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

DD is in a student let. Im not convinced their LL isn't making a profit. The combined rent is nearly 50k/year (on a house that cost 360k and has squeezed in more students than original number of bedrooms) and from the photos she's sent of "repairs" theyre not spending a lot on maintenance!

Didn't even think about student lets! Good point

I rented privately in London for 14 years, mainly from small landlrods. Some were fine, some were bumbling amateurs, some were greedy, incompetant twats. Some friends had the misfortune to rent from outright criminals.

The problem is you are never sure which type you are going to get. Leaving supply of an essential services to a small time investors who may be ignorant of their legal duties and woefully undercapitalised feels a sub optimal way to supply a life esssential service to millions of people.

I mean you wouldn't want your energy supplied by Mr Jones who has a side hustle in in energy retail to supplement his pension.

I support a well regulated private rentsl sector alongside socially rented housing. Renting a property out is a service business and should be regulated as such. It is not some sort of favour you are doing for people unfortuanate enough not to own a house and landlords need to understand that. So I am not going to cry for incompetant "accidental" landlords or people who see tenants as interchangable mortage paying units if they have to leave.he market.

I'm selling off, as I need the capital. FTBs bought the first one. The agent said rental firms would buy but only for 70% of the value - and this is a highly geared area, with rents of £800-900 on £200-250k houses. Also dozens applying for each rental and offering more than rental price (mine are in good condition).
But the bank of mum helped with the deposit. People living in that area don't have jobs that can save for deposits, but they would easily afford the mortgage repayments.

I've been on the peripheral of the prs for 30 plus years and practised housing law for 20 both in the prs, social housing and mortgaged property.

Perhaps you could expand on how you think landlords within the prs are to blame for the current crisis in housing? Because from where I'm sat it is entirely of the making of successive governments starting with Thatcher in the 70s. In my experience landlords respond and react to market forces of which the law surrounding the sector dictates those responses. Laws are made by governments not landlords.

The prs has carried out a function of housing people. If you think that housing people should not be the responsibility of private enterprise blame the governments for failing to step up when landlords have. The prs is little different to supermarkets which provide food.

I don't know. But it is going to destroy student lets, as now landlords can't be certain they will have the property back at the end of the student year. Which means they won't be able to advertise for the academic year ahead. Corporate, purpose built student lets will be exempt from this legislation. So supply of student lets will decrease and there will only be the very expensive, purpose built end of the market available.

I think that idea failed, and the latest promises pre-election, about forcing developers to include affordable housing developments has gone the way of most promises from Labour:

https://inews.co.uk/news/leaked-memo-reveals-labour-plan-slash-affordable-homes-target-3980810

So many brilliant landlords on the internet. Meanwhile most rented houses I visit are mouldy and delapidated, with conditions nobody would tolerate in their own home - and largely owned by "small" landlords too.

Yep, house prices may drop slightly if there is more on the market for buyers. Which will benefit some. But the resulting reduction in rental properties will push rental prices up. Friend of mine is a landlord and she says the competition for her houses when she puts one up for rent is insane, people are writing begging letters, offering to pay more than what she has asked for, offering a year's rent in advance, etc.

Not just the odd person - but 20-30 applicants in a couple of days. She has her pick of who she wants. The person with a job in an industry she sees as being a bit insecure, or no previous rental history, or a temp cpntract etc isn't getting a look in.

Reading comments with interest. Also noting that the state pension is not much and could eventually go. Yet final and even defined pensions scarce. What are people meant to do to fund their old age? One means was to buy a small property, hope rent covers mortgage and build up equity such that eventually rent becomes your pension. Seems that source of income also being ruled out.

I don't think that's it. Landlords pay a lot of tax, and likely much more than large rental corporations would.

It's more ideological and appeasing the likes of Generation Rent and Shelter. It's seen as a vote winner as, as with Brexit, most people won't understand the long term implications.

The government doesn't give a shit about tenants or landlords. They want to ensure their tax revenue.

Exactly that. And I mentioned that in earlier post. It's really a "no reason given" eviction. And now that the reason will have to be given, problem tenants and non payers will find it much harder to rent again, as now they will have a 'record'. Even though that probably won't be searchable, it will make it much more likely that they will end up with a CCJ, which is certainly searchable.

A decade ago, I was looking at my mortgage being paid off in March 2025, as that's when the fixed term came to an end. I was overpaying it as well. And then I was going to peruse the property market with the view to becoming a landlord. What ended up happening was that I paid my mortgage off a month early. Fantastic! But the housing market has gone to pot and suddenly the thought of taking on yet more debt made me feel sick. So there's that. Anything a socialist touches turns to poop. Hard work means nothing in this country anymore.

I wonder how will renters rights bill affect the Serco etc long twrm contracts actually

I see we arrived to magically appearing deposits and mortgages.
"if you sell your tenants will be able to buy". If they were able to buy they would buy one of the hundreds of houses on for sale.... Even with so many houses on a market, reductions in prices are not xx% but small. At least where I am and where I lived before.
People can buy if they have the deposit and cradit to get mortgage. We have terraced houses about for about and under 100k. 🤷 That's basicaly NMW territory (and yes, people on lr just above NMW do buy houses. I know few including myself).
The problem is getting the money. Which with corps rising rents will be wvwn harder. But yeah. Sure. Small landlords are the reason people don't own houses.

🙄

You lose control over your property.

So yeah, that's why your average small LL is selling up.

That would require thinking ahead! And doesn’t punish landlords fast enough.
Also I don’t think they have enough money for building, hence the preference for large corporate landlords.
I’m not against large corp landlords either, there just needs to be a balance. And as you say, a phrased implementation.

I’ve been a renter and an owner over the years. Neither is perfect. Some renters seem to think the mortgage is the only bill! Maintenance costs on a house really add up (especially older houses).

I rented a house four years ago as I had moved area. In the eight months I lived there the emergency plumber had to come out twice and and just before we left the landlord found damp by the front door (due to a problem with the foundations). No way did that allowed make any money from us. We actually started to feel sorry for him (also we didn’t cause any of the issues)

Apparently so but in practice it doesn't work that way. Some are open and adamant about it, some less so. Either estate agents tell you regretfully the landlord just doesn't want to, or they have allergies to dogs, or something like that. In three months of hard searching I never got a single viewing, despite offering to insure against damage or paying six months up front. The rare few who offered me a viewing then ghosted, possibly for other reasons.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-energy-performance-of-privately-rented-homes-2025-update

S21 is often misrepresented in any case. The terminology ‘no fault eviction’ makes it look landlords randomly evict tenants for no reason. Thats the very opposite of what good landlords do - why would they?

S21 is often used where S8 takes too long in cases of rent arrears and antisocial behaviour. The courts backlog has exacerbated this so unless Labour magically fixes that in parallel to passing the Rental Reform Act, it’s going to be an unholy mess for landlords with bad tenants.

This is an interesting thread.

I'm an accidental landlady - when I met my boyfriend, I moved in with him and wanted to keep my tiny one-bedroom house in case it didn't work out. So I found a local letting agent and rented it out at the going rate. Maybe 15 years ago?

My tenants have been there that long, and they're brilliant, and so are the letting agents. I pay their 12.5% fees happily, and replace gas stoves, taps, fences and windows when asked. I'm ecstatic that someone else is, in effect, keeping my property maintained for me. I've just said I won't increase the rental in January as the COL issues facing peeps isn't a reason to turn me into Rachman. I like to think I'm a good landlady.

PS: Everything about scary energy efficiency proposals is a complete mystery to me. Could someone post a link?

Most landlords wouldn't touch this sort of deal with a bargepole! Not because they're immigrants, but because most landlords want to know who specifically is living in their valuable asset, which is very reasonable given it's often worth several hundred thousand pounds.
Also, the companies running the schemes are not to be trusted to uphold all the terms of the agreement with the landlord. Horror stories abound!

I don't think there will be many 'informal' rentals as the fines to landlords for non compliance are so huge. The tenant can also claim huge amounts if deposits aren't protected properly.
Many properties also have to be licensed by the local authority, who wouldn't tolerate non compliance, and neither would HMRC.