If you are a landlord are you thinking of selling up?

[Didyousaysomethingdarling]

Are you reassessing your continued role as a landlord, due to the changes to tax (S24), proposals regarding EPCs, the recently published private rented sector white paper, along with interest rate rises and increased maintenance costs, etc? I'm having to let one of my properties go and my tenants can't find anywhere. Is it because lots of landlords are issuing section 21s at the same time? It looks like there's a bottleneck. How do you see it playing out in the short/medium term?

They’re not actually going to push out all the landlords. There’s still going to be a massive need for rentals - it’s just that the only LL’s that will afford it will be very rich who are only in it for the increase in property prices.

I have two BTLs and am selling the problem one, basically. In a rough area (that has gone up ridiculously in price), far from me so I can't manage it myself, the agents are crap and unresponsive, the tenants ring for things as infuriating as shelves falling off walls, washer not working (it's not mine), fox cubs in garden (???). Has cost me more than it's made me over the past year. And yes, I'd like to get these tenants out before the reforms.

The other one has had one tenant and no increases since 2017, and is in a great state of repair.

@TakeMeToKernow - if you are looking north Notts I have some with sitting tenants I'd be interested in selling!

I have 8 now, sold one last March and looking to divest one a year for a few years (due to capital gains allowance)

I'm 15 years into being a landlord and looking to retire in a few years so timing feels right to do this

Yes, my tenant has managed to secure a HA property so it's going on the market as soon as her moving date is confirmed.

I've already been approached by a couple of people wanting to move in but I've had enough.

Nope, never selling!!

even after mortgage, expenses and tax, It sufficiently supplements my monthly wages.... Likewise I've just seen how much CGT I would have to pay and it really isn't worth it!!! May as well keep it for the next 20y and sell to get back my original deposit!!!

@whirlyhead the cladding crisis is a nightmare. We have one flat affected by it (partial BSF funding for technical reasons that are too onerous to go into here) but we were able to product switch to another deal with the same lender when we last remortgaged.

I’d love to sell it, I wanted to sell a few years ago before all the EWS1 regulations were introduced but DH talked me out of it.

It really is a scandal and only now are the government really starting to address it.

We’re selling up and getting out. I feel absolutely awful for our tenants, but hopefully they’ve had a chance to save up enough money for their next home - we haven’t raised the rent once in years, so they’re mostly paying 1/4-1/3 under market rate. We just don’t want to do it anymore, it’s too risky and landlords are hated by everyone really!

@Didyousaysomethingdarling oh wow! Thank you I had no idea!

No, we still rent out one flat, but if / when the tenants move on, that’s that.

Our rentals are places that we bought to live in, and yields are terrible in this part of the market.

Anyone who's done this for a fair while will probably have cgt considerations and a relaxation in this would help supply of houses to market. But that won't happen as it'll look bad presentationally, "fat cat landlords cash in" type headlines, can see it now.

When in reality, I think the stats are most rentals are owned by people who only have one or two for pension reasons and also women are often landlords for all sorts of reasons I forget now...

I'd love to sell to my tenants as it's way easier for me and would make me happy. I'd even give them a discount!

No intention of selling at the moment. We have mid market properties and reliable tenants. The new EPC rules are still proposals and I would be very surprised they could be introduced in such short timescales. There isn’t the manpower to upgrade for new tenancies by 2025. If it was introduced now there would be a lot of landlords selling up which is not politically expedient. I’ll sell some in retirement when the CGT bill will be watered down. One is my retirement home. I’ll give two to the DCs, way in advance of IHT penalties kicking in. They can live in them or use it as income.

Name changed for this as I don't want it linked to my other user name.

I really, really, really wish I had a landlord like some of you here!
Our landlord gave us notice to move out at the end of next month... we have NO where to go! Rentals are incredibly hard to find in our area and we cannot find another rental within god knows how many miles with 3/4 beds.
We've been here nearly 10 ten years, we've done everything he said to do including repairing/replacing integrated appliances, general maintenance, etc.. we have never gave him 'any trouble', we've just been normal respectable tenants.
He says he's going to sell but we suspect he's going to Airbnb.
He has told us if we are not out on 31st July he will start court proceedings the very next day... fair enough it's his house so he can do whatever he likes but I really do not know what we're going to do!
I've just returned to work after a couple of months off, I'm now waiting to see if I have cancer or not and this pressure of being of my family and I being homeless is really starting to break me.

I let out three properties. One I agreed to half rent during the first lockdown but here we are now and she still only pays two thirds of her rent. I can't see her going back to what her rent was over two years ago. She saw it with me when I bought it and I knew what rent she could afford so did all my calculations based on that - now I'm down even more as service charges have only gone up.
Second house I rent to a friend - I gave him a break on the rent and he then became disabled and he's been there 8 years with no increase. I would like to sell it but am considering it as my social cause. He keeps saying that living there is the only thing that keeps him going so no idea how I will ever be able to sell it. He does maintain it well.
My third is let to people on secondment from another country. Initially here for 18 months they have just started their third year. I will be increasing their rent next renewal. They cost me the most in repairs and maintenance, I also get by far the most rent from them. My son is due to move in there late 2023 and I have made this clear to them.
Rent is my main income so I am holding on to them. I only have a mortgage on one, and with the capital growth it makes sense to keep them and sell only when I need to in the future. And of course all three tenants can not afford or want to buy, so where would they go? The high paying tenants would be able to find another easily enough, but the other two are paying below market value and would struggle to even be accepted unless, in my disabled friends case, it was council housing.

@easyday you're a kind person. I hate how we get such a bartering for choosing a legitimate way of making money. Most of us treat tenants well, don't take the piss with rents and provide a service. And yet this "Conservative" govt wants to end BTL landlords (unless you have hundreds) and the last one introduced the second home surcharge.

This graph from today's Telegraph shows the direction of rental profits. I think this thread confirms what's happening.

Casually destroying the rental market even though it is vital for a flexible economy.
Earlier in the month, he unveiled plans for a series of reforms of the rental market that include preventing no-fault evictions, as if properties didn’t really belong to their owners, along with a raft of new responsibilities, each costing a few hundred pounds to comply with.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/06/27/michael-gove-one-man-economic-catastrophe/

See how it all pans out the next government could reverse all of these plans I’m not concerned people need to live somewhere and do you honestly think rogue landlords will adhere to this - join the landlords association they tend to speak sense and ride it out. I have 4 BTLs long term on all of them one is sticky but the other three are great

@veryworriedrenter

I'm sorry to hear you're waiting to see if you have cancer. I'm better once I know what I'm dealing with, the waiting is the worst part for me. When do you expect to get your results??

Re rental, I have a few thoughts, which you've probably already considered, but just in case...

Have you asked him to sell it with sitting tenants?

Have you asked him to sell it to you? (If you could get a mortgage)

Have you asked on Facebook/other local sites if anyone knows of a house not yet advertised for rental? (Several people I've heard of have lucked out this way). You can currently price his well you've looked after your rental!!

definitely take lots of photos if your current home to prove how well you've looked after it!

best of luck with everything!!

If landlording is so bad who are all the landlords who are fed up going to sell to?

Market forces, either private buyers will come in or the unscruplous landlords, who skimp on upkeep/bully tenants will buy or prices will fall or a mix of all these will happen. One of the things the industry has been trying to advocate for years is a model like Germany where institutions are landlords...

Oh dear!

www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/244615-are-the-small-time-btl-scumbags-the-forced-sellers-that-will-accelerate-the-crash-yesyes-i-think-they-are/

The history of renting in the UK is fascinating & the reason it has such a poor reputation is the regulation has been poor for many decades. Other countries manage to have stability. Just like the buying/selling farcical situation, fixing it should not be beyond politicians. Polarised positions of owning is good/renting is bad & nothing in between really do not help.

The history of renting in the UK is fascinating & the reason it has such a poor reputation is the regulation has been poor for many decades.

This is such a big part of it.

our are had a brilliant pilot project for a few years. As a LL you registered with the council. They did a few checks - you had to show you had permission to let, checked you had gas safety certs etc, checked the place was properly habitable, checked the rent was fair (and they weren’t unrealistic- just didn’t accept people like the one downstairs from my rental who tried to charge £1500 a month for a two bed flat on short condition when local market rent is £900ish) and then they had you on a list as one of the LL’s. When people were looking for rentals they could see the list - the council also used them to keep a note of things like adaptions and the likes so they could tell people where some were.

For the LL’s the council would help tenants with deposits if needed, they had a priority service if your tenant got into arrears for switching to payment to LL’s and you could, for a reasonable price, sign up to use the council repairs service which gave you access to 24 hour repairs.

It was a brilliant scheme. Especially as it coincided with a glut of social housing being built. So lots of the shit landlords who wouldn’t sign up suddenly found it difficult to find tenants. Quite a number of them sold up.

It also helped tenants like mine who got a social housing place, because the council had people looking I could waive the notice period for my tenants because I had people wanting to move in rig away - so they didn’t get caught with two rent periods.

Sadly cutbacks mean the housing officer who basically ran the scheme is no longer in post and the whole thing has been scrapped. It’s such a shame as everyone benefitted - especially the tenants who had a little bit of security that the LL’s were decent LL’s.

I'm now thinking it might not be a bad idea to approach our landlord and see if he was thinking of selling .. we love the house & location but worried about giving him the jitters and he'l serve us our notice and their is nothing to buy round here .

I don't see why you asking LL if they are looking to sell will give the the jitters.

Why would it?

Meant to say, great idea to ask. Worst answer = No? So you'd be no worse off.