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.

Would be good to hear from a wide range tenants tbh. Rents seem to have stopped going up so fast near me.

DH is also going to sell up. He rents his flat well below market value - same tenants for 10 years - only a marginal rent increase in that time. Repairs are done promptly. He's been really flexible when his tenants had cash flow issues. But it's just getting too hard and he thinks he won't be able to meet the energy requirements as it has 3 outside walls. He'll be forced to sell

I think if the Government reduced rent, then even more landlords would sell up. This was a really shortsighted plan. It’s pretty predictable that everyone will sell up because you get more money in a high interest bank account than you do letting now but there’s no tax allowances and so many conditions. As someone has already said, they want everything brought up by large companies. And those large companies could easily be offshore meaning nothing is made because the government got greedy with tax on small landlords. Unfortunately, although it’s taken Property prices down slightly, they’re still far too high for anyone to get a mortgage. Instead of building houses, the government should give grants to people wanting to get on the housing ladder. That encourage people to get jobs. And we wouldn’t all feel so destitute.

You want the right to buy off a private landlord ❓

People want to buy their homes from other people, and remove landlords from the chain completely...

One person owning several properties and inflating the cost of living isn't a fair or viable option in the long run.

A would you be willing to pay market rate. Why should a landlord sell to someone at a loss

Why should we have landlords? The rich keeping the rich afloat and the system crumbles as a result.

What's a better alternative?

No-one is barred from buying their own home it's a question of the deposit, their credit rating. It's all done by a computer these days which spits out a yes or no.

Friends applied for a mortgage on a rural place big deposit. After three months of shilly shally the computer said no. Why? Because it had a septic tank, not mains drainage. They went to another lender and were approved inside a week..

It's not a perfect system if you have a decent credit rating and a deposit someone will lend to you. Has taken friends six months but they're close to exchange now

So what’s a better alternative

That's a misnomer it's the lenders who judge you well their algorithms. Apparently the minuses are your outgoings. The computer doesn't like late credit card payments, direct debits for gym membership, streaming services, car payments, expensive phones, holidays etc.

The computer likes to see regular monthly funds set aside in savings accounts. It wants to see reliability on your part, living within your means.

I read your post with a raised eyebrow.

But yes, But it was the announcement by Lloyds Banking Group in August this year that most caught the eye. The Financial Times reported that the group, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, was aiming to buy 50,000 homes by the end of the decade through its Citra Living brand.
https://www.reallymoving.com/blog/october-2021/what-does-banks-buying-properties-to-rent-out-mean-for-first-time-buyers

That's quite shocking.
But given the taxpayer is paying hand over fist for housing people to SERCO, you can see why other companies want to get involved.

The only options are 100.% state housing or a mix of state and private.

Some private is inevitable because state bureaucracy is often too cumbersome to provide agile housing options for those who want or need them.

But socialists can’t bring themselves to accept reality.

Sadly I think you are right.

I don't really know how many more times I can say what I mean... Read my previous comments.

Even housing associations want to rent at market rent rates, and they are even now setting up for profit companies to do so, obviously looking for their boards to become rich! We are soon going to be owned by a very few companies in this country!

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 agree with the first part, @Brotherbooth, in that the policy should never have been brought in to start with

However we've had several Labour governments since then, and they also carry responsibility for having done nothing to rescind it

Out of interest, because I know nothing about this. But if they can get away with charging 30% more, why don’t you just increase your monthly charge to offset the new costs?

Its not ideal as rest costs are already deeply unfair, but surely its better to keep the flat and charge more, than sell and the tenant still has to pay more?

Can I ask what the additional rules are and what impact they have?

https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/news_and_updates/what_to_expect_from_the_renters_rights_act

Landlords can't put the rent up for their existing tenants by more than a certain amount (10%? I'm not sure). But if they serve notice on their tenants and get new ones, they can price the rent as high as they like.

That's the downside of being a nice landlord and not putting the rent up for a decade. Suddenly you find yourself well out of whack with the present value (and maybe the property suddenly needs a lot spending on it), but you can't put the rent up as much as you need to.

A new landlord can't put the rent up massively for existing tenants either. Nothing would have been better for me than to sell the property to another landlord with the tenants in place, but no-one would touch it. My late parent hadn't put the rent up in 13 years, and it stood at half the present rental value. No landlord would buy it when it would take more than a decade to get anywhere near a satisfactory rental income.

Amazing how many on this thread don't know the basics laws around letting. And yet claim to be good landlords...

Landlords can't put the rent up for their existing tenants by more than a certain amount (10%? I'm not sure). This isn't true, they can raise it up to the market values of new lets.

To those complaining about having to raise energy efficiency - the maximum you can have to spend is £3500.

The real reason many small landlord is selling is simple: money. House prices have probably peaked and rental yields are low. You can get about as much money with no effort.

The new rental laws are still very limited compared to other countries.

The sale of houses under right to buy isn't responsible for the entire housing shortage.

2 million houses were sold under right to buy since 1980 and the majority will still have someone living in them.

The population of the UK has increased by over 13 million people since 1980.

The maximum spend hasn't yet been agreed. Some ideas have been suggested, including up to £15k per house, but nothing is yet concrete.

There is currently no limit on rent increases in England. I have a feeling Wales and/or Scotland might have something like that, but I'm not sure and can't be bothered to Google.

Thank you for correcting me. I've clearly been misled by the (absolutely useless) letting agent managing my late parent's property.