Totally shocked at the cost of rental properties

[Bumfluff29]

I had no idea the cost of rentals now are so high. We’ve been thinking of selling our house and moving into rented accommodation to break any chain if needed. I’ve looked at the cost of rents and can’t believe how much they are: much more than our mortgage payment. What’s shocked me most is the condition of some of these properties- they look like they haven’t been updated since the 70s in some cases. Has the rental market been like this for a while or is this a recent thing? Maybe I’m totally naive but before we (luckily) managed to get our mortgage we rented an enormous 3 bed house for 550 a month (2016) with all new appliances etc. A lot of the properties I’ve seen look like they desperately need new kitchens and bathrooms at the least, yet the rent is at least 900 a month.

I’ve speculated on this and it’s quite possible we will see more live in servants. The rate at which wealth and income inequality are increasing, the wealthy will continue to get richer and the 15 bedroom mansions will once again have servant quarters created. Old outbuildings and barn conversions…instead of being sold off will become housing for “the staff.”

Nothing, as is normal in all sorts of places people will have to commute in. We live in London, and like most people have picked a place outside the centre so that we can have the house that we want and we get up each day and take the train to work.

I can’t quite get my head around the mindset that says that everyone shoujd be able to afford a nice home near their work in a really expensive city.

Ah yes, because as we all know relocating is free and easy to do, with plenty of cheaper rental properties to relocate to in areas where you’ll also find employment- oh wait.

We were going to sell and go into rented and now we're not. We also have another property which is empty but we're not going to let it because I'm not convinced we would be able to get a tenant out if we decided to sell in a years time. And we can manage without the money (probably £1k a month rent we are forgoing because of this).

What about nurses and shift workers and those on zero hours contracts......... how will they commute from god knows where to get to their night shifts when public transport isn't running

@BarbaraofSeville

unless the wall was knocked down and rebuilt, you should be able to reinstate your serving hatch. As long as the supporting beam across the top is still in place, which is very likely, you should be able to take out the ‘filling’ , you might even be lucky and discover that it has been boarded and plastered not bricked up.

You can find out the exact dimensions probably by knocking for sound difference, and then following up with a laser sounder ( can’t remember the proper name but you can hire one for a few pounds). If it’s boarded it’s easy, otherwise you might have to get someone to take the bricks out ( although we did it ourselves, as you could see the joins clearly once the plaster was off, just use a chisel). Then we made good by putting beading round the edge.

I live in zone 3 london and actually a flat in surrey would cost around the same as my flat in zone 3 north london due to demand. The Home Counties are becoming an extension of London in terms of price and there are plenty of people who can afford neither. So they would be commuting from places like Leicester and Northampton with 2 hour commutes. I once met a policeman in the London Met who commuted from Wales!

My commute is 40 minutes including a 15 minute walk to the station, it is very different. It takes around the same time for my DH to cycle to work.

I charge £800 pcm for 3 bedroom in good condition. Most 3 bedroom houses near me rent for between £825-£950 pcm. I have 8 btl and a long waiting list and it gets longer every month. All people on list are family or friends of those I already rent too. I will still make a profit this year but lower than last year as 3 mortgages were on trackers and went up 4 times before I got them on to fixed mortgages and now those are 4 percent whereas before was about 2.4 percent. West Midlands.

Bicycle, moped, motorbike, electric bike, or car.

But you knew that.

Again, the mindset that posts like yours show is incomprehensible to me, looking only at problems, not solutions.

I agree that rents in general have risen dramatically, and demand for property fuels upward pressure even on the already high figures.

I am a landlord, and don’t normally increase rents. I was lucky enough to fix my mortgage at only a slightly higher rate earlier this year. I find it hard currently to get tradespeople ( not for urgent work, have contracts for boiler etc), and their costs have gone up massively. My renewal insurance quote was 50% higher, I assume to cover increased costs. I have already started putting in additional insulation in an attempt to gradually do the work which I hope will allow compliance with the future enhanced EPC requirements.
One tenant has lived in a house for 5 years at the same rent, and I know that at some stage I will have no choice but to increase this.
In some ways it isn’t reasonable to compare interest only mortgage costs with rent. It is unlikely that anyone these days has a 100%. Also, at least for responsible landlords, rent has to include an element for regular maintenance and repairs. I might make do and not get my own home repairs done quickly, but that would clearly not be acceptable in a rented property, so there has to be a contingency fund.
The only way I can see out of the current situation is more social housing, via council or housing association.
I saw my role as a landlord to be able to provide flexibility for people who need to rent on a shortish term basis for their own convenience, where they can be free to move for work, etc and who are willing to pay a premium for that flexibility.
Long term family housing shouldn’t be in the private, profit making, sector.

There is no point in saying landlords shouldn’t make profits on a basic necessity. No one is going to tie up a huge capital resource for no return to house a unrelated third party, even when property prices, and so capital was increasing. Income is needed, and property prices now look set to fall.

The situation won’t change unless there is more social housing. Trying to legislate in a market where people can diversify or just leave for a better deal elsewhere doesn’t really work. Scotland brought in much more control to help improve tenants rights. It will have undoubtedly helped some people who were already tenants at the time, but the overall market has shrunk, which disadvantages those still needing homes.

bog standard with ugly grey or brown carpet houses near me are close to 2k now. Its utterly insane. We are staying in our far too small house for now because i am hoping my LL is a sensible chap who values a long term tenant over trying to make money with the high rents.

Why arent you selling your second property?

More immigrants and people from immigrant backgrounds would stay in cities. its why London is only 40% white British. The government''s plan is to take in more immigrants, people from poorer countries have different standards. They may be fine with living in what british people would consider uncomfortable circumstances to earn more in a major city and send the money back home. People from asian backgrounds also more likely to be able to stay with parents who bought years ago, this will enable them to save and then they will buy flats and have children in them (thats what DH and I are doing). After all in my home country, 95% of the population live in a flat.

It is the places like Surrey who will suffer, they have london level prices (due to the Londoners moving there) but not the same volume of local jobs.

@Onnabugeisha, I agree to any new LL that would be way to go. However I have 8 btl, so I'd have to sell them all to ltd company paying 8 lots of stamp duty, pay 8 lots of capital gains tax, to save mortgage interest. It would for me never be worth it as capital gains would be so high. I bought most of my btl 18 years ago so their values have doubled.

My son gave up his job, moved into a house he could afford to buy up North, had a new job lined up but took a pay cut of £6k. Got installed in lovely house, got a 5 year fix on 1.8 percent mortgage rate, got a promotion now and pay increase of £4k, and met love of his life. He is so glad he took the risk. He could not afford to buy where we live. Prices too high. If you are young and single with marketable skills it is easier to take risk than if you have children to consider.

Yeah, you are kind of screwed over by that. Which is a really pity. It’s not fair to put together a solid retirement income stream and then the government suddenly decide to tax it into nothing when it’s too late to adapt.

Try 600-800 for a room where I am! Just pure greed. My last place was damp, no ceiling light, intermittent hot water, landlady kept the heating off. Victorian slum for gods sake. Vey exploitative in my opinion.

Prices increases ripple out - that's been case for years.

Area I grew up in price rises have been extreme since I was a teen - my siblings are luckily now in HA housing - none of us could buy there and private rents are very high.

We are only in city we live in now because we couldn't afford to buy where DH job -reason we ended up here in this bit of UK is - it's driven prices up here as many commute to nearby cities with better economics.

Then you get people on MN berating people because they commute and commuting prices have risen with part of cost of living rises and hit people hard.

Bumfluff29 if you an avoid rental I would as two moves will significantly add to costs even if you can get a rental at the moment.

We broke the chain selling our first house rather than lose buyers already under pressure from their buyers due to pg - the week and half delay rapidly extended as pressure on our seller eased - took 9 weeks in end.

Cheapest 3 bedroom on Rightmove in my postcode area is £2k for a semi on an ex-council estate. Internally it looks OK though I have to say.

I know friends of mine that had to move in to a house that hadn't been updated since the 1970s because they needed the school catchment and it was literally the only thing that became available. It was in a "naice" area so was even more than £2k I think.

The house opposite us used to be rented for £1,800 a month (4 bed). The owners sold it, new people came in, cleaned the carpets and repainted the living room and stuck it back on the market for £2,500. It was snapped up within days. That was nearly a year ago, so would probably would be even more if it went online now.

It's totally unaffordable and I have massive sympathy for anyone trying to rent at the moment.

We were looking at maybe moving my DP's closer to us (they rent), but for the same price they're paying in their area for a 3 bed house, we can't even get a studio flat nearby.

Availability is the biggest driver I think. Of our whole postcode area there are only 3 3bed+ properties available. One for £2,000, one for £2,500 and one for £3,750 (that is a 6 bed mind!).

It costs a fortune to relocate. I've done it several times as a single person, and now with a family.

It's expensive, uncertain, stressful (trying to align a school place means paying an extra month's rent so you have an address to apply from before you move), trying to work out childcare in a place you don't live in yet around a job you haven't started yet so don't have flexibility. Then factor in your partner needing to get a new job too.

Companies that pay a relocation allowance to get staff where they need them pay about £8k. How many people have that saved up just to be able to relocate if they're already struggling to afford housing? We could only afford to relocate as we're one of the families that made savings during lockdown.

It costs a fortune to relocate. I've done it several times as a single person, and now with a family.

It does - we have had to do it for work.

Post pfb it been 3 moves 4 addresses - 2 move huge ones completely different bit of UK. Last time we budgeted 5K with buying selling, storage and moving costs. I really didn't want to add another house move 6+ months down the line and possible change of schools in new city on top.

Estate agents in new area were bloody frustrating - canceling appointments last minute despite knowing we were traveling long distance - and no we couldn't re-arrange for mid week. House we really wanted to see and ended up buying - estate agent turned up to viewing without the house key - it was sheer fluke house owner passed and saw us and let us in - we'd traveled over 200 miles to view.

We’ve moved several times for work over the last decade. France - New York - London - Netherlands - London, and that’s after both of us moved hundreds of miles from anyone we knew, far from our families, to get into the career that we wanted in the first place.

Yes, it is quite expensive, and disruptive, but moving also has many benefits. You get to know somewhere new, to meet new people, and to have a fresh start, so for us it seems strange that people would remain somewhere where their salary and living costs are so mid-matched.

I know that many people do just want a bit of a moan, which is very understandable, but for those in dire straits maybe a move might be what’s needed.

We’ve even had years where DH and I worked 3,000 miles away from each other, and a couple where we lived together while he did a weekly international commute.

I don't understand why you were shocked!

When you buy a house the price is fixed at the time you bought it (though obviously the interest component can fluctuate a bit).

When you rent it goes up every year inline with the market rate.

Obviously, if you bought a house a few years ago, then you are very likely to be paying less than current rents

But @FarFromTheStart that sounds like well paid international careers which makes moving a whole lot easier? If you're earning minimum wage or even average wage and can't string together £4k (what our long distance removals alone cost last year) how are you going to manage that? Bearing in mind when moving for a new more highly paid job you don't get your first salary payment until one month in, by which point you've already taken on high costs. A large number of the population don't have enough savings to tide them over a car breakdown, for instance, let alone a relocation.

If someone is settled close to extended family and has them providing childcare etc support to enable work it makes little sense moving somewhere new minus that support, as any higher salary is negated by the cost of relocation (£1000s) and the childcare cost (more (£1000s).

Yes, I've relocated (within U.K.) multiple times for my career and it has been good meeting new people, getting to know new area etc. But it's incredibly risky and expensive. I've been in the situation of barely being able to afford my rent but on an AST I have to give two months' notice so am committed to two months of rental payments always when my job, whilst in probation, can be ended with a week's notice.

To be honest I think that pushing out amateur landlords is probably for the best in the long term. The rental sector will be taken over by corporate landlords who will have the cash flow to maintain properties.

When I was renting a few years ago, it was all boomers renting out shit holes for a pension fund. Now were seeing new buildings starting to go up which are specifically for renters.