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

It is wage stagnantion and cost of living not landlords that cause tenants to be stuck being tenants. Most small landlords just market properties at market rate and to cover costs. Costs have gone up due to mortgage rate and tax and regulatory requirements. Passed onto the tenants or the landlord will make a loss. The landlords arent dictating any of these.

I know quite a few other small landlords too, noone is making profit. In fact i know people that are making quite a loss but unable to sell in this market.

Small landlords support the economy and other people. Many care deeply about their property, keeping it in good repair, it was often a home they previously lived in and have an emotional connection to.
I know this because I am a small landlord who rents the property I actually live in from another small landlord. And guess what I am selling my property and they are selling theirs.
I feel sorry for my tenant and sorry for myself as we love this house and our house we own. But it is not suatainable financially. Its a huge headache and our house we own is in an area where families are crying out for good quality rentals. One more off the market and still not a hope in hell of many people getting on the ladder with wages still stagnating.

We shall see if that happens.

But I will never care about somebody with 6 investment properties. They also have a part to play in tenants stuck being tenants.

Tax rules have also made it impossible for most individual landlords to cover their costs because - unlike any other business or sole trader - their revenue is taxed rather than profit, i.e. they must pay tax even when they’ve made a loss. For anybody who is a higher rate tax payer (which an increasing proportion of people with very standard jobs are due to fiscal drag) this means renting out a property which you do not own outright is very unlikely to be profitable, especially with higher interest rates on mortgages now. In no other industry are interest payments non-deductable.

Then you need to consider the time taken to manage maintenance & repairs (or cost of paying letting agents elevated fees to do this), paying insurance, compliance costs such as upgrading energy efficiency to a level that’s not worth it on a cost/ benefit ratio with much of our housing stock, and not having the economies of scale that a large business enjoys with all of these making the costs of this cheaper per property for a big business.

On top of this it is extortionately expensive and time-consuming to evict non-paying tenants who may also trash the property with no realistic prospect of recouping the money for the list rent or repairs. A large business can absorb some instances of this across their portfolio, an accidental landlord with one property cannot. And the business is only taxed on its profits, and pays a lower rate of tax on those profits than the private landlord is paying on revenue (uniquely, as no other sole trader of business in any industry does so) because there is already a the disparity between corporation tax and income tax, disadvantaging the unincorporated landlord as it does all of those in every industry who earn their income without being incorporated/ self-employed/ in a partnership.

These policies were very obviously designed to drive private landlords out of the market and have been effective and achieved their aim. They weren’t introduced for the benefits of tenants, however and anybody who thought that was the purpose was very naive indeed. It’s much like Brexit - convince the turkeys that the oven looks cosy. 🔥

For context I own my own home and am not a landlord so have no personal skin in the game, I simply find it very frustrating how many people continuously vote for policies that aren’t in their interests then appear surprised at the results, seemingly unable to think through obvious (and intended) consequences. See also the recent polling about how many people in working class areas are supporting Reform: some people never learn.

You can’t be a “reasonable landlord” with 6 BTL.

You simply cannot.

Turkeys and Christmas.... oh well

I sold my flat. I was charging 850/ month. The rent went up to 1250 with the new landlord. My tenant had been in for 15 years, her daughter was brought up there. I couldn't keep the flat as in Scotland all my rights were being removed slowly, and this is my pension.

As it was the woman overstayed about 6 months which cost me thousands of pounds

The mortgage on it for someone with a 10% deposit will be in the region of £1500, 20% deposit £1300. Plus all the bills.

My lovely long term tenant and her cat however will be moving out on the 23 Nov when it goes on the market because she can’t pay that. She will be very lucky to find something as good locally because there is very little rental property. Me selling up is not improving her life one little bit.

You can't try to justify it to yourself all you want but I know it is easier to pay £800 a month than over £1000 a month on basic housing costs.

I’m also a landlord to a single property. I’ve never raised the rent, it’s probably less than 2/3 of market rates. Repairs are immediate, it’s good condition and it’s licensed with all the checks in place.
It’s my old flat, fell into renting it out when I moved out and I’ve rented since to a family who I’m on good terms with.
I l ways planned to sell it only when they moved out, but I feel sick about the idea of forcing out a family from their home potentially in the face of the changes. Genuinely sick.

People who inherit a tenanted property are literally one of very few circumstances, if not the only circumstances, where people become truly accidental landlords.

Most of the occasions when it's used - moving in with a partner, moving abroad for a while etc - is not becoming an accidental landlord. It's choosing to be a landlord, even if just for a temporary period. Not remotely accidental.

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who will never be able to get a deposit together to buy their own home, or to qualify for a mortgage. So where are they supposed to live? Freeing up a BTL to enable someone to buy, means that someone else can't have a roof over their head.

With not enough social housing available, there need to be some people prepared to be landlords.

If you build social housing it pushes shit landlords out of the market.

We had three rounds of social housing built locally over the last few years. It hasn't affected me as a landlord at all - my properties are well maintained and aren't remotely extortionate. Several other landlords I know sold up because their poorly maintained, overpriced crap places weren't wanted because the movement of a load of people into the new social housing gave tenants more choice. People went from having 10/15 applicants for each flat to far fewer, and rents generally haven't gone up anywhere near as much as in other places.

One of my tenants (I have two flats in the same building) got a social housing place after waiting for 9 years. I was half expecting to sell up, but the council introduced me to another tenant that could do with the adaptions my flat has. Apparently in April the council will be offering to buy the flat again, but we've been through this four times before and it never ends up going through (even though I accept the price offered every time - no haggling as it's fair).

So maybe someone can then buy your house and pay 7 or £800 month on a mortgage and foot all the other bills themselves.

Unless you are living in temporary accommodation or having to wait for bailiffs to evict you because you can't find a rental.

And no one becomes an 'accidental landlord' what a load of crap. If you inherit a property it's easier to sell than rent out in most cases.

I've already explained in an earlier post how I became an accidental landlord. There's nothing I wanted less, but for legal reasons I was unable to sell the house for 18 months.

And obviously people inheriting rental properties and then selling them off (which appears to be what you're suggesting they should do instead) means evicting tenants and taking another rental property out if the system. I don't think you've thought this through @whoosit

The rent for my house is £1150

I don’t use an agent so no agency costs but from that £1150 I have to pay:

Mortgage £700
Insurance £30
Tax £290

That leaves me £130 to cover all maintenance including the annual gas safety, replacing white goods and wear and tear. There’s nothing in it for me now which is why I’m out. I’m not spending the rent on a Bentley. I can barely pay my own bills!

My rental is owned by an offshore property company.

What a load of primary school project policy making.

They want to squeeze landlords and build social housing - no prizes for guessing what would happen first! And the people that will suffer as landlords sell up are would be tenants.

Build the beautiful/affordable social housing and private landlords won't need squeezing, they will be a non issue as tenants give their notice and move into their beautiful new homes.

Only slight issue is housebuilding isn't even keeping pace with new arrivals but don't let facts get in the way of your (The Greens) idealist fantasy.

If you think the current Labour government are socialist you misunderstand the term completely.
If you do please explain how they are remotely socialist.

Well I've got 12 btl houses. I think I'm a good LL. I maintain the houses very well and get any repairs or replacement items quickly due to having a gas Safe fitter, an electrician and a general maintenance man who I used for all my btl houses and my own home too so because I give them quite a few jobs they come toy properties promptly. I don'tind the RRB too much but I am dreading the ECP C because 4 of my houses are Victorian terraced houses and are all high D's. They are not mouldy or damp and have bathroom and kitchen extractor fans to assist ventilation. They will need internal cladding to get to a C they already have good boilers, double glazing, radiators with individual adjustable valves, 300mm loft lagging and LCD lights. I've been quoted £13.5k per house but it would only save the tenant about £130 per annum so it's not economically viable. I feel bad because I've had the same tenants in one case for 8 years and all over 4 years and they house 8 adults, 11 DC including 1 SEN DC and 3 cats but I'll have to sell these 4 houses before EPC comes into force. The problem is they are in a city that has about 20 percent of it's houses as Victorian terraced houses so I know many of these will be sold and it will result in the houses left to rent having rents go through the roof. The government should have built new social houses to rent before bringing in EPC C. I'll keep the remaining btl houses as all ECP B or C. The thing that annoys me the most is my own home is EPC D and I'm quite happy with it.

While I absolutely agree there needs to be more social housing, it cant be the only solution.
There will still be the need for short term rentals (not air bnb) for people needing to rent temporarily

Of course people are accidental landlords, don't be so silly. Examples:

-2 people move in together, but both have a flat so they move into one of the flats and rent the other out. Because perhaps it's a trial, they don't know how it's going to go and the person leaving their flat wants some financial security

-you buy a house and your job gets moved and they give you accommodation. You don't know how long it's going to be, so you rent your house out whilst living in the other accommodation

-you decide to work abroad for 18 months so you rent your house out.

-you rent out a house you are struggling to sell as part of someone dead's estate

These are all accidental landlord scenarios. It means it wasn't what someone set out to do. It doesn't mean they tripped over and their dick squiggled a signature on a rental contract that happened to be laying on the street.

And no I've never been a landlord. But you are being silly.

But what now happens - I've read exactly this on MN - someone's adult child had a flat in London but decided to go digital nomadding for a year. He decided against renting the flat out for a year because of the potential downsides. So housing stock is depleted because people are too scared to be landlords. This person literally would prefer to forego thousands and thousands in income because the potential downsides of being an accidental or little landlord are far too large.

So there's fuck all to rent and renters lose.

Jesus I genuinely had no idea about Lloyd’s becoming the UK’s biggest landlord. Madness. Surely this stops the general sale of houses (moving location/upsizing/downsizing/inheritance) as the company won’t need to sell. Are we going to become a nation of enforced renters?