Small landlords selling off isn't a great news after all

And many people don't WANT to buy. When this discussion comes up, people always talk about renting as something people have to do for financial reasons, there are many other reasons.

I don’t mean to be unkind but I’m surprised you’re only just realising this OP. A lot of people are nasty about landlords on here but they are actually needed because many people just can’t afford to buy, however much they may want to. I’m not a landlord BTW.

It was definitely easier to find somewhere affordable to rent in the past I would agree. We struggled with two full-time wages and children the last time despite impeccable payment history and excellent references from previous landlords.
The Rental Reform Bill was never going to work in its current state as it's always the case that costs are passed on to tenants. Hence the great need for social housing or a way onto the housing ladder for lower income families. For example, (we can't save at the moment anyway due to rents doubling in the city we live in), however if we wanted to buy we would struggle hugely due to the £16k savings cap with Universal Credit. It means that you are stuck in the situation with huge amounts of public cash going towards private landlords via housing benefit or the housing element of UC. Many MPs are landlords so I can't see this changing soon.
It sounds like you have had a good experience renting which is great. These things are based on your experience of course, but there is a marked issue with the sector that has always been there IMO. Many countries manage this much better and have longer notice periods for evictions. In the UK we have allowed people who have no business renting to people let alone dealing with people have immense power over peoples lives. I don't live in London FWIW but the issue is across the country. I've lived all over the UK for jobs and university and currently in the midlands.
In addition, the UK is unusual in how easy it is to become a landlord compared with many EU countries, where rental housing is often managed by regulated cooperatives, municipalities, or professional bodies meaning you are more likely to end up with the cowboys.

We have just one rental property plus the house we live in. My DH bought it 12 years ago and we're only on our second tenant in that time (the first family only moved because they needed more room). I like to think we've been good landlords, made repairs as needed, kept up to date with all legislation and kept the rent well below local rates as we both agree as long as the mortgage is covered its a long term investment and we don't need to use it for income at the moment. That being said the tax and increased regulation now means its actually costing us money each year (even break even would be acceptable) so I'm not sure how long we will hold onto it. It feels like we are being penalised for making provision for our future while offering a reasonably priced home to someone.

I agree, but house equity will always beat inflation over the long term. Google AI tells me average house price has gone up by 2,300% over 40 years.

I often see people on MN insisting no one at all should own more than one home....but I've never understood what all the people that need to rent - particularly short term, are meant to do, if that became the case...?

That's a question that's never answered, @Fizbosshoes, which is a shame because it's an important one

While most decent people agree that bad landlords should be controlled, it also tends to indicate that much of the hate is based on pure spite rather than any real understanding of the issues involved, so the headline grabbing measures which are cheered at the time just end up making tthings worse

I've had a company offering me about 40 percent more on a 5 year contract than I charge for my houses to hand them over to company who want to put migrants in them. I said no as already have families in them that have been there for years and look after the houses and I certainly don't want to upset the neighbours by turning a family home into a HMO.

FTB or big corp, unless he's already agreed a sale, then he's free to take whatever offer is on the table, and a 10k difference is not to be sneezed at.

Fair enough. But it does drastically affect the real profit - particularly if the house has been held for 40 years or so.

You don’t get an inflation allowance with any other investment - apart from index linked gilts where it’s factored into the price. You buy, you sell, you make profit, you pay tax on profit. That’s it.

I rented in Cornwall (Newquay) for a few years around 2004.

We found a big (4 bed house) for 3 of us to share no problem (£800 a month for the whole property) and then when I wanted to share only with my boyfriend and save for our own place we found a cheap (basement) flat easily (£400 a month whole property).

I wasn't able to rent on the exact estate I was hoping for where terraced houses were £500 as they were snapped up quickly but there was housing of all types available. Loads of flats, plenty of big posh houses with a bit of a tight market in small cheaper houses.

Families in Cornwall were not living in temporary accommodation at that time. Nobody with a job was living on a campsite unless they chose to in order to save the maximum money, Nobody was having to turn down a job at the hospital because they couldn't find somewhere to live.

The housing market has not been like this for decades in most places - perhaps in London.

I'm a small landlord with just one small flat which is properly managed by an agent. We have very rarely put up the rent, our return on the value is less than we'd get from having the money in a building society. We've had the same elderly tenant for about five years now, he's very happy and we don't want to evict him though we will probably sell when he leaves. The rules on EPC's mean that we may have to evict him though as it is a listed building so there are not many ways we can improve the insulation etc. Double glazing is out, as are exterior heat pumps. The cost would probably be over £10,000 which we simply cannot afford so we will no longer to legally allowed to rent it out.

I was a landlord for one flat and I made a huge loss, finally got rid of it a couple of years ago. Never again.
Small landlords will give up and big corps will take over and charge extortionate rent.
Either this was the government's plan all along or they've accidentally created the environment they said they wanted to avoid.

Here is an idea of the money you can make selling up a 200k property and putting the money in the bank.
No voids, no maintenance, no risk.

This is a bond from Yorkshire Building Society - money tied up until Dec 2030.

I agree. I think a lot of small landlords take pride in not putting the rent up and don't mind not making much money as one day they will sell their nest egg or pass it on to their children. I can't see corporate landlords happy to make no money - "making no money" would also include returns that only match simply investing the money in secure bonds. All the reward with none of the work or risk.

I hear you. I’m just thinking, on balance, monopolies in areas are worse. There’s no good ones/ getting lucky and the rent overall is driven up more than if there is some balance. Plus I’ve seen round here massive sell ups or changes that suddenly affect huge numbers of people who can’t find alternatives. For example one business charging a 1000+ every year for lease renewals

Yes, I will be selling mine. I have been hated on Mumsnet for having a buy to let as my pension. I'm selfish, greedy, shouldn't make a profit from a human right bla bla bla.

Sainsburys Tesco et al make a profit from food, a human right, and their shareholders make a tidy sum. But that's OK it seems.

My tenants have always been people who don't want to buy or who can't afford to buy. Or my longest tenant was in a very high paid job that he knew would relocate at some point.

This is roundly at Thatchers door. The council estate near me is nearly all owned now and two of them are even holiday cottages. While people on minimum wage struggle to find a private rental. The council houses were built for people on lower incomes but Thatcher fucked that and spent the money. There is not enough money in the pot to replace the social housing that was lost. Criminal.

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t want corporate involvement in the housing sector, ideally. But as a family, I do think renting this way might actually be better for us. The cost of moving every few years adds up: a new deposit, whatever your current landlord decides to take from the old one, moving expenses, replacing furniture that doesn’t fit the next (usually smaller and more expensive) place, and so on.
This is exactly why social housing needs to play a much bigger role, with more rent-to-buy and shared ownership options for people who can’t save a deposit because of extortionate rents.
And let’s be honest — small landlords aren’t immune to price gouging either. For every “good” one, there are many more who hike rents as high as possible and ignore maintenance issues.

Exactly, profiteering

My friend started renting from a large landlord the same year I rented a flat out.
They put the rent up every year to the max recommended, whereas my tenants have the same rent. Same area.
Her rent is now just shy of 2k, my tenants pay £1.15k I know downstairs has been rented out longer and pay 1k.
The large landlords are driving rent so hard round here I’d feel disgusted to ask the same amount.

Tenants have never had that in this country. The state of the rental sector is shocking and has been for decades.

Agreed. The rental sector has been an absolute hellhole for decades now. I have had several landlords who would describe themselves as "good landlords" who have either left issues unfixed, blamed us for structural issues with the house, left us without heating and hot water for weeks, stole deposit money and visited almost weekly and disturbed our peace. I have had a couple of decent ones but they are few and far between. Same story from many people I know.
Rent has doubled in my area in the last few years since COVID. For us, we always stay long-term, pay on-time and look after the property but every 4-5 years a landlord sells from under us costing us thousands to move our family each time.
The solution is council housing but that's not likely to be an option in my lifetime. I would prefer to rent from somewhere like Lloyds in the meantime as they are likely to be more professional and more willing/able to cough up funds for issues with a rental property. I am torn however, as I don't want more corporate ownership of housing but purely from a tenant's POV this would be preferable.

Now we are finally getting somewhere.

Profiteering is distorting our economy.

Before we pull the rug from the feet of small landlords, we need to address the elephant in the room. What can people do to fund their retirement?

No it is not good news, the landlord rules have played into the hands of the mega rich that buy up property via corporations. It has nothing to do with part politics, but unfortunately politicians are either very rich , getting richer or want to get rich -so restraining the mega wealthy is not attractive to them.

This cant be a serious post surely? Do you realise how much profit pharmaceutical companies make? there is an absolute ton of money being made in treating diseases. The estimated pharma profits in US for example are about 1.21 trillion dollars so dont be so ignorant

My friend is an OT working in a hospital, she is now employed by Virgin as they have privatised off several departments - are Virgin doing this out of the goodness of their hearts or is it for profit? 🤣