To think renting shouldn't be this effing difficult?!

[mrsmmrsimrsssimrs]

Never known anything like it is right now (we're in London). Used to be, you'd register with a load of agents, properties came up, you'd get viewings then deliberate a bit over which was best until you found the place that best suited your needs. Obviously you wouldn't always get it, or at least first time, but you'd find something in a month or so after one or two unsuccessful offers.

Now - 40 people trying to view each property, offers have to be in within literally hours or you miss it, properties snapped up sometimes before you can even view them. Viewings seem to be like gold dust. Some properties the agents seem barely bothered about getting access to so they just sit there while you call them daily trying to get in. Agents are rude, dismissive (not all, but significantly more than I remember in the past). Hardly any properties becoming available in the first place then a mad rush to try and see anything that does come up. Passive aggressive comments about how flexible we can or can't be, despite basically no flexibility from the agents themselves.

How is anyone meant to find somewhere to live in these circumstances?! We've been looking for well over a month now and are no closer to finding somewhere than when we started. Eviction in 2 months and we can't just keep our whole lives on hold while we try to find places - it's taking up significant amounts of our working days and as we're both in retail we're not going to be able to do that much longer as it's obviously going to get somewhat busy between now and Christmas.

I've never felt more like cattle in my life.

Doesn't help when you need more than one room though sadly!

Watched a movie about this very topic about a year or 2 ago on Iplayer.

Poor mum living in Ireland trying to find a rented property for her family, she had a few kids.

Depressing viewing.

A common view on MN is that landlords are greedy Scum who should be wiped from the face of the Earth.🙄

Well those people should be thrilled that LL are selling up in droves, but I bey you won't hear a word from them on here.

Tenants should be protected from bad landlords of course. But it should work both ways and it really doesn't. Hence the mass sell-off.

I wish you luck OP

I don't want to blame anyone, just want somewhere to live 😥Otherwise we're going to be those nightmare tenants who won't leave as they've nowhere to go!!

Air B n B has also been blamed as a cause of reduced number of properties available.

It's not just a problem in the renting sector. I live in NW Wales and a house near me came on the market and sold within 4 hours to second home buyers in London who didn't even view it.

Fortunately other homes have sold via local community Facebook group, so estate agents and second home buyers haven't had a look in.

It is awful. I hadn't rented for over 15 years but then had to last year between selling and buying a property. We were 'lucky' enough to find a 2 bed, mould infested flat with a bathroom literally falling to bits for £1500 which is considered a reasonable price in our part of London. When we finally gave notice to leave, the flat went up on Rightmove the following week with an increased rental of £2000. I laughed and said the greedy landlady was a fool as no-one would pay that. Well roughly 25 people lined up to view on the very first day and the letting agency found a new tenant within a day. I understand there was some kind of bidding war so the fortunate tenant probably paid more than £2k.

We were then harassed to leave before our tenancy actually ended and I had to threaten legal action to get my deposit back due to administrative incompetence on the part of the letting agency.

Jesus 😨

Are there just... too many of us?!

Bluntly, this is what people here alwyas wanted and many others warned it will lead to this.

I just had a look at for sale around and landlords are selling like crazy. So so many. Never saw that before

This doesn't sound new to me. We last rented in London in 2013-15 and it was like that then. By the time properties were online, they were gone,

We only got our flat because it had come onto the market about 2 hours before some viewings we already had booked with that agent and he thought he may as well show it to us since it was in our search radius.

last time we had to move from 6 years ago and it was nothing like this - we had several properties we were umming and aahing over and we had days/weeks to do so before they went. Admittedly at the lower end of the budget scale so the more shit properties others weren't keen to snap up... 😬

Many landlords have buy to let mortgages. The rates for these are going through the roof, I remortgaged mine for double the previous rate and I was lucky, they will be worse right now and even worse in the future.

As others have said, once you have paid an annual gas check, electricity check (plus any remedial work) plus no tax relief on mortgage interest, plus the new EPC remedial work (hoping mine is ok), then it just isn't a great way to make money, even if you have capital gains increase (on which you have to pay tax anyway) in the actual property.

Couple that with any hassle/expense with tenants, which I have luckily not had myself, and many will be looking to get out before the housing market drop 10-20% and cash in any gains now rather than the very diminished returns.

If it's not a business model that makes sense, people won't do it. I own a property abroad that sits empty as rental rates are too low compared with costs (e.g. insurance, damages, covering unpaid bills). I pay the council tax and nothing else.

If all these previously landlord properties came back on for first time buyers, that might help, but of course the conditions that are tipping landlords to sell in droves right now are limiting access to home buyers as well.

It's a giant mess and the government seem spectacularly unequipped to deal with it, even though they've known about the problems for a long time. That will leave a shrinking amount of properties and an expanding pool of tenants- hence the rental bloodbath and prices soaring...unfair on everyone.

@mummyh2016. This makes my blood boil! The law is an absolute ass when it comes to fraudulent tenants. Spoils everything for honest tenants too!
The law needs seriously changing and there should certainly be some way the landlord can recoup their losses in these cases.

This! The last two times we moved, there would be a dozen or so new properties in our area going up every few days. Now theres 3 a week, tops.

If the landlords are selling up, who are they selling to? Is the market instead not being flooded with property to buy and why is that not effecting price?

We had this when we were living at our in laws while selling and buying last year, as we were moving to a new area. We had to leave said in laws as one of them turned out to be a creep (long story!), and for a few months we tried to find a rental in the area. It was impossible to get a viewing and when we finally did, we would offer £100+ extra a month and six months rent upfront but we were just laughed at because other renters were more competitive. Mostly we were just ignored. It was mental. In the end we cancelled the whole buying and selling and moved back to our old house for about a year. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Good luck to everyone trying to find a rental! It's nothing like it was ten years ago. I remember it being quite exciting going to viewings and choosing a place to live. Sigh.

If you read all the thread about social housing or about landlords, they are evil and should be extinguished. The fact that many people do need and want rental properties is ignored or downrated.

Landlords have sold because they are now taxed to the max, with additional conditions made in them every year. It's really not an attractive business any longer inger unless the mortgage is fully paid and you're retired.

It is affecting prices. My area just dropped a bit, tbf it was overinflated.
They are selling to anyone, lots of the houses are without tenant in situ.
But we aren't "desirable area" so...

These are the consequences of demonising all landlords for the sake of a few rogues

Years of incremental punishment with withdrawal of S21, introducing cod licensing, battering for tax, media led monstering and soon the mostly impossible and prohibitively expensive EPC changes will cause small landlords to leave the industry

Be careful what you wish for

I don't think the landlords are flooding out of the market, more trickling out. You don't need very much of a contraction in the availability of properties to make trying to get a rental really unpleasant.

I've been a renter for 20 years as well as a landlord, so I've been on both sides of the fence. I feel very sorry for renters at the moment.

Landlords selling will soon come to a halt if/when property prices start to drop. Landlords either won't find buyers, or won't get the price that they want so will take them off until the market recovers. This may actually help renters.

We were officially evicted in July. Still here cos there is literally no where else right now.

We are on the council list now too.

I think it is partly too many of us and not enough new property building (failure of sucessive governments), but also a lot of under occupancy of property.

My NDN at my last house was an elderly spinster, she lived half the time in the 3 bed house next door (inherited from her mother) and part of the time in a 2 bed flat in Cardiff. She was retired, so this was purely a lifestyle choice (or indesisiveness). My widowed mother is determined to stay in the 5 bed detached family home (I have a feeling she will be regretting her decision by the end of this Winter) and this is not due to a lack of suitable smaller detached bungalows as several have been on the market on her road and the next road in the 5 years since DF died (one is currently on the market). We are overrun with second homes where I am (edge of Snowdonia/ UNESCO site).

It is greed, sold as a lifestyle choice, that anyone with the money should have a right to spend it how they want, screw everyone else! There is no intergenerational social responsibility anymore.

The EPC changes due in a couple of years will completely collapse the rental market. They're asking for energy efficiency levels that the majority of UK properties simply don't, and can't realistically achieve.

I'm a landlord and I want to keep my rental property. It provides my tenants with a good home. It's a very worrying situation which has been fully created by the Government.

It's really quite scary for anyone renting.
I hope you'll find something soon OP!