How do landlords selling up impact the rental market?

[Rispa42]

Genuinely curious because it’s been said that one of the reasons the rental market is heating up is because BTL landlords are selling up, and therefore leading to an imbalance between supply and demand. However, if they sell, they’d either sell to another landlord (therefore not impacting supply) or to a FTB who was previously renting (therefore reducing ‘demand’). What am I missing?

Corporate landlords will control the rental market and thus the rebts charged. If you think this means it will be more cost effective for renters you are totally deluded.

@legalbeagleneeded i know then we will see what slum landlords really will be like they will be operating illegally and beyond the law as no one will complain as where will you live and guess what no one will care fuck this bullshit

If a landlord is selling a three bed home, that previously housed three sharers to a family, that means two households then left without a property.

The landlords leaving the sector also skews supply and demand, allowing existing properties to be marketed for a higher price, buggering it up for tenants left in the rental market.

Not all greed on the landlord front though, BRL mortgages are in short supply and those that remain are going through the roof. So much of the inflated prices is due to cost passing on - as well as mortgages there's additional legislation being introduced, which costs money to implement, and gets passed on to the tenant.

It's part of the reason there's an exodus of landlords currently. It's a perfect storm.

The btl market is a circular economy. If landlords suffer, so do tenants - and then tenants can't pay rent, get evicted and it's a shit storm. If tenants suffer, so do landlords, landlords sell up and it's a shit storm. Government can't seem to grasp this concept 🤦🏻‍♀️

Agree.

As for fixing things if damp, boiler problems etc they aren’t in it to provide social care and ultimately it will come down to costs etc

It's not just victorian stock. My 60-70 house can't get to a C without a heat pump or solar panels. Even if I did all of the other recommendations it would take it from D to C. To raise the money for the heat pump / solar I need to release equity.

I heard in the news Labour want to accelerate the green energy by insisting solar on all houses. Whether that is only newbuild or not I don’t know.

I'm selling up, 1 of the 6 houses went to another landlord. The rest are to sitting tenants and first time buyers/ downsizers.
I

So are Labour going to pay for the solar panels on my 1930s house and for the rest of the similar houses up my road

Just speaking for my friends and family... around here a room is about £600 in a shared house and it's a struggle to find one even at that price. I can't see any of my friends (other than one who has inheritance) ever being able to afford to buy. So if the rental properties aren't there, they have nowhere to live.

The OP's original question about one in, one out is something Shelter and their supporters often trot out without considering all the other factors involved in buying a house. Many people in rental are there, not because they want to be, but because they can't save a deposit and they can't get a mortgage.

If you are a LL and you're on online forums, you'll see hundreds and hundreds of stories, daily, about LLs selling because of S24 and the abolition of S21. The government doesn't care because as has already been said upthread, their strategy (if you can even call this shitshow a strategy) is to move the PRS to a corporate model.

Corporate LLs will not give a shit about vulnerable tenants or those on benefits and they will be expensive. As with most government policy, there will be numerous unintended consequences and the only people who will suffer will be tenants.

And to the poster who asked why not incorporate when S24 was announced, do you realise the costs involved of doing so? There was also a lot of discussion at the time that S24 would end up being repealed as happened twice in RoI following the housing crisis it precipitated (which has been replicated here and which was entirely predictable).

@Whichwhatnow - exactly.

This is what the politicians forget - that people need a roof over their head.

I was a long-term renter when younger as we couldn't get a mortgage.

Where are all the renters supposed to go?

No they'll get sold. People don't have to meet the C target in a home they own.

@TeenagersAngst ”Corporate LLs will not give a shit about vulnerable tenants or those on benefits and they will be expensive. “

I didn’t realise the private rental sector cared so much about benefit tenants and the vulnerable!

Surely they’ll be a point where tenants can’t just pay more? They’ll hit a ceiling?

I'm a LL and I get some of those little mini essays on why I should rent it to them too. Before I got those, I just picked the most sensible solution 2 parents who both worked and no pets. I'm a bit of a sucker for a hard luck story though, as I let last house to a single Dad with a child with additional needs and 2 dogs. I've got a child with additional needs and 2 dogs so I thought why not it could be me. My dh rolled his eyes and said there were 3 couples who both worked and had no pets. He thought I should have picked one of those, but it's my house so I chose tenants. I had so many enquiries though and only 1 can be successful.

I have several friends who're street homeless, in a caravan or in a hostel for exactly this reason...

There's so much demand round here (Bristol) if you're on benefits or self employed you have zero chance.

This is true. There are huge problems with supply in the rental market where I live. I have been flat hunting with my stepson who is thankfully in a position to buy his first property. I would say at least 50% of the one bed flats we have looked at are empty because the tenants have already been given notice, and the vast majority of the others are rentals which the tenant will have to leave before contexts are exchanged.

Sounds like we should be building more social housing.

I agree, slumlords already bend rules now. It will be many times worse when they are the only affordable option for so many people. I mean I know some slumlords around my area and they are not short of renters. Make it so anyone on benefits cannot get a decent home, where do we think they will go?

I live in a city where there are lots of landlords selling up (properties in awful conditions) but there are also loads of build to rent developments coming to the market. I used to live in the US where this was the norm and I much preferred it. Flats were always freshly cleaned/painted when you moved in, there was 24 hour maintenance on site, if you wanted to move into a development you just contacted the leasing office and they would tell you every flat that was going to be available in the next few months, no need to contact five different estate agents to view individual flats in the same building.

They understood it was a business and would fluctuate rental prices depending on seasonal demand. There were also many review sites for rental developments so if the flats were poorly maintained, noisy, management company unresponsive, etc you could easily find this out before signing a lease.

None of my tenants (typically recent graduates, young professionals) could even dream of affording to buy my flats, or are at a stage of life when they don’t particularly want to put down roots. So if I did sell they would be competing with everyone else in the rental market, leading to increased costs for diminishing stock. Not hard to understand

It can only be new build and the rare re roof.

I live in a 1930s house, surrounded by 1930s houses. Our roofs weren't made to support solar panels. However if I have to re roof it anytime, I'd look into solar panels and the kind of roof I could have. See if they were compatible.

Also to add further out from me are older 1800s houses, also not created with solar panels in mind.

All the new builds however have them. And all the new builds are social housing and the social housing provider takes all the money earned from the solar panels. If any.

Ya think 😉👍🏻

@Whichwhatnow i knew it would be Bristol I worked for DWP in covid at Temple street what a total shit show that city is for renters people living in the downs Drs Nurses in caravans

Also what done peopke don’t realise housing benefit is capped at the lowest 30% in your area including social housing tgat means the rent doesn’t ever cover what you need such a bullshit way of making rules