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

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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.

I don’t really know the rental market beyond share houses pre buying.

I definitely don’t miss it but didn’t really want anything else more permanent. It allowed me to move around etc - this was o/s and here

I’m not sure what alternative there would be. I needed a place to rent, then stopped when dh and I could buy

(in hindsight buying earlier is probably better but other than that it seemed ok)

So I’ve not thought about landlords that much

I support more social housing being built too, but can't do anything about it other than vote for parties and people who agree and might actually do something. In the meantime, the landlords who do charge low rents will no doubt sell up soon as its not just that there's little profit, for many now there's none. Yes you get £x back when you sell, but unless you have a big portfolio or are wealthy anyway you can't afford to subsidise monthly payments in the interim and so we will be left with people with loads who just ramp prices up- I'm sure everyone will enjoy that.

This is the issue. The old "I worked hard" trope, as if people who can't afford to buy homes don't also work hard.

I've had awful landlords in the past. Only the one I'm renting from now, is good so I have to disagree. Many dodgy ones out there.

There needs to be more WAY more social housing. The private rental sector needs to be heavily regulated to prevent bad landlords, those that wont do repairs and if they do it's the bare minimum. My sister rented and the wooden windows rotted away. Her landlord came round and repaired it by making paper mache and stuffing it in the gap!!! Followed by sticking on that tape you get for sealing baths/showers. I couldn't believe it.

My estate has just had 12 new 3 bed houses built on it, and by built I mean squished on to the teeniest plots possible. Out of the 12 sold, 9 are back up for rent at more than my current mortgage for a 4 bed house.

These houses would be perfect for young families to own, but instead three quarters of it is BTL. Disgusting and shouldn't be allowed.

I’m a long term renter and I do agree it’s causedthis immediate rental issue.

however it’s the lack of social housing that’s caused it way back in the 80’s, 90’s and continued.
this is just trying to slow and correct it, whatever they tried to do to correct it was going to have this affect.
what would have been sensible would have been to up the social housing building a few years ago to mitigate the inevitable.

I work with someone who is a landlord. She was saying this week how amazing it was for her to get a right to buy house under Thatcher, "worked out well for ME!" she giggled.

"How can you possibly think I’m scum? I worked very hard and made many sacrifices including not having children to buy that property."

If you had sold it instead of renting it, the person that bought it and would be living there now wouldn't be making sacrifices and working hard to pay your debt, they'd be paying their own and they'd be on the property ladder, instead the tenant can just look forward to you selling it out when you see fit rendering them homeless.

weve paid out over £260,000 in rent, every penny was worked hard for

Where are the ftbs going to live while they save up their deposits?

Councils selling off their social housing have made the rental market the way it is. There's more people needing to rent than rentals. Meaning the quality plummets and price rockets.
Lots of people entitled to council houses are having to privately rent. Including myself

her doing well out of it wasn’t the issue, the council not being able to replace that house was.
they should never have been sold off without a replacement plan.

A lot of generalisation going on, yes there are awful landlords, accidental landlords, and older generations who have been positively encouraged to get a btl to top up pensions.

So very mixed bag!

I myself rent out an immaculate property, which I intended to move back into when the kids have left home.

Epc is going to or might make that difficult for me to carry on letting it out.

Fine I'll sell it. House prices might be crap, I don't know what's going to happen. Just going to have to ride it out and see.

BTL has been a major cause of house price inflation.
When prices start to visibly drop and BTL owners panic and sell up in droves, they will be a major cause of the property price slump.
Right or wrong BTL has significantly changed the UK property market.

Someone on here the other day said nobody under 25 should be eligible for benefits as they should be living at home with mum and dad!

The reason there are no places to rent is not because of a lack of kindly BTL investors

There's always been Landlords, most owned the properties they rented out.
FTBs used to save whilst living with parents.

There are good and bad landlords as there are good and bad tenants. A rental property should be 100% safe to live in and landlords should prioritise repairs as necessary. Tenants should also pay their rent in full and on time.

I believe that whilst interest rates have been so low for so long people have looked at property to provide an income for their retirement. Although interest rates in double figures in the late 80s/90s were difficult for borrowers they did provide a decent return for savers.

I partly agree.
Renters should have rights and pay a reasonable rate for a safe, maintained home.
Landlords need to be able to do that and still make some profit.
If you want a system without profit, then you need more social housing (and probably pay more tax).

😵

Oh what a terrible thing to need to do some paperwork and register yourself and use the money others are paying you to bring your asset up to a decent standard.

cost of doing business and all that, no?
should doctors/dentists/etc give up because they need to have malpractice insurance and that costs money?

ultimately though - where is social and affordable housing? Where are the 300k+ homes the Conservatives were going to build a year (3,600,000 homes in 12 years!)? Why do other countries manage to house most of their people and without tethering them to huge amounts of debts through mortgages that are impossible to pay off in a lifetime?

Also we have to remember that each generation does what it can to get a home to live in. Some of us have bought, same have rented, some young some older.

I don't think this hatred for the older generation who have bought and paid off mortgages deserve the hate they are getting. It was 30/40 years ago. Things were different you just can't compare!

My nans house in a very posh area in London was 2k back in 1950
Sold in 1987 for 75k

Do I recent her? No of course not.

There are lots of issues:

Wholesale selling off of council houses under right to buy. Started under Thatcher but not changed.

Government effectively outsourcing council house provision to developers with one side wanting as many units as possible and the other wanting to spend as little as possible.

Second homes (ie 1 family, 2+ houses for their use)

Investment in UK market by overseas buyers looking for a safe place for currency.

Overseas owners using a London flat for 2-3 weeks a year as a holiday pad

Air BnB

Population/family changes increasing the number of households needing accommodation

Huge increase in student numbers and corresponding need for more accommodation in student towns

Disincentivising landlords - this is what the thread is about and it's a part of the o stall problem but only a part.

I've seen a lot of MN people saying no one should own more than one property.... but I've never seen the answer to where all the people who need to rent are meant to live if there aren't any rental properties. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 5 situations where you may need temporary/rental accommodation rather than buying somewhere.

I know there are probably a lot of bad LL (including some local authorities) but I don't think all are out to fleece rheir tenants

I'm not a LL, or a tenant though.