the market.