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

there’s 4 places to rent in Rye on rightmove today, and 1000+ whole places to rent on airbnb

Not always, demand is down in many areas.

@StripesandSpaniels Have you tried reducing the price?
It will sell when priced appropriately.

Rents are certainly not coming down at the lower end of the south east rental sector. Rents are pretty much all above LHA and the flow of tenants being evicted is increasing. Where the tenants have children the council are obliged to find them temporary accommodation but this is invariably the grottiest imaginable. And it's getting worse.

I own a 2 bed apartment which I bought to live in and did until I met my husband and moved for work. I’d love to sell but can’t as the service charge is £400 a month, was £50 when I bought it in 2007 and the ground rent is now approaching the limit for mortgages. Plus council tax is £200 a month so despite having it on the market it will not sell. The government could sort out a lot of the issues with rentals and buying if they reformed leasehold quickly. Everyone wants to build up but unscrupulous management companies make it unaffordable for many in cities.

Landlords generally don"t want benefits, kids, pets, because that can lead to non-payment, damage, noise, neighbour complaints etc. they want single or couple working people who are out all day and don"t bother anyone whether deliberately or accidentally, that is good business sense, that is a majority of the private rental sector I think? I am saying that within that mainstream sector it is getting harder to find tenants, you are introducing a client group who have always had friction with landlords as an argument against their being more property for rent and falling rents, I don"t really buy that argument, I prefer to listen to property agent/landlord media outlets who have a vested interest in getting their information right.

Yes this, someone can post as many articles as they like but this is what the experience is for renters.

My client group are obviously harder to rent to than your son but people like him, working, higher earning families are also finding it hard to rent

You've clearly never rented a property recently then.

In some places, even viewings are insanely difficult to get, with EAs only having a limited number of viewing slots at a specific time. No other options available. Once they're gone, they're gone. They know that they'll get several of the viewees wanting to rent it, so don't need to waste their time with more viewings. Once you've viewed, the EA puts forward "suitable" people for the LL to chose.

My son was a professional tenant, good income, provable earnings (contract of employment, payslips, etc), but struggled to even get viewings. When he finally got a viewing, he was so desperate, he offered a years' rent upfront and 10% over asking price! It was the only way to get one!

A couple of years later, perfect reference from landlord, etc., same story again, took six months to get an "offer" accepted on a rental.

I've no doubt that some places are different to others, but this wasn't a big popular city and he was only looking at small 1 bed flats, no pets, etc. Trouble was it was a bit of a "historic" small city and a huge number of smaller properties were lost to holiday rentals and Air BNBs!

It's absolutely insane out there in some places. The old fashioned ideas of the only people struggling being unemployed, pet owners, or self employed are long gone - it's far worse now, with demand so high that even people with immaculate credit histories, references and work/payslips struggle to be accepted too!

Yes Ive just done another very very quick search, within 10 miles of here, the cheapest 2 bed is 850pcm.

The LHA for a 2 bed is 650.

Those figures for rental costs have not come down since I last looked.

Well their needs are they are poor and reliant on benefits. So Im not seeing rental prices come down is what Im saying. Or that landlords are champing at the bit to get them, and their kids, and their pets. And their rent top up that they can barely scrape.

What I am posting though is headlines from MSM, it is not my opinion, although I believe that falling housing costs are the best thing that can happen to ordinary working people, obviously not if they are already deep in mortgage debt, but for wider society it is the best thing, saying that you are finding it hard to find housing for a specific "client group" without saying what their needs are isn"t a good argument against the obvious changes going on in the rental sector.

Because despite what you keep posting, I have to say this is not what Im seeing on the ground and I work with a transient and vulnerable client group who cannot afford full rent of course, whose benefits do not cover the full rent

Perhaps its sporadic around the country.

Landlords are struggling to get tenants now, why would Big Corp suddenly "have their pick of tenants"?

Effects already being felt.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/insight/landlords-slash-rents-as-demand-collapses/gm-GM32661A8F

No surprise really, supply has been building for quite a while.

No, it's not always that simple. I was moving 300 miles for work, had given up my job and packed up my house. The sale fell through on exchange. I had no choice but to go to my new job. Tried to sell the house again but there was no interest. After four months of paying the mortgage and council tax as well as mortgage and council tax on my new place I had no choice but to rent it out or be repossessed. So I guess I could have chosen repossession to avoid being an evil landlord.

I'm not evil by the way.

The term 'accidental landlord' is a nonsense. Yhey may have found themselves in a position where they unexpectedly had a property which could potentially be rented out, but they still made the deliberate decision to be a landlord.

Not if they are rented out, the tenant pays the council tax.

Also a lot of people with one or two rentals sitting on massive capital gains were planning to go live there for a couple of years at some point to treat it as main residence at that point, to avoid capital gains tax.

This is a shift towards treating rental property as an income asset not a future discounted capital gains asset. So all tenants need to expect rents to go up in line with financing costs and inflation. However, equally, normal people benefitting from avoiding capital gains has also cost the taxpayer especially if housing has become too expensive for all and the taxpayer is having to subsidise via UC. Housing is an essential, should not be used to make money especially on a limited island, other than a reasonable yearly return.

I thought many councils are now charging at least double council tax on second homes?

You know this was Tory policy? The bill was put in place by them, it would have happened anyway

Thats what Labour want in their ideal little socialist world. Not worth the ordinary little person trying to make money. I won't be voting for them again. Second and third homes are for MP's.

I think many with mortgages will leave the sector, i do not see how they can make a worthwhile return, esp if a 40% tax payer.

HMRC rules are that money spent on Solar etc is not yearly tax deductible, only offset if when house sold.

i think the Govt will u-turn on many of their proposed changes, the impacts on rents and availability are going to be huge.

NC for this.
1.Well done to some fantastic contributors on here. Been lurking so thought to add my voice due to the genuine contributions made.
2.Where to start: moved out when I got married. Have recently worked out as I charge too lowly rent, I might as well stop bothering with tenants; but keep my home as a weekend pad and fork out 85k from my job plus for the privilege, as I still fork out the same currently as tenants only pay 40k with me making up the massive difference and paying 40% tax on their rent (rental profit which is not really). How is that for ‘more properties coming back on market for first time buyers?!
3.For the one btl flat which brings in an income, I made a profit and had good tenants. I charged them 60% below market rent and stayed there without an increase for years. As soon as RR thing started circulating, I could not risk being there before May, so last year, my lovely tenants had to choose to have rent increased to 90% of market rent in one go MAINLY because I couldn’t risk being found rock bottom by RR. I had previously tried to make them increase it gradually as I knew I was subsidising them too much when mortgage interest had increased! Luckily, last year when o gave a clear choice, tenants had the foresight to value their wonderful home and wonderful landlord ( all repairs done within 24 hours) so they upped the rent. I will now need to keep increasing it every year just not to be caught out.

Again, how is that for …..

I too am not complaining and excited to be throwing £85k up the wall for a weekend pad I do not need, thanks to taxation in this country and RR.

That's an incompetent landlord, and not very lovely!

To my mind the only accidental landlord is someone who inherits a rental property, and they only have that status of "accidental" for the time it takes them to go through the process of giving notice to the tenant. Anyone who decides to rent out a property is a landlord - nothing accidental about it.