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.

This! A good tenant who pays their rent on time and looks after the property is worth their weight in gold. Most landlords would rather keep this type of tenant than run the risk of finding a new nightmare tenant, never mind the costs associated with eviction. Private Equity landlords or corporate landlords may not feel the same when it comes to rent increases.

They know there isn`t a shortage

https://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/new-build-sales-fall-62-as-mortgage-market-changes-improve-access-for-buyers.html

"Not going to happen because it would drive down rents and house prices..."

Exactly, there is already oversupply of basic flats/houses in many areas and the political/social winds have changed very drastically recently leading to a drop in demand for housing, the government are well aware of all this and the big corporates are interested in managed blocks not bailing out amateur landlords who can"t deal with legislation. I think a lot of the big corps will be re-thinking their landlord strategy, they won`t want to get caught out like they did with commercial property.

It's simple math that divorce has risen over the decades so you need two homes that accommodate the family. Mum in one three bed, dad in another three bed juggling the children.

How many part time bedrooms are there?

Then you have older couples and widows/widowers living in family homes because it's cheaper to have empty bedrooms than pay, solicitors, estate agent, stamp duty. In our cul de sac of 10 homes. There's 19 empty bedrooms.

Divorce rates have fallen.

But it's true that more people are living alone.

We have just sold our rental property, Gross income was about 14k p.ann. sounds great doesn't it. Take off agents fees legal fees tax (spending hours doing self assessment). spending needlessly to comply with stupid legislation. IE when first renting we had to change the consumer unit from metal to plastic as metal was an electrocution risk, cost £500. Roll on 5years had to change it back to metal

dont know why above post didn’t appear in full!

The missing bit…Final straw for me is upcoming tax rule that means I shall have to pay for commercial software to comply with Digital Tax system. Money now in building society, net interest is £1200 less than net rental income ,just not worth the worry and hassle that comes with being a landlord..

How much does software like that cost can I ask?

It's because it's being funded by other "normal" people further down the chain, many of whom will never be able to buy their own homes because house prices have risen far faster than wage inflation for a few decades.

A few business banks package such software for free for their business account customers. Some simple software can be as little as a tenner per month. So it's a pretty insignificant cost.

Almost a Ponzi scheme really?

Thanks. Totally minimal cost then. Do you happen to know a good place on the internet to research business accounts?

Good for you, exactly what we did, far too much stress. We sold to an owner occupier , and had bought from an owner occupier in the first place, 10 years previously. But after 10 years of stress and 3 sets of troublesome tenants we stopped providing for renters. Such a happy day.

Also the council housing department where I live are actually telling tenants to stop paying rent and wait for the bailiffs because unless that happens they can't get any kind of emergency council accommodation. Obviously this saves the council's and government to provide housing. Just use and abuse the private landlords.

I would think that not paying rent on purpose is making yourself intentionally homes and councils won't help?

Being greedy? I can’t think of many people who wouldn’t take the 10k higher offer. Would you?

I would understand the situation if the same rules applied to owners as regards EPC requirements, annual gas safety checks, electrical certificates etc.
However, if the State insists on lots of extra regulation on the rental market but not the owner market, then essentially the renters bear the cost of that extra regulation. So they have to pay to be “protected” themselves. As it is already more expensive to rent, it is not really fair on them to have to bear these upfront costs. Landlords will always pass the costs on. Only rich people can afford to put up the capital expenditure required to make a house more energy efficient, for example. Every time you change your windows, install solar panels etc as an owner you know you won’t necessarily get the full cost back.
Poorer owners have to pay higher energy costs over a long time period instead. It is absurd to pass these costs on to tenants, especially if there is already a housing shortage and rental crisis.

I also agree that large commercial landlords would probably want whole buildings primarily, that can be managed more cost effectively. So more of a build to rent ethos from the get go, not buying up ex small time landlord houses and flats dotted around, unless it is already a large portfolio in a particular area, of a certain type.
Housing should be secure and fairly priced and I do agree that landlords should be in it long term and never evicting tenants who pay on time and look after the property. A fair compromise might have been to exclude landlords with just 1 or 2 properties from extra regulation? But to make them disclose their status when advertising property to rent. So renters can decide what type of landlord to go with. When we rented when young, we always chose a small time personable landlord who we had a good relationship with. Much preferred that format.

I think if you get evicted and refuse to leave but continue paying rent you wait for the bailiffs to turf you out so the council can help, not refuse to pay rent.

Agree. Also, social housing providers have been exempt from MEES although I think this is changing.

All homes, whether rented or owned should be subject to same requirements. In a healthy rental market, tenants would vote with their feet. That’s what used to happen.

Can"t see big corporations being interested in the sorts of random BTL that people were snapping up when the BTL craze was in full swing, many landlords will struggle to sell now as FTB are paying more for their mortgage debt and people don`t want to be landlords any more!

Brighton council is buying houses from landlords.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/26/right-to-buy-reverse-brighton-tackling-social-housing-crisis

" Rents are well above average thanks in part to its fast train line to London, which makes it attractive to affluent City commuters."

So why would you sell your rental to the council?

Are the council paying over market value, meaning commercial property crisis part two and more councils going bust?

This has happened in other councils and it usually has a negative effect on prices for surrounding property.

There have been a number of stories (some high profile) of landlord serving notice on tenants simply to relist the property at a much higher rent.

Yes, the estate agents actively encourage this, even when you're happy with your tenant and don't want to evict them. Sometimes it's necessary if eg you're operating at a loss.