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.

If all these landlords are selling up, the government should be spending some of its money tree money buying up houses surely? It’d then be holding a valuable asset and can rent them out “tax free”. At £250k per home, it would only cost £100bn to buy 400,000 homes and resolve the crisis.

I work for a homeless Charity in Wales.
It is a chronic shortage of properties, lack of availability in the social housing sector therefore applicants are forced to rent privately pushing up rents and demand.Also the new laws coming in December for private landlords ( postponed from the summer) meaning landlords are getting out of renting so selling their properties and combined with the general price rise of properties means it's a good time for them to sell.
I have 4 clients who have been given a section 21 ( no fault eviction) and friends of ours are also in the same boat.
I've never known such an unstable time for housing.
For example, a council flat in an bad area that no-one would accept now has well over 100 people on the waiting list.

but we're very taken aback by people offering more than the advertised rent

Which you declined to accept of course.

It took us almost 4 months to find a home, we were facing temporary accommodation which could have meant being put in a hotel/bnb, etc anywhere in the country, not ideal with disabled children.
We only viewed 4 properties and only one offered to us which we accepted.
Landlords are either selling or converting to airbnbs and those still renting can be as picky as the want to as so many people need homes.
Thousands of families are being made homeless, stuck in unsuitable accommodation because they’ve been priced out of the rental market due to the insane rises and there’s not enough social housing, our country is falling to pieces.

Oh goodness, glad you found somewhere eventually, I've faith our landlord won't just chuck us out as soon as they can once our notice is up but equally don't want to be in a position of having to go through the courts and facing actual eviction and temporary (how 'temporary'?!) housing. We've got a few properties lined up to view but none of the agents seem to be able to get access which is another issue - one today said they've had 200+ people interested in each of the ones they've put up this week and they can't keep up. Crazy.

Take your pick....

Government making bring a private landlord very difficult and unprofitable.
Previous governments selling off social housing stock.
Insufficient housing stock whether renting or buying.

I know Mumsnet is really anti-private landlord and pro the measures put in making it unprofitable, but it's created a real shortage of decent rentable properties (and not made buying easier and cheaper).

So sorry to hear this; I think I must be one of the many home owners who would love to let their house ( have a mid terraced 2/3 bed in south east 50 min commute to London) which will be empty from December this year. Would love to rent it furnished for 6 months as am away abroad until June....it is just so so expensive to do so with so much red tape/cost/insurances/landlord tax - that I have no heart for it. Equally leaving it empty is a worry, though great neighbours....Id be happy for a dog as well....which I gather is not always easy. Someone told me to Airbnb it on a longer term let....but just not sure how that works. I do know a few people having a lot of trouble actually finding a place (in London area) and it is just yet another stress for everyone. Hope you find something soon OP

We might have a similar situation soon and also decided against renting short term. It's just not worth it and the risk at that point

We viewed a house along with five other would-be tenants. The letting agent got back to us to ask if we would be interested in paying an extra £50 per month above the advertised rent.

Nope.

So, basically prospective tenants were being encouraged to pretty much bid against each other. Who wins ? The Landlord and letting agent of course.

DS had to move to Leeds for work. It took months to find anywhere. He ended up having to move back home as his existing tenancy was up. We live 90 minutes from Leeds and it was a nightmare trying to view anything. Several times viewings were cancelled at short notice after he had taken time off work and bought train tickets.

In a 3 mile radius from where I live, there are currently 773 min2 bed properties for sale.

There are 150 to rent.

Same area, 96 to rent.

Prices have shot up at least £200 a month from when we moved here 2 years ago.

We know our LL will request another rent increase in Jan and we will have no option but to swallow it.

To clarify. 150 to rent

96 are below £2K a month.

It might be in one of the more sought after areas of Leeds?

My friend currently has a spare room listed, quite reasonably priced, in Leeds with no takers. Shared house with mix of students and full time employed people. There's a lot of availability for shared houses/rooms that I've seen, if that would be any good.

I think there's a problem particularly with family homes, though.

I am an agent. My whole team are nothing short of exhausted at the level of what we are dealing with at the moment…. Hundreds of enquiries for every property and we are just having to ask people to enquire online so that we can work from the bottom to the top of the equities inbox in the order they come in to make sure we get back to everyone, have the correct details for them all to respond to them and make sure we do respond to everyone. 20 years + I have done this and I have NEVER known it so bad…. in order to have time to keep on top of enquiries we have to black book viewings, so, sadly, you do have to be flexible at the moment as there are only so many hours in a day and the budget doesn’t stretch far enough for more staff given landlords are selling.

That’s before you even get into the rudeness and level of entitlement that has reached levels beyond what we’re ever believed possible! Burn out in this industry was big due to the pressure before COVID, now, well, we have to become cynical beings with skin like rhino hide just to survive mentally, there is a reason why recruiting into this industry is difficult right now (had two leave this year due to having had enough of people and their attitudes and lucky to have found replacements).

It’s government and Shelter (who provide no real Shelter) and they’re lobbying that causing these issues. Government hide behind LLs allowing Shelter to say that they cause the housing crisis by buying up property and evicting tenants, but that’s simply not true. Landlords don’t evict good tenants unless it’s uneconomical for them to carry on letting property and property prices are driven up by the lack of housing supply and lack of social housing to meet demand, which is what government are responsible for. I always love it when I read ‘well if LLs didn’t exist there would be more homes for people to buy’, I mean what do you then think happens to the tenants that were in that house? And more LLs are selling than ever… there is still an under supply… go figure!

On top of that it is becoming less economically savvy for landlords to offer rental properties with tax changes and interest rates, it’s harder for them, takes longer and is more costly to evict terrible tenants and there is more and more legislation on the horizon that will only make the situation worse and more costly for them again, therefore it simply not worth it. We are heading back to the 1950’s and a full repeat of the process government learned nothing!

Back in the 1950’s there were Rent Act tenancies, when those laws came into play it decimated the rental market, we are heading back to the same laws now and look, history repeats itself and nothing was learned!

I would love it if all tenants paid on time, kept houses and their gardens neat and tidy and left things in good shape at the end of the tenancy, sounds simple doesn’t it? But it’s never going to happen all the time… at the moment our favourite are the ones that just stop paying to get on the council waiting list, not realising that the council will consider this them making themselves intentionally homeless and will just shove them
in a hostel… currently on our third in as many months and our agency isn’t huge! So back to
court we go and nobody wins in
this situation as the tenant also ends up with a nice Court Judgement against them for costs on top of rent owed (council doesn’t tell them that).

so, yes, come work with us for a week… be abused, belittled, threatened and battle a week in our shoes and then tell me if you think it’s worth it to earn what we do… Because I am beginning to wonder just as much as my landlords are!

Houses mear me start at 10k at auctions. Haven't seen that for YEARS.

Yes, they will go for more, bit I would say 60k max for these.
What's proper shedding are student rooms/studios. 5k is starting for one here!

He was looking for a flat rather than a share. To be fair house shares might be easier. He works from home most of the time and had found sharing made that difficult. He eventually found a nice place on the outskirts of the city.

Thank you for sharing your experience - obviously I've spoken to a few agents recently and have heard similar re demand/not being able to keep up. I have sympathy for anyone working as an agent right now, I wouldn't want to be dealing with this and the desperation of people just trying to find a home to live in with everything stacked against them.

Sadly I have an apartment sitting empty in Z4 East London, but to be able to rent it out I'd have to pay upwards of £1000 to the local council for a "landlord licencse" and several hundred for all the certificates. The government's consistent vilification of LLs tax wise and the rights of tenants to stay and not pay. So another home in London sitting empty for all but 14 days a year due to a change in circumstances

A friend and her husband are in a similar position. Gave the husbands lodger a six month lease so he could find somewhere new to live when they got married and bought a new house together.
Tenant stopped paying rent 3 months in, around the start of the pandemic citing depression. He’s been fully paid by his employer and WFH throughout. They are still trying to evict him and have had to cover the mortgage since early 2020. The husband lost his job at the start of the pandemic and it’s crippled them financially. They will sell it as soon as they get it back.

Agree that it’s not just London- happening where we are too, commuted distance from two cities other side of the U.K. A universal 30 miles away ran out of accommodation and took lots from here for their students when we’re not geared up for it but mostly it’s people leaving one of those cities due to a mix of pricing and people choosing to put their properties up for air b’n’b instead. We cross U.K. country borders with different tenancy laws so it is not just landlords being forced to sell (I’ve been a landlord with an awful family who ripped out a kitchen but I’ve seen just as many awful landlords as tenants). The influx from elsewhere means even with a lot of new landlords the market cannot keep up.

Buyers are in same boat- friend’s mortgage offer just about to expire as estate agents were just passing houses to their BTL customers and the only way she could viewings at all was to knock on doors if houses with signs up, and by the time the agents had answered her trying to make offers they’d already offered to people who never even viewed: only property she did get anywhere with turned out to need the same cost again in work.