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.

I think these threads contain a lot of fantasy from people that dont understand the property market

One of the biggest problems is lack of social housing, what people renting need is the ability to choose types of rental and property according to their need. Instead there is such a lack of social housing that people are becoming homeless because the private sector doesnt (or cant) offer reliable properties to people who dont have a despoit, guarantor, pets and/or children.
Private rentals are a disadvantage if you have children because you never know if you're going to be moved on.
However successive governments have not done enough to provide genuine affordable housing that people on benefits and low incomes can afford

The idea that prices are going to come down by landlords selling properties is pure fantasy. Even if prices came down by 10% in real terms, the multiples of borrowing needed for a property in large areas of /majority of the country are still unaffordable, how much do people think landlords selling up is going to drop prices by?

My parents house, just a bog standard family home, around 800k, you need an extremely high income to buy that. Lets say it dropped to 720k, is it affordable for that many? Its not in line with average incomes in that area.

My house is about 300k, it could drop to 270, still way out of reach for the average income in this area.

Not everyone can or wants to buy, the joke was that the UK was obsessed with ownership, we have comparable or less than levels of ownership than other countries now, but on this forum you would think that the stereotype is true, apparently everyone wants to buy and can buy. Large numbers of the population need to or want to rent, where are the properties for them

Rental properties already have 10s of people chasing one property, landlords are not short of custom, fewer properties means 20/30/40 people chasing one property.

And providing housing is no different to providing other basic necessities, food, water, fuel. Some of these things are subsidised by government to some degree, but owned by business. Housing isnt any different to my mind. Someone is making a profit somewhere, we have chosen a capitalist regime so thats how it is.

And I'm not a sweetheart.

I am passionate about the provision of affordable homes for families in their own communities

I'm not about to cry me a river because someone who owns a property they don't actually live in thinks they should be able to do so without contributing fairly to society through taxation.

Don't worry, I was being sarcastic.

And once again, as you have ignored what I said,

I'M NOT A LANDLORD. I DON'T OWN A HOUSE THAT I DON'T LIVE IN.

I just wondered what the link between landlords and you giving up your PGCE was.

It was a genuine question. I was genuinely interested.

Not so much a cash cow but some are struggling to break even
realistically you can get a better or same return on your capital by investing it with no hassle or risk why would you be a LL

people despise LL and think the rent you pay is pure profit where margins can be absolute minimal and a bad tenant can wipe out any profit for the next few years

So do Tescos - should they sell up?

Don't be sarcastic, it isnt a good look.

This is true as much as bad tenants being a factor. I do find it baffling that landlords expect a property to be handed back in EXACT same condition they handed it over after years with out offering any sort of refurbishment/updates in between. People aren't going to do up your property for you when they don't own it. Even if you left the property empty for years there would be some decay.

Likewise, I can't believe someone would be an arsehole and trash someone's property and purposefully not pay rent when they can afford to.

It's a transaction between two people and both parties need to compromise. Now though, as the pp has said there isn't much financial benefit to be a landlord due to interest rates, and houseprices typically start to fall when they increase, so of course landlords will sell up. Analysis has actually shown that when you factor in inflation house price don't increase much in real terms. I think people realise that it isn't that good an investment now.

@BornSandyDevotional so what is the causal link between the existence of landlords and you having to give up your PGSE studies? Maybe you were renting at the time and were given notice at a crucial time in your studies meaning you couldn't concentrate on them. Is that it?

A sensible level being lending levels, so around 3 or 4 times the household income?

So using my analogy above, my house should be worth around 180k tops, (and that is stretching it, probably around 120k tops) for people in this area to afford it on the current multiples

Do you think thats going to happen by landlords selling up?

It makes no odds to me if it does happen by the way, we're mortgage free now.

Why are you assuming that most people are renting because there aren't houses available to buy? Just because a house comes on the market to buy, even if a price reduction happens, it doesn't mean most people who rent in a position to buy it.
Could you rustle up a house deposit, stamp duty, legal and moving fees in the next couple of months if your landlord decided to sell up? I know I couldn't, or most people I know (speaking hypothetically as I own, from when I rented). It would just mean the hassle and cost of moving, and probably having to pay a higher rent to a new landlord.

Anyone who has a private or work pension that they're paying into is investing in property portfolios either in the UK or abroad.

I think the point is that someone who gave up their career due to an unwillingness to support themselves as an adult some kind of ideological aversion to paying rent would be unlikely to be modelling a positive, resilient outlook and emotionally intelligent decision-making to children.

I'm making assumptions here that the link between you giving up your PGCE and landlords is that you don’t like paying rent and moved back to somewhere you wouldn't have to.

Unfortunately, we have to make assumptions, because you're refusing to explain what to most people is a pretty incomprehensible link.

(I'm also not a landlord, by the way. Just an adult who supports myself financially through my own work)

Wow.

I wonder if tenants that do stuff like this ever think to reflect for a minute that the poor buggers cleaning up their literal shit are likely to be cleaners on low wages and NOT the LLs they probably see as the enemy. Probably not!

I expect the ones moaning that they can't make any money from their cul-de-sac fuedalism are mortgaged to the hilt.

On here, day after day, moaning about how hard life is for them.

All the while clinging to the notion that having 25% capital in a property that's owned by a mortgage provider doesn't make you a debtor as long as you rent said property out to someone who can't secure a loan the size of yours.

Makes you Lady Muck that does.

Reputable and that.

Then grumbling that it's not cost effective to exploit tenants by charging them stupid amounts to cover not just the mortgage but little Molly Gaia Maria Shazza's clarinet lessons, school fees and Juicy Couture clobber.

Call it 6th form politics if you like. But if you 'own' a house you don't live in, it's a house you don't need.

There's a really good book called Growing up in private rental.

I can't be asked to link to it.

(Maybe being a mortgage free home owner has made me fundamentally selfish).

Read it and then tell me that private landlords are providing a public service.

I'm not opposed to capitalism at all.

My longest stay in a private rental was nine years.

My children's formative years.

Super landlord. Never put the rent up.

Never fixed anything either mind.

But allowed me to save a deposit and get out of the horribly unstable situation of living in private rental with children.

We were lucky.

He needed his home back because - post COVID - his jod in America went belly-up.

He lives there now.

I know this because the elderly neighbours are still my friends.

That home was an absolute life-saver for me and mine.

That stability played an enormous role in my children's success and happiness.

But he wasn't doing me a favour.

I was paying his mortgage!

Who said landlords are doing anyone a favour. Tesco and Sainsburys arent doing anyone a favour are they?

Or that rents have to increase to cover the cost to landlords of missing rent payments and fixing damage on a percentage of rentals. If 5% of renters cost the landlord a year worth of rent, then rent prices will increase by at least 5% to cover that cost (possibly more, because the unpleasantness of worrying about it is a cost too).

It will always end up being tenants who pay for this.

Unfortunately, it's mainly the good tenants who pay for the missed rent and damage by bad tenants.

The more government policy protects bad tenants - and so increases the cost of them to landlords - the more all rent prices have to increase to pay for that.

But even bad tenants will pay some rent at some point. And that is higher due to their own behaviour.

I think all the slumlords who have been buying sight unseen knackered old terrace housing in rundown Northern towns should sell up pronto.
The new EPC C rules will cost at least a year’s profit, if not much more.

Lots of landlords try to claim they’re providing a social benefit by buying and renting out a home. They’re deluded if they think that. The reality they know what they’re doing, ie preying on the weak, but can’t even admit it to themselves.

That home was an absolute life-saver for me and mine.
That stability played an enormous role in my children's success and happiness.
But he wasn't doing me a favour.
I was paying his mortgage!

But why on earth should he do you the favour of giving you a free house to live in?
Are you his child?

It was a business relationship I presume.
Of course you needed to pay him.
Car dealers don’t give you cars for free.
Supermarkets don’t give you free food, and so on.

Lots of landlords try to claim they’re providing a social benefit by buying and renting out a home.

I don’t think they do. They may say they provide a necessary service.

Or even give you access to the capital he had put into the house for free?

@BornSandyDevotional
That 25% deposit you are so sneering about could get a return in a different way - even 4.5% in a bank if you want no risk, or a better return if you accept the same kind of risk as being a landlord.

Why on earth do you expect the landlord to give up that return on their capital? It's theirs. You're not entitled to it.

I think this is atypical.

Other side of the coin (Google is your friend):

A woman with a huge house in Cheshire fiddles the social housing system in a tiny medieval city down south

by fraudulently claiming domestic abuse.

She then sublets the property to students.

Then throws her rattle when the successful prosecution against her - in open court - gets reported in the papers.

Horrible and costly for those left to clean up the mess.

But very rare fortunately.

Preying on the weak

You sound like you have massive issues to be honest

Unfortunately the governments over the past 40 odd years have forced the social duty of providing housing into the private rental market. So while being a private landlord is a business, just like Tesco and Sainsburys, we do recognise that its a business that provides necessity (a roof over your head/food to eat)

Just like water, sanitation, fuel. I pay private businesses for all of that, its a public service but paid for privately. Its what we have as a system in this country.

That's a very stupid and ignorant statement. I'm a landlord and the rent we ask from our tenants barely covers the mortgage, insurance and taxes. We just wanted someone to live in our house and take care for it. Their rent is partly covered by the state and considering that the rent we're asking is about 65% of current asking rental prices for properties in the town where we have the house (and there's precisely 2 available rental properties there right now), I don't think I have a cash cow there, plus considering that with the time we're actually losing money on the rent, yes, we're strongly considering selling the property. Not because I'm a "poor dear with an easy cash cow" but because I need to think about financial burden for my family too. Only an extremely stupid and uninformed person can say that all landlords are greedy rich feckers, many of them have a house available for various reasons and they don't exactly benefit from it. In fact it's exactly those morons who say that that make me want to put the house on the market and walk away with the cash (that will be taxed, btw. too).

The OP mostly. And various other people on here.

I'm all for making a buck legitimately.

It's the excuses and the pitiful 'we're providing a service' nonsense that wrankles.

My son is moving shortly from one rented flat to another. It’s taken 18 months of trying to get the new one whilst he’s had to live miles away in a tiny flat with nothing in walking distance due to the intense competition to even get a viewing. He was surprised not to hear from the old landlords agent to arrange the viewing hour. He phoned to ask and the agent has said landlord is selling up so it’s going on the market the day after he moves out. Because it’s Epc rating is D and she wants it sold before a glut of them come on the market risking a price collapse of the non compliant ones! At least someone will be able to buy it to live In themselves as I can’t see a landlord wanting it to rent out if they have to potentially spend a fortune to get the epc compliant, if that’s even possible in a small block of flats where there are rules as to what a leaseholder can do, I.e. no gas in the block, not allowed to change doors or windows, no control over insulation, etc. The best someone could do would be to swap the electric convector heaters for more efficient ones or maybe a replacement more efficient electric boiler. Funny that there are 3 other flats for sale in the same small block - there are only 12 flats in total. Looks like the epc ,matter is causing landlords to sell up - good, bring it on.