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.

I am a LL with 8 btl houses. In May one of my 3 bedroom houses because vacant. I took opportunity to get house repainted as so hard with tenants Insitu. I had a deep clean and upgraded cooker hood as a bit noisy. Notified letting agent. I had 23 applications within 3 days. I had to tell agent to put it on pause. Honestly I would have been happy with 17 of them who all past credit checks and had reference from previous LL. In the end I let to a couple with a child with SN and 2 dogs simply because I have 2 dogs and a child with SN so felt empathy towards them. ATM LL rights are being eroded rapidly. As another poster stated if tenants refuse to pay rent and trash property it is still be to y hard to get them evicted because of the court backlog. Now new EPC legislation coming in means houses must have an EPC of C. 5 of my houses now are C rated but 3 are Victorian terraces with no cavity walls. So no cavity wall insulation instead you have to do either internal or external insulation which will cost between £15-20k per house. Tenants will save up to £300 per year. These houses have a high D rating. These houses as ll have young families with either 2 or 3 children in. When legislation comes in I will sell them as not viable to upgrade. Not sure how families will find another similar property as I tend to rent at less than full market value in order to get my pick of tenants. Government will find they are creating a huge housing crisis as many btl LL are selling one property each year. Less property to rent drives up rental prices.

Wondering what our landlord is going to do to be honest.
Tighter than a gnats chuff. Rather than replacing worn (dangerous) stair carpet, just paid for the bottom 2 steps to be done in a different colour.
There is absolutely no way on earth the flat will pass the EPC rating change as it's a victorian building with no double glazing (bizarrely toasty and no damp, which is weird considering)
I doubt she will want us out, as a long term tenant is going to be more valuable than short term once EPC kicks off properly.
Your move tightwad!

I am a landlord, and I also currently help manage some properties for my friend.

It must be awful for people looking for property. I almost dread having to advertise recently as some people are so clearly desperate. I have had families almost pleading to rent a room in a small HMO, which would be entirely unsuitable for them, and the other existing tenants.

The last time I had a family sized flat people were offering way above the advertised rent, especially people who would have struggled to meet normal affordability multiples.

We offered viewings to the first 12 people who enquired, rejected the offers of up front payments before viewing ( some people will very sadly fall prey to one of the many scams ), offered it to what seemed like the best candidate, at the advertised price, and sent texts to the others to let them know that the property was no longer available.

We were getting calls all day and messages into the early hours of the morning.

My friend and I don’t have many properties, but our future plans are to sell rather than re let if one becomes vacant due to a tenant giving notice to quit, which TBH rarely happens as we normally keep to the same rent throughout the tenancy. Good, reliable tenants are worth keeping.

I don’t know the answer to the problem. Maybe the changes in interest rates will dampen the housing market and allow more first time buyers to get on the property ladder, although historically demand for the rental market is quite strong when house prices are falling as people wait for the market to ‘bottom out’

I do feel we need more/ better allocation of social housing. Families with children shouldn’t be forced to look for rooms in HMO’s.

I'm a landlord and am trying to avoid evicting my impecably behaved tenants, as they have a young child and another on the way. I need to talk to a mortgage advisor and see if the significant change in LTV will get me on to a better base rate, but I'm not holding out much hope.

If I have to start improving energy effiecincy at my expense it will definetly be going on the market, fortunately it has had solar panels and a gas combi bolier fitted for free on a government scheme in the last few years, but does have the orginal sash bay window in place, which will be thousands to replace (the rest is all uPVC double glazed).

I would love to just sell it, similar houses are selling fast, but I feel like a bad person if I evict a pregnant tenant. I'm clearly not an evil enough LL!!

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
How? They're won't be many buying to let, so the problem will remain, demand outweigh supply and rent will remain high.

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
If it's greed and such a great way to make easy money, why are so many selling and there is a crisis of supply? Oh wait, because it's nowhere near remunerative as renters think it is.

DD is looking for a room/flat share. A colleague told me her daughter had just listed a room on MySpareRoom - I said "Quick, text her" Anyway it wasn't going to suit DD due to be too far away from her work, but friend's daughter is overwhelmed with over 2000 applications.

What do you mean how? Obviously if landlords can't sell they're likely to carry on renting them out.

Any house price drop will encourage cash buyers (i.e. landlords, particularly the large business variety)

I was talking about the greed of second home ownership (as in a house in the city and a country pile) and under occupancy of large family homes, not responsible landlords, using property to diversify their investments and provide a livable home to a family not in a position to buy.

Last time we were looking to rent Spareroom also covered entire properties for rent.

This has been coming for years. The government has wanted to be seen to be tough on landlords (although their changes have mostly targeted small time, non-incorporated landlords). They have overcorrected now and caused a firestorm. Why would you let out a property now when:

• Tax changes mean you are paying tax on revenue rather than profit and stamp duty on purchase is exorbitant;
• EPC restrictions will soon mean your rental properties must be EPC C or higher (or landlords must spend a minimum of £10,000 to improve the EPC);
• s21 has been abolished, which massively increases risk if you get problem tenants;
• Interest rates are rapidly rising (not directly gov induced, but they’ve contributed to recent rise in fixed rates).

I feel so sorry for the OP and others caught up in this because it was largely avoidable if the government had any common sense. Balance is important.

Have you tried openrent. I’ve been viewing properties via them for my dd and found them good. We got a room for her via other means but could potentially have had two flats that way (I got good vibes from the landlords) but yes completely agree it is mayhem out there at moment. Mass viewings normal and offers over all the time.
openrent you tend to meet the landlord at viewing rather than uninterested agents that play all the prospective tenants off each other

And I agree it’s because of lots of smaller landlords leaving the sector as it’s no longer worth it

I'm in Scotland and my understanding is that you only need to spend 2k a year on EPC improvements (even if that doesn't get it to a C) - at least it was that.

Worth looking in to.

yes, same story on there sadly :-(

This. All businesses are allowed to do it apart from private landlords.

*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.*

This is so true,
I have been selling one a year as they have become unviable and had l not sold l would be in debt as the fixed rate mortgages came to an end, alongside the EPC nightmare and ludicrous tax situation.
I was a fair LL who always fixed all issues immediately regardless of cost or inconvenience, and kept rents static for good tenants for years...there are thousands like me who looked after our properties and respected our tenants who just couldn't keep going. Hence now a massive shortage of housing.

The stupidity of successive Governments is astounding, at each stage they were warned by the Residential Landlords Association the proposals would hurt tenants severely by shortage of supply and rising rents...

I work for a private rental company and we have a huge waiting list and as soon as word gets out that a house is becoming vacant we get so many phone calls. We haven’t advertised any properties in years anyway, but now we sometimes get the calls before the tenant has even officially told us they’re moving!

The potential EPC regulations (am in Scotland) are my current major headache, and I definitely wouldn’t advise anyone to go into this sector at the moment.

Completely true. Know of the same happening to a friend who had to move on to look after her gran. Rented her flat out to do this so not a rich landlord making any profit( rent just about covered her mortgage) and tenant stopped paying. Trashed the place. Tried to make out my friend was some awful heartless person. Friend is caring for her dying gran and going through huge amount of stress. Been ongoing for ages and still can’t get tenant out! Tenants have ALL the rights it’s completely ridiculous it takes so long to get them out in these situations and completely destroys hard working peoples lives in the process!

I agree with @IndigoC and @fyn.
Being a landlord is now loss making. There is no financial profit - through either rental income or capital gains to be made. I expect the situation will continue to get much much worse in the coming years.

bit insensitive those saying carefull what you wish for , you do realise you're talking directly to people on this thread who have/are facing homelessness? I've never wished for anything other than a roof over my family's heads.

Just looked at rightmove renting page, within a 5 mile radius of my BTL there are 7 properties to let (and 4 let agreed), all but 2 very rough looking locations/tiny properties are advertised for vastly more than I am currently charging my tenants. If I do go down the route of giving notice so that I can sell, then there is nowhere for my tenants to go. What a mess!

had same experience in June/July, still think it’s a miracle we actually found a place and were able to move. Made worse as we have pets.
last time I had looked was 2016 so was completely shocked this time around

It's like this everywhere, my daughter put a deposit on a flat in Manchester without viewing it first as this was the only way to find somewhere to live as they all seem to get rented out within 10 minutes.

A lot of people from where I live sold their houses at inflated prices then moved into rented,hardly anything for rent anymore.

Oh shit, sorry to hear that 😥I applied to the council but waiting list is something like 20 years so assuming that's not going to be an actual option. It's particularly galling when local people already in social housing just blithely say 'oh call up the council, they'll help', or seeing the often lovely properties going up for swap locally! Don't begrudge people their homes in the slightest of course, but can't help but feel a bit sad/jealous.