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.

Actually, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Private landlords are in the minority. The changes made in recent years are pretty much driving private landlords out, which i imagine is the intention. Certainly for the Conservatives who just wanted to line the pockets of their in crowd.

The law sits on the side of the tenant now, who can stop paying and wait to be taken to court. This takes an average of 12 to 18 months. My tenant got a shock when they tried that as I pointed out to them that the mortgage isn't being paid, and so the building society will repossess the house. They have a much more efficient system at their disposal than I do. Fortunately, they moved out, but I could have been left with no house, and a bad credit rating just because of some idiot tenant.

And to the PP who thinks private landlords are raking it in, I would say that over the last 20 years I have made no money on an annual basis. The only return I will get is when I sell it, and even then it will be minimal due to capital gains tax. I had intended it to be my pension supplement, or to fund care in later years, but it won't be. Also, I am an accidental landlord, I never set out to be one, so I am probably not as tax efficient as I should be. Lastly, I have always kept the place in good condition, repaired anything that broke instantly, so much of the income has been reinvested, which I understand not all landlords do.

Financially its not really worth a 6 month tenancy for a LL.
By the time they do all the legal checks, tax return, etc etc he won't lose that much by it being empty over renting it (unless he gets a LOT of rent) and that before he looks at the risks involved.

Hopefully prices will come down so more people can afford to buy now. The buy to let market has been awful for this country as far as I'm concerned. Having less people in the market for properties will stop prices rising as quickly.

There are also those who buy flats/houses as an investment from overseas with no intention of either living there or renting it out.

With net migration north of a million a year, that isn't going to happen.

I used to be a landlord. It was a nightmare. I was renting to a couple . They both lost their jobs in the pandemic and said they couldn't afford to pay the rent. At the same time, the property had a subsidence issue that wasn't covered by the insurance which I needed about £20k to repair...... I was advised that due to that, if I tried to evict them and it went to court I would lose.

With no rent coming in and little in the way of earnings for me, there was no way I could get a mortgage or loan to do the repairs. In the end, I had to sell. The tenants walked away owing me about £10k, which I'll never get back.

So there are chains of landlords pitched at different types of renter?

Why would you want to do that ?

It's a business.

Landlords are now mostly screwed, especially amateur ones.

The death knell was the last gasp in the property market as mortgage rates went up in 22. House prices are now generally static or falling so landlords can no longer rely on capital appreciation as a bail out.

This is coupled with thousands being lost on things like cladding scandals and fleeceholds.

Amateurs should never be in this business.

in no other business are you taxed on revenue instead of profit- this means that landlords with properties in personal names can end up paying more in tax than they made (introduction of section 24 by tories in 2015), this made landlords convert properties to airbnbs as section 24 didn’t apply to these. Thats now being repealed in April and they’ll be treated the same as BTL’s for tax purposes so you’ll see some airbnbs disappear either become BTL’s again or be sold.
There are more rights for tenants than landlords, houses get trashed & it takes many months to get them out. Councils actively tell tenants not to leave until bailiffs come cos they have no housing to put them into. There are no consequences for tenants when they trash houses & don’t pay rent. Then the govt are going to make LL’s spend a fortune getting their houses up to an EPC rating C which costs thousands often for very little savings in energy for the tenant, yet this same legislation won’t apply to council houses & the state of some of those are disgusting. Govt are giving even more rights to tenants in the Renters Reform Bill meaning it’ll be even harder to evict tenants. Interest rates have gone up. The margins were already tight, now it’s hardly worth it. This is the govt making policy that is good for headlines but has unintended consequences. It’s only going to get worse. Why have a BTL when you can stick it in the S&P500 and make better returns without the hassle. Landlord bashing needs to stop & protections put in place to protect landlords as well as tenants. It’s gone too far the other way.

There’s a lot of shit landlords though to be fair. I spent my twenties in a damp knackered overpriced house. Now I’m a homeowner and never going back to renting. The government should allow more housing associations and community interest companies to buy housing for those most in need of somewhere to live who can’t afford to buy. Yes there are those who need to short term rent but that’s another problem for another day. And maybe wages should match rent costs?

Priced ARE coming down, at least where we are in London.

Lots of BTL flats put up for auctions with very low starting price so looks like urgent sales.

Hopefully the homes will be sold at an affordable price by couples families young people retirees etc to actually live in , as they always should have been

It's such a surprise isn't it? It would have been really handy if people who were landlords had told the government that if they lowered the amount of profit their business could make, and lowered the rights they had over the property their own, and gave them rules such as you must allow pets but you can't take a higher deposit, that they would let the government know that they would get rid of their properties...oh, hang on a minute, they did! The government didn't listen, they haven't found extra council houses or helped expand housing associations, so people are going to be homeless or in financial ruin as the ones left are going to increase in price. LOTS of people.

Those saying well it will mean more properties to buy, prices will lower- it doesn't work like that. Landlords selling properties does not mean that tenants will magically find a 10% deposit in their pocket to buy it, or have the good credit to get a mortgage. Even if houses drop 5-10%- for a £100k house, they would need to go from finding 10k deposit to 9k, plus fees, plus stamp duty. Its just not feasible for large portions of the population.

Maybe another landlord will buy it, but they will put the prices up massively to make it worth the financial risk

Housing isn't a Human Right.

Human Rights require inaction from others - e.g. don't torture me, don't jail me for the things I say, etc.

You can't have a Human Right that requires actions from others - e.g. 'food is a human right' requires farmers to grow the food and others to distribute it. Should they work for free?

Saying that housing is a Human Right requires somebody to have built a house and maintain a house for their benefit. That requires work and needs to be paid for - unless you think those people should be enslaved, which would be a massive abuse of their Human Rights.

Yes, let’s hope it brings the price of houses down so your average Joe can actually afford to buy one.

Landlords are making money from people, let’s not pretend they are doing a public service. Let them sell up

Yes I’m selling my rental property right now. Never made any money monthly but it was an investment for my kids in the future. Unfortunately the last tenant had to be evicted - caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to the house and we could only retain his £550 deposit. We have paid for it to be fully repaired/repainted/recarpetted again and it’s on the market now.

A million dwellings in England and Wales were unoccupied at the last census, perhaps we could start with those?

These threads just bring out the same response over and over again- good, then prices will drop and then more can buy.
If there is a market crash because of too many properties (which there won't be to any large extent), then it's not just the landlords houses that reduce in price. Its YOUR house that reduces in value too, and your children's. Those first time buyers kids of yours who have just stretched themselves with a 5 or 10% deposit? That's negative equity happening to them if prices drop more than small fluctuations. Look at the bigger picture.

There is never a good economic reason to rent in the UK. There is no economic model in which landlords are a good idea. For doing nothing but owning property, they make money. Economically, it is a terrible system. I am glad people are selling properties.

Funny, I would have thought higher rates of private home ownership a good thing. But apparently not.

Wouldn't it be lovely if the poor landlords, concerned with the provision of homes for people and nothing else decided to do the right thing and sell their homes to the council for a smaller profit 😭

It’s actually getting harder for people to move from rental to home ownership due to the extra taxes and regulations increasing costs for landlords, which just mean they ramp up their rents, which means renters cannot save for a deposit. Taxing landlords makes it harder for people to buy. I have no skin in this particular game, I just find the economics of the situation interesting.

The only first time buyers who are helped by these policies are those who have a bank of mum and dad to pay the deposit, or who can live with parents to save for a deposit.

How much of a reduction in the value of your own home are you willing to take? As if your landlord neighbour sells up at a bargain price, and those in your neighbourhood, your house value reduces by the same %. Are you happy you're now in negative equity?

I think on mumsnet people see tenants through rose tinted glasses. The law now is ridiculously skewed in their favour to the point being a landlord is no longer worth it.

I say this as someone who rented for ages and will likely never own a rental property. There are far, far more bad tenants than bad landlords. It would have been easier to fix the bad landlord issue by investing in a mandatory national inspection scheme, rather than removing the very essential no fault eviction option imo.