Tax rules have also made it impossible for most individual landlords to cover their costs because - unlike any other business or sole trader - their revenue is taxed rather than profit, i.e. they must pay tax even when they’ve made a loss. For anybody who is a higher rate tax payer (which an increasing proportion of people with very standard jobs are due to fiscal drag) this means renting out a property which you do not own outright is very unlikely to be profitable, especially with higher interest rates on mortgages now. In no other industry are interest payments non-deductable.
Then you need to consider the time taken to manage maintenance & repairs (or cost of paying letting agents elevated fees to do this), paying insurance, compliance costs such as upgrading energy efficiency to a level that’s not worth it on a cost/ benefit ratio with much of our housing stock, and not having the economies of scale that a large business enjoys with all of these making the costs of this cheaper per property for a big business.
On top of this it is extortionately expensive and time-consuming to evict non-paying tenants who may also trash the property with no realistic prospect of recouping the money for the list rent or repairs. A large business can absorb some instances of this across their portfolio, an accidental landlord with one property cannot. And the business is only taxed on its profits, and pays a lower rate of tax on those profits than the private landlord is paying on revenue (uniquely, as no other sole trader of business in any industry does so) because there is already a the disparity between corporation tax and income tax, disadvantaging the unincorporated landlord as it does all of those in every industry who earn their income without being incorporated/ self-employed/ in a partnership.
These policies were very obviously designed to drive private landlords out of the market and have been effective and achieved their aim. They weren’t introduced for the benefits of tenants, however and anybody who thought that was the purpose was very naive indeed. It’s much like Brexit - convince the turkeys that the oven looks cosy. 🔥
For context I own my own home and am not a landlord so have no personal skin in the game, I simply find it very frustrating how many people continuously vote for policies that aren’t in their interests then appear surprised at the results, seemingly unable to think through obvious (and intended) consequences. See also the recent polling about how many people in working class areas are supporting Reform: some people never learn.