to think those who demonised BTL landlords are (partially) responsible for rental crisis

[LargeDeviation]

Many small landlords are selling because:

• mortgate interest is now only partially deductible for tax
• S21 evictions are being stopped, meaning it will be impossible to kick out bad tenants; the courts are too backed up to actually enforce any evictions even when it's allowed anyway
• Onerous EPC rules coming in which will cost huge sums to rectify
• More and more registers, inspections and paperwork

At the same time, landlords have spent the last few years being jeered as being unethical - and many MNers haven't been shy to raise their voices about that.

The tiny minority of renters fortunate enough to be able to afford a deposit and mortgage might be happy; they will have a bit more choice and a slightly lower price. For other renters they are having real problems.

Shelter and other housing charities should be campaigning for more landlord friendly policies such as easier tenant evictions and restoring full mortgage interest deductions for tax if they want to improve housing availability on a large scale, but they won't because PR-wise it will be a nightmare as their changes will be seen to disadvantage individual tenants.

Yes, there are other factors too - large scale immigration; planning system broken; not enough housebuilding; more singletons/split families and fewer intergenerational families - but landlords selling up because of government policies and societal ostracism is a major cause.

I am not a landlord but have been in the past - there is no way I would become a new landlord in the current environment.

Those who called landlords rent-seeking scum or similar should feel ashamed.

Landlords are not doing anyone a favour and they are certainly not socially responsible altruists except in their imaginations. Can you imagine if a group of very rich people bought up all the food from a supermarket and then sold it back to poor customers at a 300% increase and then told them "we're helping to ease the starvation crisis by giving customers the opportunity to buy a scarce resource because if we didn't sell it to them they'd have no food at all".

Landlords are not doing anyone a favour and they are certainly not socially responsible altruists except in their imaginations

Literally no-one is claiming this at all so not sure where this comes from, except perhaps in your imagination?

I'm doing it to safeguard my future and that of my kids.

Can you imagine if a group of very rich people bought up all the food from a supermarket and then sold it back to poor customers at a 300% increase and then told them "we're helping to ease the starvation crisis by giving customers the opportunity to buy a scarce resource because if we didn't sell it to them they'd have no food at all".

so literally that is what the supermarkets do.

We need lots of good quality social housing. If plentiful quality social housing existed at affordable rates the chances for a landlord to charge extortionate rates for a damp hovel would be zero. The problem is the government encouraging landlords to sell up without alternative housing available this punishing renters. With 30 odd people going for each rental landlords selling up is not the solution to the housing crisis.

I wonder how many properties could be built for 65 billion?

We need a huge program of building social homes available to all that want to rent not only complex homeless creating ghettos.

We need to end (empty) second home ownership and air b&b/holiday lets should require planning which should not be granted for ordinary residential properties or where local residents can't be housed.

We had a huge program of house building after the war and we could do it again. Pre fabs were valued homes. Time and time I have seen home solutions of modular housing on the tele but it never gets off the ground.

Many town centres are dead in terms of shoos with 50% shops empty. Lots of brownfield opportunity there.

Landlords will then have to compete on price or quality to get tenants e.g. offering a luxury alternative to social housing for better off people.

@Winter2020

Government should either tax second homes hugely or build more homes. Preferably both.

Government exists on behalf of us to make sure our needs are adequately provided for, either socially or through regulation of the private sector : education, defence, housing, food, health etc.

If it doesn't do that, what's the point of it ?

@Winter2020 but this was a deliberate chosen policy voted for by the people of the UK and most of them genuinely don’t see the problem with it because it doesn’t affect them.

You have to remember the by to let boomers children probably still got on the property ladder in the early 2000s so their kids are okay, they are okay, The grandchildren are a long way off this problem, why on earth would they change a thing ?

@GasPanic what’s the point of them ? well we’ve all been asking that question for a while now, two years at least.

I’m renting my one property out to safeguard my child’s future too. No one else will do it and god knows of well even have pensions or an nhs left when they’re older. Yes it’s a business but so is everything. I don’t feel bad I have a great property that is newly refurbished and newly furnished with rent that only just covers my mortgage. My tenant is happy and doesn’t want to but prefers to rent. Sod what anything thinks… most people on MN who get aggressive and irate with others in this position are just jealous. I had no help and made good decisions so why would I feel bad or like scum because I’m looking after mine and my child’s future. Not a chance sorry!

Isn't that what happens anyway?

Don't supermarkets/shops that are owned by rich people buy food from farmers/wholesalers/manufacturers, and sell it to their customers, albeit not 300%...

Decent affordable Housing is at the root of so many issues in the UK, not exclusively but particularly in the southern half of the country. It also causes many couples and families who should be fine to often spend up to 50% of their income just on being housed - whilst paying someone else's mortgage.

There has been a big increase in shared ownership which I agree with but it's all centred on 1 and 2 bed flats mainly- there need to be far more 2 bed and above houses in areas of demand . It would also help if they brought back DIYSO- which was shared ownership but on the open market- not just new build- there are some private organisations doing this but it's all a bit unregulated, a bit of a risk for many - bring it in under HA control with very defined terms. More of this kind of thing would mean that plenty of couples and families wouldn't need to private let and have more security .

Lastly they totally need to get rid of right to buy- that is one of the biggest reasons there is a problem in many areas-

Not all landlords are arseholes but many at the cheaper end of the market are- not all
We rent a nice house in a posh area which costs us an arm and a leg- we could actually afford a huge mortgage but by the point we were in that position were too old to get a big mortgage over a much shortened period. So will save and probably do a part buy at some point with no mortgage element- just rent- for the security aspect. Our current landlord is lovely- just a middle class couple who moved elsewhere, but kept the house . It's beautifully maintained too. We don't have a pet purely for the fact it's a pain when you need to move- we do however use 'borrow my doggy' !!

These are all choices though, could we have afforded to buy an average semi in a cheap area at some point-? Probably yes, but we chose not to do so and therefore we accept there are some things we have to factor in and that includes probably not having a pet or redecorating etc- hence we only rent somewhere nice to start with but I do accept we are lucky to be in that position.

I'm a landlord, not accidental but everytime I moved I kept the property and rented it out, as an investment and with an eye to the future.

Ive managed property myself as fed up with agents Ive dealt with and am very responsive to tenants.

I haven't raised rents this year in consideration of cost of living increase. I'm not in this for altruistic reasons but I'm not trying to hammer tenants either (was a tenant once and was treated very badly).

There’s choices within that, not one supermarket, or shop own it all in one area, you don’t get priced out of a supermarket when that one puts their prices up.
your child’s schooling and friend group isn’t depending on being asked to pay 40% more next month in chicken.

and that’s the crux of it. For a landlord it’s a business, like costa, tesco, the corner shop. For the tenant. It’s home. It’s where their kids wake up, bring their friends home to, where they go to school from.

Beezknees - if you and your partner, or anyone indeed, both work full time, and choose to save £40,000 over some years (to the exclusion of nice holidays/cars/lifestyle etc) you would have a deposit for a second property, an investment for your future and for your children. That's what I chose to do. You are welcome to make your own choices - flying around the world, paying for private schools or having a gorgeous new kitchen... These are choices we make. I provide a lovely home for someone who needs it and loves it.

I was very happy to share up to my mid twenties. An en suite would have been lovely...
Young people now should have these options - nice room in a HMO while working full time and saving money, or renting independently (my son has a public sector graduate entry level job in a major city and spends just over half his income on his one bedroom flat), or other rental options, whether they ultimately wish to buy, or not.

I'm also a kind and supportive landlord. I can't imagine how some of my tenants might manage in the wide world without the flexibility and compassion I provide.
I will never have any inheritance or super pension. We have never been high earners, but we are good savers. We really wanted to make sure that by living in a small property when our children left home we could invest in BTL and have the chance to help our children when they come to need a home.
Those who have wealthy parents or fantastic jobs/pensions might not need to consider such a commitment to financing over decades and managing the smooth home provision for people.
Some people might well have a different plan for that magical big deposit to help their children onto the housing ladder - or indeed have no intention of assisting their kids at all - this was my preferred option and benefits several tenants who would struggle without us.

There was a heart warming caller on the radio who had built/mew’d up a interest only property empire and retired at 50 to live off his tenants endeavors.
Roll forward nearly 10 years, and he’s underwater, has to get a job at 60 as the rent doesn’t cover the outgoings, income tax, bad tenants, maintenance and he doesn’t have the money to pay the CGT to sell the under performing ones. He didn’t incorporate and now can’t afford to. Game over.

There were other callers who had made their BTLs work and did manage retire early.

More fool him for going entirely interest only. If he'd had the sense to use some of the income to repay capital, he'd be fine. Likewise, if he'd invested some of the rental income in pensions, he'd have an income to live on.

He must have been massively over-leveraged, too. Unless his properties are in a part of the country where rents are incredibly low, I can't see how his rental income can have failed to meet costs all through the years of low interest rates, even with the premium charged for BTL mortgages.

CGT is 28%, and given the rise in property prices in recent years, I'm astonished he can't get enough from selling to cover it, and if he was stupid enough to remortgage time and time again to raise the deposit for another addition to his "empire", he only has himself to blame. Any fool could see that the rise in property values couldn't go on indefinitely.

He's clearly made some very unwise business decisions and now he's paying the price. More bluntly, he's been a greedy idiot.

And having to get a job at 60 is not unusual. Loads of people have to do it. State pension age is 66, and rising. I'm semi-retired, still working at 67, partly because I love my job, and partly because it gives me additional income.

Why is that heart warming?

Major problem with by to let is tenants can be asked to leave at any point so can't invest in their home or community and schooling disrupted. Now the system is not affordable for tenants or landlords. Let's leave everything to the market.... oh dear

The only landlords who don't cash out on sale are the ones who remortgage constantly to buy more. Guess what would happen if he sold all of them? He would cash out net big time. That money doesn't disappear unless there is a big crash. We haven't seen a crash. Just a dip so far

Parasite going bust.

No idea how he failed so spectacularly. But if he didn’t incorporate then he’s paying tax on the income, not the profit. That won’t help.

@C4tastrophe Did they say what would happen to the tenants? I agree he has made very bad business decisions by over-leveraging and not forming a Ltd company if he has a large number of properties.

However, I suspect as sad as his story is, his tenants will be even more worse off.

Landlords are selling up like crazy because of a combination of high mortgage interest rates/rent controls in some places/forthcoming scrapping of section 21/incoming EPC requirements/the general anti-landlord consensus. If they have not been stupid about their business, they won't lose much. The tenants who have to find somewhere new to rent have far more to lose - especially if they have been housesharing. Very few of them will be able to afford to buy, and the supply of rental properties is shrinking constantly.