Small landlords selling off isn't a great news after all

[Goingindrain]

My landlord is a small landlord, just owns his house and the one where we live. He is a nice man and charges us below the market rate rent.
He is fed up of all the anti landlord rules and has decided to sell. It seems he had an offer from FTB and then a big corporation put in an offer 10k over and he's selling it off to them via the agents.
I am worried about the rent going up and it's not a great news for tenants.

Fair enough. But it does drastically affect the real profit - particularly if the house has been held for 40 years or so.

FTB or big corp, unless he's already agreed a sale, then he's free to take whatever offer is on the table, and a 10k difference is not to be sneezed at.

I've had a company offering me about 40 percent more on a 5 year contract than I charge for my houses to hand them over to company who want to put migrants in them. I said no as already have families in them that have been there for years and look after the houses and I certainly don't want to upset the neighbours by turning a family home into a HMO.

I often see people on MN insisting no one at all should own more than one home....but I've never understood what all the people that need to rent - particularly short term, are meant to do, if that became the case...?

That's a question that's never answered, @Fizbosshoes, which is a shame because it's an important one

While most decent people agree that bad landlords should be controlled, it also tends to indicate that much of the hate is based on pure spite rather than any real understanding of the issues involved, so the headline grabbing measures which are cheered at the time just end up making tthings worse

I agree, but house equity will always beat inflation over the long term. Google AI tells me average house price has gone up by 2,300% over 40 years.

We have just one rental property plus the house we live in. My DH bought it 12 years ago and we're only on our second tenant in that time (the first family only moved because they needed more room). I like to think we've been good landlords, made repairs as needed, kept up to date with all legislation and kept the rent well below local rates as we both agree as long as the mortgage is covered its a long term investment and we don't need to use it for income at the moment. That being said the tax and increased regulation now means its actually costing us money each year (even break even would be acceptable) so I'm not sure how long we will hold onto it. It feels like we are being penalised for making provision for our future while offering a reasonably priced home to someone.

It was definitely easier to find somewhere affordable to rent in the past I would agree. We struggled with two full-time wages and children the last time despite impeccable payment history and excellent references from previous landlords.
The Rental Reform Bill was never going to work in its current state as it's always the case that costs are passed on to tenants. Hence the great need for social housing or a way onto the housing ladder for lower income families. For example, (we can't save at the moment anyway due to rents doubling in the city we live in), however if we wanted to buy we would struggle hugely due to the £16k savings cap with Universal Credit. It means that you are stuck in the situation with huge amounts of public cash going towards private landlords via housing benefit or the housing element of UC. Many MPs are landlords so I can't see this changing soon.
It sounds like you have had a good experience renting which is great. These things are based on your experience of course, but there is a marked issue with the sector that has always been there IMO. Many countries manage this much better and have longer notice periods for evictions. In the UK we have allowed people who have no business renting to people let alone dealing with people have immense power over peoples lives. I don't live in London FWIW but the issue is across the country. I've lived all over the UK for jobs and university and currently in the midlands.
In addition, the UK is unusual in how easy it is to become a landlord compared with many EU countries, where rental housing is often managed by regulated cooperatives, municipalities, or professional bodies meaning you are more likely to end up with the cowboys.

I don’t mean to be unkind but I’m surprised you’re only just realising this OP. A lot of people are nasty about landlords on here but they are actually needed because many people just can’t afford to buy, however much they may want to. I’m not a landlord BTW.

And many people don't WANT to buy. When this discussion comes up, people always talk about renting as something people have to do for financial reasons, there are many other reasons.

Yes, my tenants have also always been people who didn’t want to buy. Sometimes they were people working in the area for just a couple of years, one had returned from abroad and wasn’t sure where she wanted to live. My current tenant is elderly and doesn’t want the problems of maintaining his own property.

Exactly @angela1952 . DH and I weren’t interested in buying until we were in our 30’s. We both moved around for new job opportunities, domestically and internationally. Plus we needed to save for a deposit. I do know a couple of people who bought in their 20’s, but the majority of my friends didn’t.

My DD (20) also has no intention of settling anywhere after she finishes uni, there’s a big world out there.

@flopsyuk

...Being greedy and not selling to a FTB

What's "greedy" about accepting a higher offer?

Perhaps you could give him the £10k yourself so that the first time buyers can have it.

After all, if you don't you're just being greedy.

From reading the posts I see that all the respondents who are tenants, are excellent and pay their rent on time, look after the property, don't upset the neighbours etc.

As a long time landlord I can assure MN that there are awful tenants out there who are BAD.

Who don't pay the rent. £1000s owed
Who don't look after the property.
Who cannot keep them selves clean Smelly
Who force the landlord to go to court, multiple times, to get the correct legal permission to evict. 13 months £+++
Who damage the property. flooded bathrooms / kitchens
Who get the deposit back by lying to the deposit holding companies. Tenants are believed over landlords.
Who lie to the landlord.
'I am a student' ... No you are not so I have to pay council tax.
'I have the right to rent'..... No your visa has expired
'I have the right to rent' .....No you have no passport, you got here in the back of a truck
Who let their mate sleep in the room, this is overcrowding. An automatic £300 fine from the local authority.
Who cannot put the bins out. rats
Who invite the local stray can in. Fleas
Who brought bed bugs into the house.
Who don't recycle
Who have parties and disturb the neighbourhood. Phone calls at midnight asking 'What are you going to do about it' Like there is anything I can do.
Who upset the neighbours by having a car and parking in 'their' spot.
Who smoke weed / do + deal drugs
Who steal off the other tenants
Who assault the other tenants. GBH
Who bully the other tenants.
Who burnt the furniture for a BBQ
Who sell the furniture / white goods
Who sign a contract then change their mind.

Being a landlord can be very difficult at times.

I'm being pushed out of the market as my local authority is against HMOs. A mere £1000 for a license.
Over 3000 beds have been lost in my suburb. I get phone calls almost daily from people looking for accommodation.

To be fair @purpleleotard2 those tenants sound like they should be the council’s problem, not anyone else’s.

I’m also fine with big corporate landlords having to deal with them.

I spent a year as a small time landlord of my flat I had bought after I moved out. Had a friend of a friend in there on below market rent as she was in a tight spot. I installed a better washing machine than I’d had for her, fixed things straight away, let her choose cupboard knobs she liked and paid for them- when I got a new kitchen put in I ran it all past her, the plans and the details and gave her a reduction on the rent that she asked for but she turned into an absolute nutter- entitled, rude, angry… it was such a relief when she moved out, I sold the flat straight away- if that’s what being a landlord is like, im either awful at it or I’d have to deal with crazy people like that and neither of those things are working for me! The new rules coming in were the cherry on the top

Those tenants sound like they shouldn’t be in the UK in the first place. Why should councils have more crap to deal with when they can’t even home UK families in urgent need?

The worst was one lad who left his joss stick alight, that then burnt the roof off the house.
Insurance claim of £46000, ten years back.

A lot of the bad stuff is from UK nationals

Twice I have had english boys point to the vacuum cleaner and say 'I know what it is but I have never used one'

I think once corporate have enough market power, the standards will go to bare minimum.
Like no white goods anywhere (only landlord who never provided in my case was corporate), carpets etc. They will be able to being it to standards like when people get bare social housing. Because why not. That would be my worry. Shrinkflation of provision if that maies sense.

I've had British tenants complain to me that a light isn't working and I needed to get it fixed. I asked if they had tried changing the lightbulb. "What's a lightbulb?"

TBH I’m thinking of selling our sole rental flat once current tenants leave - they took it for 2 years.
It’s a very nice flat, we've always kept the rent low - and since the recent explosion in rents (outer London) it’s now well below the local market rate), and we’ve always had very good tenants who’ve looked after it. And we have always attended very promptly to any maintenance issues,

But we’re both getting on a bit and after the recent faff and hassle of a leak from the bathroom (now fixed) the time has probably come - once the current contract expires - unless they want to extend.
We would keep the price on the low side for the type/area, and hope to sell to a FTB. The property below ours (purpose built Edwardian maisonettes with small gardens) is now owned by the 2nd FTB, so it’s entirely possible.

Lloyds Bank and BlackRock buying swathes of housing to cure the issues of housing. Oh how philanthropic of them! Massive tower blocks being built all over London for housing standing empty. Some emptied of tenants due to poor quality or unsafe builds. I own 6 BTLs and have 12 years experience in the sector. Not planning on selling just keeping ahead of the curve hopefully. Also it's my pension so not much choice...but to dig my heels in and insist there's space for small landlords in the sector.

I had a second property, we purchased it as a Right to Buy, then let it out eventually as we moved abroad. When we moved back to the UK, the family size was bigger, so we Let to Buy it, then purchased a family home.

Fast forward quite recently, we're about £70k in equity, the switch from paying tax on the net income to gross, the removal of tenants paying for references and inventory checks just dragged the profit margin down.

I thought we was quite ethical, charging £450 for a 3 bedroom, ex council end terrace with a £27k mortgage remaining. We didn't do it for profit, but to make us nil cost at the end of the year.

Now, we've sold, a shame really. Not all landlords are scum. We held a £5k pot for emergency repairs, with the agent granted access upon tenants request.

The cash is now in a Trading 212 ISA's at 4%. We're making £200 a month interest (tax free)....as we await the next investment thing.

What utter rubbish, if the Tories hadn't sold off all the council houses at ridiculously low prices we wouldn't have such a huge welfare bill which is inflated by private landlords. How is that labours fault? I'm guessing you're talking about them when you say socialists. I will admit that successive governments haven't built enough social housing so we are in the situation we are in, however if it is harder for people to own a portfolio of houses maybe prices will start to fall and it will be easier for people to get on the housing ladder.

As a landlord I am seriously considering it, it's rediculous... When we all sell up, good luck to anyone hoping to be first time buyers as well... People rent because they can't get a mortgage.

I don’t see why your Landlord doesn’t pay rent if he is in NZ unless he/she is under the minimum tax band. Tax on rental income is due in the UK