How much do you pay to rent a 3 bed house?

[FeelingAtTheEndOfMyTether]

Just to make me feel better (or worse)! We are having to move (landlord selling) and will be going from paying £1300 to £1800 a month!

Bog standard, single bathroom, single reception room semi with on street parking as opposed to current property with garage, drive, en-suite and two reception rooms.

Absolutely nothing else cheaper. Any property advertised slightly cheaper is offered for more.

We are in a deprived, south eastern town with a large proportion of council housing which is now 50% privately owned.

Majority of salaries seem to be around £22-£25k.

Max housing benefit for a 3 bed is £1000 a month!

We’re not eligible for housing benefit/UC as we both work.

No holidays, new clothes, treats, or heating on and cheap beige food for us from now on so we can pay off landlord’s mortgage.

What a life.

Honestly I'd do away with BTL mortgages. Cash buyers only if someone wants to buy a property and let it out.

But then in that perfect world we'd have enough social housing to go round! Can't see a massive overhaul happening.

Some neighbours of ours are renting a 3 bed with garden for £1850. We’re in a very nice small city in the south east.

We paid £1350 a month rent for a 3 bed with garden in zone 2 inner London, near a train station, for 8 years. It was cheap when we took over the lease; by the time we left two years ago it must have been a grand a month cheaper than local market rate. Landlord didn’t so much as give it a lick of paint while we were there, but they left us alone, and responded quickly if we needed a plumber etc. We were very lucky.

Large 3 bed detached old farmhouse in a village near the coast in Yorkshire. 2 reception rooms, 2 wood burners, fairly large garden. £825 per month. Expecting a rent rise soon as they could probably get about £1100. But I always pay the rent on time and look after the house and garden.

I own two 3 bed houses that I rent out :-

1. Essex - Terraced house, new kitchen, windows, boiler. I charge £950 but the going rate is £1,250 but the tenants are great, and Id rather them than nightmare tenants.
2. London Borough - 3 beds, semi, same new stuff as above. Going rent around £1,700 but I bought it for my son and charge him £650.

The rental costs of property are appalling and I don’t plan to be part of the problem as I don't need the money.

There is only one 3-bed house available in my postcode, it's just under £3,500 per month.

It's a very non descript, average looking, house.

SW London.

Who told you that? I work as a letting agent and it's 2.5 x the rent 😂

I live in a 3 bed terrace in West Cornwall and pay £900. I have lived here for 5 years though so would be about £1200 now for the going rent!

£3,600 a month for a three/four bed.

It's a relatively expensive on the outskirts of London

We rent out my Dp house in the South Wales valleys for £400 a month. It's 3 bedrooms and on street parking and we charge £8 more than the local authority pays in housing benefit and haven't put the rent up for 6 years. And yes before people jump on, we do pay for gas checks etc. The property isn't mortgaged so we can afford to rent it out for less than the going rate which is around £600-£700.

Are you up to date with all of the LL legislation. There have been a lot of changes over recent years whilst your tenants have lived there. These new regulations are costly for the LL to comply with. Coupled with higher interest rates, and the mortgage lender higher rent coverage requirements and changes to LL interest rate taxation. You may find you are forced to increase your rents just to break even.

The rent increase may be reluctant but inevitable.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with BTL but just that the government has screwed us all.

I rent out a house and it was below market rates when my tenants moved in 4 years ago. My mortgage was £600 on a 35% LTV, so a decent position. Today, my interest rate is 8.74% and my mortgage £940. I refuse to increase the rent but it's nearly the same as my mortgage. Rents here now are £1500-£1800pcm.

Housing associations are no panacea. That poor boy died from mould poisoning if you recall and many social housing landlords are scum. Reform needs to happen across the market but the government needs to tackle house prices first and foremost. This government has done sweet FA.

What legislation is that? I'm a LL and not aware of anything that forces me to increase my rent. Obviously if the mortgage exceeds the rent then that's not ideal (and tricky if remortgaging) but otherwise I don't see anyone obligated to increase the rent.

Something needs to be done about this. People paying these sky high rents when a mortgage would be cheaper, yet nobody can save up because rent is so high.

My old house was the same. Couldn't view without guarantor or 30 x the rent.

We are looking at renting now. An average town in Cambridgeshire. 1300-1500 a month for the 2-3 bed flats. And then bills and council tax every month on top. It's not doable on a single salary and barely doable on two.

1,050 for a two bed flat. It needs some work, but great location. I'm in the south. There are four of us though, so pretty cramped. A 3 bed is about 1300 for ex council.

There is a property guy I follow on youtube who is saying asking prices are high for sales and rent, but I reality people can't afford it and young professionals are just moving back home, so rents will eventually go down, despite landlords passing on costs to tenants. It's nice they take a financial risk from buying a BTL and don't deal with their financial risk themselves and pass it onto others. Not very responsible and greedy. They should have been paying their mortgage down instead of spunking their profit and now rates have gone up they are fretting.

I would just put in an offer as you would do with a sale. I've seen some properties go on for insane prices to rent, but they have been reduced. Might be different in your area, but people can only afford what they can afford.

New fire regs from 2023, increased Right To Rent checks, EPC, Gas Cert, EICR, deposit regulations etc, on top of increased interest rates (with possible further increases) and higher costs of materials, labour, insurance and letting agent fees.

Costs associated with complying with all of these items are significantly higher now than they were 5 years ago. And the cost of not complying is £££.

Added to the anticipated changes to S21 and the abolition of fixed term tenancies, changes to frequency and size of future rent increases.

Rent is now required to cover far more than just a mortgage payment. And even if you are happy for the rent to only cover the mortgage,this doesn't meet the bank lending criteria, which will result in the bank lending less than before or you being forced to increase the rent or sell the property.

900-1000/mth for small 2.5/3 beds in an outstanding school area (I’m in the Midlands). If you want a larger 3 bed it’s 1500-1900. Average salaries around here are between 30-60k but both parents tend to work.

We are also in Cambs. I looked recently how much it would be to rent an equivalent house to ours (3 bed semi) if we moved out while having an extension done. Anything between £1300 - £1900 a month in our village. Completely unaffordable as a single parent.

You’re not being unreasonable at all, we all deserve a clean, safe home, enough food, money for bills and a bit of fun within a normal salary.

It’s shocking everyone is in this position.

Just a side note but it can also be hard to make money as a landlord. I had to move out of my London flat due to injury, so I rented it out.

I charge £1400 for a two bed flat but my mortgage is £1057, service charge £150, insurance £40, add on repairs and I was at a point where I was subsiding it from my own wages. I couldn’t afford to use a letting agent, Foxtons and Winkworth change 10% - 17% + VAT as a management fee, so it was quite a bit of work.

I always felt I wanted to rent out a decent flat in good working order with no damp, prompt repairs and decent furniture, but estate agents have told me I’m throwing money away doing this as demand for rentals is so high. That shouldn’t be the case.

The property hasn’t gone up in value much, and as the interest rate on my mortgage is pretty high, I’ve only built up £24k capital in seven years.

If you factor in the rise of the property’s value and the capital I built up, but take off the subsiding of rent, repairs, legal fees, stamp duty and new windows I put in before renting it, I made about £2k a year for quite a lot of work.

I think other, more experienced landlords will be way more on top of their costs than I was. And as a renter I always felt a little scammed so I get it.

But I would say the heart of this problem is also our badly managed economic system that has allowed mortgages to get so high.

£408 for a 3 bed 'flat'. (In a block of 4 so feels like a semi detached). All bedrooms are large doubles and we've decent size back and front gardens. SW Scotland village.

Sorry but that's not true, not in my case anyway. The rental income vs mortgage requirements don't apply to the full length of the mortgage, just when taking out a mortgage and for the initial period. If like me, you're 10+ years with the same lender, then how much you charge in rent vs the mortgage payments is irrelevant. As long as you're paying the mortgage, they don't really care.

Obviously if you're looking to remortgage it's a different matter but I'm happy with my lender.

So other than labour/materials costs, I wouldn't say that the regulations have affected much at all. Hence I'm not increasing my rent. The EPC requirements are a joke and will drive landlords out but doesn't have the same impact on everyone.

That is great re your mortgage.

Often, if you delve into the small print, there is a clause that your lending must continue to fit the bank's parameters. In times of increasing property values, and low interest rates, the banks have no need to check the fine print. At others, when interest rates are rising and the loan deals are nolonger quite as profitable for the bank, and the bank's balance sheet is looking less healthy, the banks do go back and start enforcing some of their lesser known covenants.

This became a stumbling block for some following the 2008 financial crisis.

It is lucky that you are not effected by this, but that isn't the case for all landlords.

Obviously I don't have the T's and C's for all lenders but would imagine that the government would have to review their legislation on how much you can increase the rent.

If, as you say, landlords have to follow strict rules for BTL mortgages then they'll fall foul of rent increase legislation. My mortgage has gone up silly amounts in a short space of time. I spoke with my lender and they were sympathetic about this and said they're not bothered as long as the mortgage is paid.

I'm with a major lender so can imagine there are more out there who are similarly flexible.

From Gov.uk

www.gov.uk/private-renting/rent-increases

When your landlord can increase rent

For a periodic tenancy (rolling on a week-by-week or month-by-month basis) your landlord cannot normally increase the rent more than once a year without your agreement.

For a fixed-term tenancy (running for a set period) your landlord can only increase the rent if you agree. If you do not agree, the rent can only be increased when the fixed term ends.

Out of interest I've just checked and my BTL has gone up 6 times over the last 12 months and by £200 in total. If I were constrained by lending rules, I'd be breaking the law. Also it's been impossible to write anything into a contract as no-one has foreseen the way interest rates have risen. This is fortunate as I've no intention of pricing my tenants out of their home.

£975 for a 3 bed end terrace with drive and garage in NE kent