Any landlords NOT selling?

[Illjusthavethebreadsticks]

After reading the thread about how landlords are selling up in droves due to the changes coming in and feeling thoroughly anxious and depressed, I wonder if there any landlords on here not selling up.

I have a lovely flat and live in constant fear of the landlord deciding to sell.

Help me feel a bit more hopeful thanks !!

My LL isn’t but he has a large portfolio and even owns the building my lettings agency are in! It just seems very small Lls are selling up or those who are hitting retirement age and can’t be bothered.

Not at the moment (we have only the one) but I might well, if and when current tenants decide to move on. Though unless they’re relocating for work, or deciding to buy, that’s probably unlikely since the rent is now decidedly low for the area.

I'm not. But I'm moving my tenants out of a property I used to manage myself and putting it with an agent. Hugely increased rent (to cover the additional management fees) but more protection. It was that or sell. I'm fortunate both of my tenants are professionals and are easily able to find other accommodation.

I understand the landlord hate. But we don't have a system with enough social housing so driving private landlords out of the market was madness.

We have sold one rental property and kept the second as the kids will end up in it. I wouldn’t put money in rental property now - that ship has sailed.
just be a really good low hassle tenant (and hopefully they’re a decent LL in return). It’s when you have problems with a tenant AND the government smacks you with unreasonable charges etc that you give up on it. But you can’t control for their other life circumstances

We've sold our rental flat and we live in my house and will sell dh house as soon as current tenants leave. I'd rather have the money on the bank now. We own outright and it's not worth it so I can't imagine btl landlords find it better

We are considering selling my flat that I rent out. Our last tenants smashed the place to smithereens before they left as well as the considerable rent arrears that had triggered us evicting them. The deposit didn't touch the sides. The stress it caused was horrendous, and things are likely to be more difficult with the new regulations coming in. But all LLs are apparently greedy bastards who deserve everything they get.

That said, I have a friend who has a lovely reliable tenant. She's made the decision not to sell now, as her tenant is great,but if that tenant ever decides to leave she will.

I think - as ever- the Government's inability to see the logical consequences of their fiscal policies will only mean more Lls will sell and there will be even more pressure on housing stock. rents will go through the roof (I know you can't have bidding wars, but it just means properties will be put on for an inflated price).

I know a fair number who aren't and those that are had half decided to get out anyway, the changes in the law have just decided them.

I think the media is building the whole thing up to make a story out of it.

We’ve got three shared between some family. Long standing houses, no mortgages. We don’t think it’s going to make any difference to us. Everything is still managed by the agents, we will remain very careful on who we take on as tenants, keep the rent reasonable and we tend to have people to stay for years on end. I’m not sure if we’ve ever evicted anyone, but we only rent out to professionals, working people etc and the houses are near a hospital so it’s usually nhs staff with decent job security.

We have a 4 bed family house on a long term rental to good tenants. Won’t be selling whilst they are there as it’s their home and have lived there for over ten years but if they ever leave we will sell it

Me! I have a lovely 1 bed that I owned before I met DH. I always wanted to keep it for security. Although we have mortgages on that and the 3 bed we live in ourselves we have enough equity across both houses that if we ever had anything terrible happen with health/finances we could move back to the 1 bed and be nearly mortgage free, selling the 3 bed to reduce outgoings. So it’s a security thing.

Hopefully that never happens so my other reasons for keeping hold of it are:

1. Long term retirement plan. Currently early 30s and paying off mortgage but it could provide great income in our 50s. I never ever expected to profit from it month on month- we just about break even after maintenance each year.
2. It’s a historic property in our town and by owning it myself I can ensure it’s maintained to the correct standards.
3. Our town is a tourist hotspot and SO many properties like mine are AirBnBs (which we don’t need!) and drive up rents. That’s what would happen to my house if I sold it. There’s hardly any homes which a young couple or single person could rent. By owning it myself I can keep it on the rental market and make sure a local person can use it as a home.

There’s very high demand and very low stock in this area so I don’t need to worry about it being empty. I view it as a side business which needs admin/tax/regulations and will
do the necessary to continue being a landlord, with the support of our proactive local agent that we use to manage the property. Still won’t make a profit but will continue paying the mortgage and having a local tenant.

We will be! Only one property and accidental landlord.

Not a charity and the money can sit in the bank and make lovely interest. So that’s what I’ll be doing in the next few months.

Also we own outright if that makes a difference.

We’ve got them all on market to sell and changed to air b and b business model.
After £75k of damage on one that insurance wouldn’t cover
paying a tenant out after he wouldn’t pay the rent and it would cost £10k to evict him section 24 being realised on a £2k rental the mortgage went from £350 to £1750 after Truss and I would be subsidising the rent £500 to pay the tax owed fuck that shit

Can’t wait to sell and I’ve been a landlord for 30 years but over the last decade tenants have got worse entitled think they own the house but the section 24 and this government have speeded it all up

I wish my DDs landlord wasn’t. It seems a bit of a knee jerk reaction from some.
DD lives with her partner in a lovely flat in her favourite city. She and her partner are model tenants and owner lives abroad. He’s not selling, and not coming back for a couple of years, but is still asking them to leave because of these changes.
DD has recently discovered she has a serious health condition so this is the icing on the cake 😞

We have one house rented out through an agent and we are not selling. The tenants are lovely. The agent manages everything so we actually never go there.
We still have a small income from it after tax and all expenses are paid so see no reason to sell.

We may be selling one of the two flats we rent out, but only because the council want to buy. If they don’t (which is possible - we’ve been down this road before with them several times) then we won’t be selling.

I manage them myself. It’s a bit more of a pain now that the wonderful local council-private scheme has been scrapped - you could pay as a private LL to access the council repairs team (it was part of a wider scheme where you registered with them and tenants on their list would know you were a decent ll because of checks on the scheme), but still worthwhile owning them.

I don't know any landlords but I know a fair few people who rent and none of them are being evicted.

I'm not - I have a few.

We've 2 properties and will look to sell both next year as our money will invest better elsewhere.
We feel particularly sad about the 1 property as she's been an amazing tenant.
However we are changing about £150 a month under market rate in recognition of her longstanding with us.

Whilst we have a good, reliable tenant in, we’re not selling. But if/when the tenants decide to move on, we’ll likely consider it. We don’t have a portfolio behind us, or a huge amount of savings, should something go wrong with a tenant not paying etc. We use an estate agent so there’s some protection there.

We never set out to become LLs, it’s just DP and I had bought our own houses prior to meeting, and put one out for rent when we moved in together.

It’s good to have an asset behind us as a retirement investment for future, but not sure we want the insecurity it could bring with the new changes.

Family member has a small flat in London he lets out after moving in with his partner. As with a pp, he isn’t renting to make income right now; the flat is his retirement plan, essentially (mortgage will be paid off and rental income should provide retirement income in 20 years or so, plus it will be a big wedge of capital should he ever need it). It’s in a very sought-after bit of London and is an old (late 19th century) mansion block so no cladding issues etc. Honestly I’m astonished at the amount people will pay to live in an absolutely tiny flat in the middle of London, but that’s London I guess! His tenants always seem nice and reasonable, he’s never had any serious issues. He said he didn’t feel particularly affected by anything the government has done. Has no plans to sell. I wonder whether the LLs looking to sell are those who were using it as an income stream?

@Illjusthavethebreadsticks , the only reason we are not selling our properties right now is that it is not a very good market to sell in. Our aim is to sell them all within the next 5/10 years. We were self employed and they were our pension, now we’re going to take a massive financial hit by selling but the legislation has become onerous. I’m furious at the landlords who treated their tenants badly, of course something needed to be done about them but that has not been the aim in my opinion which has been to force small landlords out and replace them with big corporations.
We genuinely served our tenants to the very best of our ability for over 30 years, we live very locally to all our properties and if tenants have issues we aim to be at the property to sort them that day or the next, my husband is going to one of our properties this morning because a tenant has reported an issue with the heating and water. If he can’t sort it we will immediately arrange for a plumber to visit as soon as they are available.
I think small landlords like us will become increasingly rare and what properties are available to rent will be controlled by big corporations who will never be able to provide the personal service we have prided ourselves on because the feeling of pride, of having discharged ones duties in an honourable fashion will be entirely absent from the profit driven organisations. Rents will likely increase too I believe, small landlords are in competition with each other for good tenants and often negotiate on asking prices for rents; no need for the big corporations to do this if the majority of local properties are owned by one massive group.
I’m sorry my response is not more optimistic but there is only one winner in this situation and it’s not the small landlords or their tenants.

My landlord isn’t but she owns her four houses outright.

I'm keeping mine. I don't want to make the family that live there homeless.

I have an agent, only increase rent once a year or less, keep the rent fair, deal with repairs as soon as needed and in 20 years haven't ended a rental contract myself. It's always been the tenants choosing to move.

I've had 1 bad tenant who did a runner. I've had plenty who don't really look after the property particularly well - but sadly that's the norm for the majority of tenants.

My rental is my pension (hopefully). I am worried about the energy rating rules though. Mine is 100 years old and a D. There's not a lot I can do to reach C. I'll cross that bridge if/when it happens.

What I am doing though is spending less on improvements. It needs redecorating and could do with new carpets as the last tenants let their kids get paint splats on it that won't clean out. What's there is fine though so I've chosen to leave it as it is for now. I no longer provide a paid for gardener as I need to cut back on expenses. How's that better for tenants?