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

@jasflowers - there could be other structures that encourage indirect investment in professional landlording via individuals. So tax incentives to buy into a fund that acquires and lets properties fairly to tenants, guaranteed income back stopped by the Government for some or a short amount of time. Anything is possible with the right will. I guess they are starting off with this and will see how it goes.
If you can get a 4 per cent tax incentivised return on a rental to families, why would you not do that if less hassle than letting it out yourself?

@jasflowers Do you think that many small private landlords will stay in the market then? Surely they won’t want to/be able to bring older properties up to the new standards either.

I'll assume you have never rented or not recently.

Agencies are getting dozens of excellent potential tenants per property & the Tax Payer already guarantees rent payments to the LL for those that you assume are not excellent.

Corporate LLs will still have to have houses up to new standards, which is why they don't touch (Generally) older properties.

There are almost 5m privately rented properties in England, Lloyds Banking aims to have 50,000 properties, Blackstone just 17000, which cost them £4 billion.
The idea most rentals will be owned by Corporations is for the birds.

Yup! Small landlord here, just given my lovely tenants notice after 9 years because frankly I'm terrified of falling foul of some regulation or another. I charge them less than 2/3 of the market rent and I make no profit but accept that I've made a big capital gain. Which I'll pay a huge amount of tax on. They will really struggle to find somewhere locally as nice and I feel so guilty but I don't need the stress and so all that taxable rental income will now stop and the proceeds stashed in tax free wrappers. Result for the Treasury, well done Angela and Rachel!

Both myself and DH own a BTL, due to different circumstances. Both properties are let at below market rent to really lovely tenants. As soon as they decide to move on we'll be selling. It's honestly not worth the hassle.

No a fixed tenancy for another year hence being happy about the bill... it means we can hand our notice in May rather than having to wait.

I would give notice now then and start to make enquiries, are you on a rolling tenancy?

@soupyspoon the govt grant is worth £7500 (which is open to landlords too). If you have a new build property with a recent wet heating system (eg gas) then you shouldn’t need much additional work beyond the HP being installed which is probably around £10-12k, though could be less if very simple install. So in terms of your cash outlay 2.5-4.5k, ball park same as a boiler. If your property is older and needs more pipe work doing then yes it could be more.

I will always remember my very lovely accidental landlord crying to me that she couldn't afford to solve the rat problem or fix the leaking water pipes in our basement flat so we'd just have to cope. We moved out instead.
Licensing landlords is a great idea.

You can install a new boiler for about 3k

Is that the price for retro fitting a heat pump?

I think a lot of small time landlords didn’t increase rents regularly and only did so on change of tenant/when finance costs up. I reckon it’s true that a corporate landlord would increase rents every year in small increments, a bit like council tax etc it’s just going to keep going up and if the market actually tanks then tenants will still need to move to get a better deal.

Because they want to maximise their yields, and they have higher operating costs than a small, private landlord. So costs will be higher. Plus there's potential for them to monopolise the markets, just like how it's become with vets and petrol stations.

We are selling the house we rented. Too much hassle, not economical. Essentially the rent covered the mortgage, upkeep and tax. We took out the mortgage when rates were low, and so the rent we charged was in line with that cost. We would make money only when we sold, and we were happy with that.

But mortgage rates have rocketed and regulations have become more onerous. Unless we double the rent - which would of course be terribly unfair - we are losing money each month.

So we have to sell the property.

I'm not saying this is unjust or that we should be sympathised with. It's simply that circumstances have changed and we can no longer afford to offer that family home to the rental market.

Yes. Thankfully. Seem to be more on the market than I was expecting.

@KeepPumping They’ll have their pick of tenants and will increase rents exactly in line with what the law allows. @Yesnomaybeyes’s colleague might be lucky and find something affordable and secure, but will need to budget for regular rent increases (I think they can be raised once a year under the new law).

Not to change your mind but just in case others see and are interested - if your home is relatively new (15 years) and well insulated, then with the government grant, then installing a heat pump shouldn’t cost any more than a new boiler.

If the majority of rental accommodation is owned by large corporations then they are likely to act as a cartel, controlling prices and controlling the quality of the premises.
The only option for renters will be high rents for cramped apartments; the kitchen is in the living room, no window in the bathroom etc ☹️
Not that I am in favor of buy to let, it has been a significant factor in driving prices up beyond the rich of normal people.

I hope you are right. My concern is that large corporations will behave badly unless they are regulated in such a way which prevents them from so doing.

People who rented below market for their own pension - they could just buy and rent to their children and grandchildren at a discounted rate instead. I reckon we will see more of that as that actually makes sense. They cannot force you to rent out to your own at a market rent.

@Bluegrassdfly I agree that large investment companies aren’t always terrible, everything will be up to code and repairs completed quickly. One aspect that I think will be different from smaller landlords is that there’ll be no allowances for individual circumstances. Rents won’t be kept below market rates for years because the landlord/tenant has a good relationship, for example, or the landlord has sympathy with someone’s situation.

It'll be more like going to a supermarket- a product costs x and that’s what you have to pay, on time and with no negotiation. The landlord provides a service and the consumer knows exactly what they’re getting. This will give tenants security, but any deviation from the rules and I imagine you’ll be out.

I do not think good professional tenants with good income have ever struggled to get rentals. Most landlords are chasing the same type of tenant.

The tenants that struggle are those with kids, pets, on benefits, self employed etc - also then mostly subjected to rogue landlords as they could not get access to the best/fairest landlords. Corporate landlords won’t care if the Government guarantees the rent via eg benefits/UC etc. and the tenants are not antisocial. So if the Government wants the corporate landlords to set the price and the taxpayer to basically guarantee it, that is where we are going to end up.

We rent our old flat and DH said he’d think about selling when the current tenants move on. He’s a great LL and we charge a bit less than market rate too. Depends how much capital gains there would be to pay.
Btw we drive a regular car, live in a 3-bed semi and our dc went to state school. Not rolling in it, but rent has provided a good income over the years - obviously it is liable for tax as well.

Is there more available around you for less rent?

Yes but I'm in an AST with a tenancy I can't just break. So yes this bill will allow me to move sooner.

We have damp, mould, mice and a leaky roof and the landlord/letting agency are using every trick in the book to stall and avoid dealing with it. I'm out of energy trying to fight it so yes I'm glad the bill is coming in.

So you think that in an inflation crisis, cost of living and reducing employment crisis Big Corp are going to buy up loads of property then make it hard for people rent them?