Weird rental market?

[Askandyforcompo]

We had to move for work 7 years ago. We were selling our house but it fell through on exchange and we had to go to the work, so we rented our house out That's the backstory for landlord haters.

We put the house on 3 weeks ago. We've had 10 enquiries, mostly people who don't meet the minimum earning requirement by quite a large margin. Only 2 have viewed, liked it but it was too small for them. We've had no enquiries for a week.

Where are all the people desperate to rent I read about constantly? It's a lovely detached character cottage in the best area of our town. It's only two bed which obviously isn't great for people with kids, but for a couple looking for something with a garden it's perfect. It's in the Surrey commuter belt. It's on for the same price as other 2 bed houses. It's well maintained.

The tenants move out in 3 weeks. Is the rental market strange at the moment?

If the people who have shown an interest dont meet the minimum earning requirements then is the rental price the problem ? If its on for the same price as other comparables, that are also available, then the best thing might be to make it a bit cheaper than your competitors. In my area rent prices are dropping along with values. Inflation, borrowing rates and cost of living increases to blame. Likley that will get worse unfortunately...

I guess the people who can afford your place don't want it, why would that be? Is it unaffordable for the average renter?

This doesn't answer your question, but I notice there's a similar thread on Openrent at the moment.
community.openrent.co.uk/t/where-are-all-the-tenants/91772

People can’t afford to rent anymore. I imagine they’re resorting to living with family or rooms in house shares. Or alternative living arrangements such as boats and vans. The rental market is dead.

Thanks! That makes me feel a bit better.

When we've rented it before we've had multiple people offer and been able to choose a tenant.

Employers are still paying minimum wage but everyone needs at least £500 more per month to be able to live. That's just single people. No one wants to survive, we want to thrive. We want to spend money and also have enough to save. Never mind people with children or those living down south, who likely need double or triple that extra each month. So like others said, people are house sharing or living with parents. Or just finding studios.

Try an all-inclusive rent offer. Look into caps and relevant clauses.

What's the average renter? For affordability they need an income of £60k per annum. When we started renting it out it was all young professional couples commuting to London- that was our 'average renter'. We've had one enquiry from that profile this time.

60k?? Who is renting still if earning that? I'd be living at home / house sharing and saving a deposit to buy a property asap. Renting is too expensive now to justify flushing that much money down the toilet each month.

Somehow I don't think you live in the South East. Plenty of people want their own home while they save to buy. On £60k between two it's a lot of saving to buy even the cheapest house (360k) in my town. A room in a shared house is £800 a month. If you work in London it's pretty likely 'home' could be anywhere in the UK.

Are you walking distance from a station?

Yes!

You might have more interest once the tenants have moved out. Until they go it is only a hope they will leave when expected.

It will be the minimum earning requirement, this is killing the rental market. People can afford the rent but the earning requirements are stupidly high.

Are fewer people leaving current rentals at the moment because it's now their decision not the landlords?

I was reading about the register that comes into play where all properties must be registered annually and all documents uploaded. £65 a year. (EPC, EICR, Gas Safety and probably something else)
Given the EPC is on a government website I assume we'll just be linking to that rather than uploading a file.

https://housinghub.campaign.gov.uk/renting-is-changing/get-ready-to-register/

"In future, tenants will be able to use the service to see if a landlord is compliant with key legal requirements, helping them make better informed decisions about where they rent. "

Which is really great for tenants - although if no one is moving house now because they can't be S21'd, maybe no one will look at it.

I have little faith in the ability of any government to implement IT projects efficiently.

In future, tenants will be able to use the service to see if a landlord is compliant with key legal requirements, helping them make better informed decisions about where they rent.
Does that make much difference to tenants, because landlords are legally obliged to give them that information anyway? Is it more a tool for local authorities to check landlords are compliant? I don't know much about it.

Can it be the price of the commute that now puts people off?

How much rent are you charging?

Everybody applying to rent will obviously already live somewhere, they don"t live under bridges waiting for enough houses to be built contrary to what lots of vested interests would like you to believe, there is oversupply of flats etc. now and as immigration has fallen there will be less demand to go round, drop the price slightly, see if that attracts somebody.

The first post almost gets it, but they are not quite there, they need to think a bit more.

" I could reduce the rent but I don’t think that will solve the problem and magic up a solvent tenant!"

Can you afford to lower your rent a little? I can’t see how borrowing costs can interrupt rental

Yep. Exactly.. so why is anyone going to pay whatever you're charging (and other landlords) when even a room in a house is £800? Given how long they have to save, as you rightly point out, no one can afford these insane jacked-up prices for rent. Plus the ridiculous guaranteed rent increases every 12 months - in addition to all-inclusive, you should consider offering fixed rent for X years - that should help with attracting applicants who are worried about future affordability.

In the last couple of years especially, people really are getting savvy about not wasting money on rent if they can help it. Better to sacrifice living alone and stay with family / house share to get on the property ladder as quickly as possible.

Used to be you'd rent 2-5 years, get your deposit and move on. Not anymore. People can't afford to rent and save anymore. Wages didn't rise enough and rent shot up to stupid amounts.

I know the rent affordability checks usually say a potential tenant’s gross salary needs to be at least 30 times the monthly rent but that works out as quite a large percentage of their net income.

Financial advisors tend to advise that rent is no more than 35 percent of a person’s net income. So a young professional earning £60k gross, presumably having a Plan 2 student loan and paying around 10% into their workplace pension is likely to earn around £3330 per month net. 35 percent of this is £1165. I’m guessing the rent you’re charging is more than this.

Landlords asking too much rent to try to cover their mortgage debt will interrupt their flow of tenants now, people are too tapped out and squeezed.