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.

Do I get my energy levels and my waistline back too? If so, I'm in!

There is certainly a good market for private student residences.

Being a landlord is not the same as other businesses.
Being a landlord is an investment activity.
With investment activities (for example investing in stocks and shares) if you borrow money to put into your investments you are not able to offset the costs of borrowing against the capital gains tax that is due.

The ma & pa Investors were amateurs who had no idea what they were doing and had no business getting into the investment activity in which they were involved.
In other words they were useful idiots for the government, and now these useful idiots have been set up to take the hit when the housing bubble goes pop.

Just because you have kept your price down for a good tennant it doesn't mean that other small landlords are doing the same thing and that this results in lower prices though.

Not CGT. The point is that finance costs cannot be set against rental income and so some private landlords are paying income tax calculated on much larger “profits” than they have actually received.

If their focus was capital value, they wouldn't be pulling out.

Your reference to changing a light bulb reminded me of a tenant who phoned to say their new fridge wouldn’t close.
The property was over a hours drive from me so I first asked if they’d taken everything out of the fridge to ensure the shelves are fully pushed back.
She told me she had so I got in the car, drive to the property, emptied the fridge pushed the shelves back and closed the fridge door. !

Then they should not have gotten into it in the first place because they have misunderstood the nature of the activity.
The whole idea of buy to let mortgages is wrong.
The government has misled people in order to try and fix the problem that it caused by giving people the right to buy their council homes and then not replacing them.

No of course it doesn't mean that all small landlords will behave in the same way - but you can be pretty sure that it will factor into the calculations of a large proportion of them - because it makes business sense from a small landlords' perspective. From a small landlords' point of view a price can certainly be put on the mitigation of risk and removal of the hassle factor. The hassle caused by bad tenants shouldn't be underestimated.

I think the requirement to reach EPC C is a huge problem with so much of the UK housing stock being single skim period properties.

In London and the SE it may be cost effective to spend the 15k limit per property, but in many cheaper areas it is not.

The EPC system is also out of date and not fit for purpose. Internal insulation has to be 5cm thick to count. The quality of the insulation makes no difference. There are new, slim and more effective types of insulation- but the system doesn’t recognise them. It’s very frustrating.

We have several flats in a beautiful old building. We’ve done what we can with windows, ceilings, lighting and heating systems but still at D. To insulate to C will involve tearing up original floors, damaging deep ornate skirting boards and architraves. I’m also concerned that it will cause damp and rot by stopping the building breathing. We have lots of happy tenants but may legally not be able to rent to them come 2028/2030.

No of course it doesn't mean that all small landlords will behave in the same way - but you can be pretty sure that it will factor into the calculations of a large proportion of them - because it makes business sense from a small landlords' perspective. From a small landlords' point of view a price can certainly be put on the mitigation of risk and removal of the hassle factor. The hassle caused by bad tenants shouldn't be underestimated. (posted without quoting above)

@cathyandclaire cathyandclaire I'm in the same position. I'm currently not worrying about it as it's all so unworkable something will have to give. I simply do not believe that the government will make around half the rental stock unlettable in three years time. I predict the criteria will change so much that an EPC C will be much easier to achieve.

We will be seeing many more properties with mould due to these upgrade requirements when people including installers have no concept of how buildings work. Breathability is key and even wallpaper and most commercial paints can hinder this and that’s before the extras that are now required to ‘retain’ heat.

Have you looked at PVs or / and heat pumps ?

@WitchymadwomanWe had capital growth and we certainly did consider this when opting to buy rental properties. When we sold we paid CGT.

To those who think mortgages are wrong, many businesses run on loans and investment from others. Dragons Den ring any bells? Lots of people cannot expand a business without finance: or even start one. If everyone needed 100% capital to finance rental properties the pool of houses would reduce. Rents would go up. Be careful what you wish for. A few people might be rich enough to accept low rents but the costs for decent landlords are high. CGT is not to be taken lightly and DDs have made better use of the money we gave them. One has invested the money and one has used it for a healthy deposit for her flat which gave her an advantageous LTV ratio.

You're missing the point. It's a long term investment. Someone borrowing huge amounts to buy stocks and shares can't offset the borrowing costs and the dividends earned would be unlikely to cover the interest etc. A BTL property is no different to a portfolio of stocks and shares. In fact, BTL owners are damned lucky they can still claim 20% tax relief on mortgage interest. A stock and share portfolio investor can't claim anything on their borrowing costs.

Interesting you suggest 5 years - a time when property gains were low and bank interest rates were high. I'd suggest a much longer time period with it being a long term investment. 5 years is short term. How about 20 years, 30 years, 40 years?? I think you'll find BTL rents (less average costs) plus capital gains are massively better than bank interest!

I wouldnt buy a house that has had cavity wall insulation.

Luckily as an owner I have the choice to have an apparently rubbish eco rating!

As someone who has a broad portfolio of investment, I don’t borrow to invest. It’s only BTL where you can do this because it’s a business! Investing in shares via ISAs is not a business. Or investing in a pension. They are not the same. Anyone just with BTL and no pension or any other form of investment is not a wise investor.

@soupyspoonTheres cavity wall insulation in all new houses! It’s not injected. It’s breathable fibre matting - in effect! The inability to insulate older property without ruining details is a massive issue. It’s why we waste energy via a lot of our housing stock. We need a radical rethink on how we can waste less.

Another consequence of the Renters Rights Bill will be the difficulty of running HMOs. Shared houses are a huge part of the rental market in large cities - particularly London. London has such a transient population that there are very many people needing to rent rooms - young people from other countries or other parts of the UK coming to start their first job in London; people coming to practice their English for a year or so; people doing internships; young workers generally who can't afford a self-contained flat; etc etc. The flatshare/houseshare market is huge.

The new eviction laws will mean it's going to be virtually impossible for landlords to get rid of tenants that the rest of the tenants find intolerable to live with. And it's certainly something that happens - they might be inconsiderate, dirty and noisy - or have some sort of MH issues that impact on everyone else - or have a constant stream of guests - or who refuse to pay their share of utilities - or whatever. Unless their behaviour reaches a threshold of antisocial behaviour - which would be something the Police would need to be involved with - there will be no way to get rid of them. It will mean the other tenants will end up moving out. More will move in and it will start all over again. For this reason I'm getting out of HMOs as no longer having the ability to evict someone who no one else can stand to live with will just be untenable.

If I hadn't been a landlord for such a long time, and had all my eggs in one basket, and no mortgages, and if CGT wasn't so high - then I would just get rid of all my properties. But as it is I don't really have any options so I will just have to roll with it for as long as I can while doing my best to minimise risk. This will mean no more house shares, and taking only the very, very best gold-plated tenants with the highest credit ratings, the best references, the best jobs etc etc - even if it means leaving properties empty for longer in order to find the right people. No one in their right minds will now consider taking a punt on any but the very best tenants. The only ones that do will be the rogue landlords who follow non of the rules and who will send round the heavies if necessary.

I can't see how it's going to be anything but bad news for everyone.

New houses is a different matter, they are built for that

I dont want a sealed house personally. Our house is mid war, built with cavities for a reason, its near the coast. Loft has insulation, as much as we can without removing joists, and we have good double glazing but thats all I need. I have the windows open a lot, upstairs they're open all year.

I wouldnt bank on it.

If many older places become unsuitable for renting the tenants will just have to fight over the newly built properties now owned by the likes of black rock.

The government don’t care about btl
landlords.

Sure, I took five years in this case simply because it provided the PP a relatively easy tenor to make the comparison.

My point was to demonstrate the risk/returns of BTL versus other asset classes.

BTL for many is leveraged of course, and its comparatively illiquid, plus you have operational and credit risk - largely lacking in the other asset classes I mention (yes, a shareholder can be wiped out, and yes a bank can fail).

The financially illiterate on here don’t have a clue (you are thankfully, not one)😀

They don't care about the landlords - but they would care about half the UK's tenants suddenly becoming homeless.

Have you looked at PVs or / and heat pumps ?
Yes @Stirabout we got an EPC consultant in but the mad thing is that installing a new gas boiler gives you a better rating than a heat pump. Go figure!