Lots of Landlords are selling up!!

[PassingStranger]

Where is everyone going to live who can't afford to buy?

Alot of landlords are selling. Can't be bothered with all the hassle now.
People aren't paying rent and also trashing houses when they do and costing the owners lots of money to put things right.
On TikTok people are being told to trash houses. [Society gone downhill]

I know there are good tenants, but there are alot of bad ones. Family member works for estate agent and says there are more bad tenants than landlords.

You can trash a house and walk away. Nobody ever gets done for criminal damage on private rents.
There is no register of bad tenants legally allowed either. It's all left to the landlord to sort out at their expense.

Where is all the housing going to come from?
The government donthave enough.
People who are trashing houses and not paying rent are actually spoiling it for everyone..
Alot of lls are selling up now.

You said that.

Agree
!andlords had two choices

Increase the rent
or
sell up.
Hence the current situation.

They really won't. Not in more expensive areas anywhere. Flats maybe, but not family homes. It doesn't make financial sense.

I'm just selling a bog standard Victorian 3 bed terrace that's been rented for years. We charged our last tenant £1850, market rent about £2200. Selling for £700k.

A 2 bedroom flat in the same area can be bought for about £375k and rented for £1800.

So it makes no sense for a corporate landlord to buy the family home. Better to spend their money on lots of two bedroom flats.

Well that’s what happens when you are a landlord. The tenant is paying you for a service. It’s not like you would offer a rent rebate on the things that don’t work that should work?

Of course some people won't want to rent, but there will ALWAYS be landlords wanting to rent out houses. My point was that a fair number of people currently renting would want to buy if they could. My son is a case in point. Wasting over £1k per month rent for a tiny one bed flat. Keeps trying to buy a small flat, but getting either gazumped by landlords or the properties are being offered in preference to "known" landlords to the estate agents who know they will do a quick cash purchase rather than the potential delays/complications that may occur with a first time buyer needing their first mortgage. It's you who is naive to think that no one currently having to rent would actually prefer to buy. At the bottom end of the market, landlords have full control and first time buyers don't stand a chance.

@EdithBond

And (the tiny minority of tenants) who cause damage absolutely do get penalised. Their (often huge) deposit will be claimed, they can be subject to a money judgement for the excess and won’t be able to provide a landlord reference.

This is why I don’t get people who day tenants who trash places get nothing. They can have a financial claim against them, small claims judgement, not able to get a reference and their deposit is gone. I have never trashed a rental as it is essentially my home but also everything I have stated is quite a deterrent even if I wanted to.

But still potentially making huge capital gains when they sell. Surely you don't think they should make huge profits from the rents received AND huge capital gains without risk of actually losing a bit of money. Business and investing is ALL about risk, yet so many landlords seem to think it should be a risk free licence to print money.

Same. All the renters I know want to buy. The number who only want to rent is a tiny number and primarily people in a location temporarily. But deposits are huge and finding the spare money after rent is challenging. Which is why people who have multiple properties sound a little tone deaf whining how hard it is to people with zero properties.

There seems to be some confusion among PPs about mortgage interest and taxation. The rules still allow a 100% deduction for basic rate taxpayers (I agree the calculation is more convoluted now). Higher rate payers also get a deduction at the basic rate, so only pay tax on mortgage interest of eg 40%-20% = 20%.
It is a fundamental accountancy principle that you can’t deduct capital costs in calculating business profits, so mortgage loan repayments have never been an allowable deduction for tax purposes.

I guess I feel that providing a standard living experience where things sometimes break, and don't get fixed immediately by an emergency on-call engineer, would still be providing a pretty decent service. But still, I do always pay the extra because I'm not a dick (although I do sometimes grumble about them behind their back 🤫)

Exactly this. There will always be people who can't get a mortgage. Can't get together a deposit. Bad credit (not a judgement, I've been there). Method of employment / on benefits, won't be eligible for the loan.

And now there will be either less available rental housing OR the prices of what is available will sky rocket.

It's called the poverty trap for a reason.

Ultimately you will get an increase in the divide of those who have and those who don’t.

The institutional investors are moving in.

That's what we have now.

"On tiktok..."

a platform whose audience are primarily under 30.. and those people wonder why theu struggle to get a tenancy in the forst place.

Ignoring the stupid "advice" from tiktok for a moment, young people and those without professional reputations to protect, are always going to be bottom of the queue to be accepted as tenants.

Its not just those reasons why people are selling up. Anyone can see that the government's commitment to build millions more homes is going to devalue the current stock.

Landlords want 3 sorts of properties:

• naice landlords want naice ones in naice areas with naice tenants (also hope value goes up over time)
• shit landlords want shit ones in shit areas that they can get away with doing fuck all to maintain (and plan to eventually sell with either a full refit for profit or as is for someone else to do)
• some don't care as long as the can get a council deal where the council guarantee the rent and rectification of the property. As long as the property doesn't go down in value, they can't lose.

Noine wants young tenants.

Is this a thread you thought of 4 years ago and forgot to post or do you have some reason to think that landlords are suddenly selling up in Feb 25?

Why do you think that, there isn’t an increase in landlords selling recently, and certainly not compared to a few years ago when the accounting rules around rental income were changed

Yeah but come on, if you see the risk is increasing to become a loss, obviously you cut your losses and find an alternative investment. Landlords aren't charities.

But they are paying you to ensure they have full use of the items provided in the property at all time.

That’s part of what they pay you for.

No, purely pulled out of thin air based on my life experience which I agree may not be a good guide. Not at all official.

The government has made it very difficult to make any profit from being a landlord. At the end of the day it's a legitimate business like any other. Not sure why people think landlords are greedy for wanting to make a return on their investment, they needs to support themselves and families too. Yes of course some are rogue like any other business but the majority are just trying to make a living.

This. Housing should be someone’s home not a “living”.

Everyone should be able to rent ONE house out at whatever rent . Any more and it’s HA rents only (80% of free market). More than 5 and you take people off the housing register.

Surely they will just get transferred from private landlords with maybe one or two proper to bigger more commercial organisations. If there's demand, someone somewhere will capitalism on this.

Let’s be honest, it’s a crap situation for both landlord and tenant.
I will always be on the side of a tenant but life happened and BTL mortgage landlords had to increase their rent prices.
I can understand if someone buys a house with no mortgage and rents it out. They are not owing anyone and can survive interest rates and crashes.
BTL mortgage landlords owe a bank and it’s not the bank or landlord that suffers, it’s the tenants; because the landlord will always increase rent to cover their BTL mortgage payment increase.
I have never liked BTL but maybe I’m just old and stupid.

I think big companies will buy them up. The rents will increase. Things will probably get fixed quicker when they go wrong. But you won't have anyone to reason with when things go not according to plan. So, if you need to negotiate your rent in anyway, adjust start and end of contracts, have someone to stay etc

Tenants are meant to get references but I agree, LLs have such a bad rep in the UK that's it's almost considered social justice to trash the property.

They won't get cheaper though. For sure.

I think very few tenants 'trash' houses.

I lived in private rental for many, many years (with children) and - with a couple of exceptions - the homes were always in various states of disrepair.

I was an excellent tenant and - where repairs were not carried out - there was a silent agreement whereby we were good uncomplaining tenants and the rent didn't go up. We were also allowed pets, to redecorate and that sort of thing.

I have always had my deposit returned in full.

Most, if not all, local authorities offer landlords a cash incentive if they're willing to offer long term tenancies to families and help out with the horrific issues we - as a society - have with the lack of provision of affordable housing.

Such incentives often mean that as well as shortfalls in rent not met by benefits and initial deposits being paid directly to landlords, any repairs or maintenance are paid for by the council too.

That's on top of saving money through not having to pay agency fees, undertaking vetting and many of the other third party costs landlords can incurr.

It also gets a family out of one room in a Travelodge often.

Private landlords are not providing a service to anyone other than themselves unless they are socially minded.

If they are socially minded, a set up with the local authority is a very good way to make money and sleep easy at night.

In the current climate, only a finite number of people have the ability to purchase a home.

Private landlords are - therefore - likely to be selling to other private landlords, aren't they?

All the same people who can't afford to buy still won't be able to buy?

The ownership of second homes is a principle driver in today's cost prohibitive housing market.

Holiday rentals - for example - are an absolute scourge.

Unlicensed HMOs are scandalous and criminal.

But - with increasing mandatory licensing - rogue landlords are being driven out.

I've had some lovely landlords, genuinely. Both of whom rented their homes out for very sound reasons (one moved abroad on a contract. The other entered a new relationship and there were two homes).

In principle, I have nothing against people trying to maximise their earnings potential in this cold little life by renting out property.

But being a landlord isn't a generous social service.

It is an understandable desire to make life more comfortable for one's self. Which is fine.

Just don't dress it up as something it's not.

Tesco sells food. It isn't a food bank.

If you don't want to be a landlord anymore. Don't be a landlord.

You'll only be selling to another landlord!

If you want to be a decent landlord, look at what incentive the LA offers, treat tenants with respect and get those repairs done promptly.

Do remember, you're not a housing association.

You're just lucky to own an asset that's increasingly out of reach for young people.

And why is it the public’s job to provide a basic human right? Isn’t that job the governments? Landlords are running a business, not a charity…if there were no private landlords, private renters would be screwed and sleeping on a park bench. And I’m talking from the POV of a private renter, who’s recently managed to get on the property ladder.