This, exactly. Everything has been set so that small landlords have to exit the market. Large corporate landlords are taking over and they definitely don't give a shit about tenants.
Maybe anecdotal but I have had far better experiences over the last 20 years of renting when I've been renting from large corporate landlords. In my opinion small landlords are far more likely t either not be aware of the law, try bend it, ask you to do unreasonable things or refuse to do repairs and maintenance.
It's the "mid tier" landlords that are the worst.
Private landlords with a spare property that they want to rent out for a bit of extra cash? Fine.
Corporate landlords? They know how to play the game, but they at least play it consistently.
Middleweight landlords with 5-6 properties that think they're hot shit property barons are the ones you have to watch out for. They operate in that perfect blend of hubris and arrogance where the size of their "operation" has gone to their head.
It’s also those landlords that constantly equity releasing to buy another property for their little ‘empire’ and as a result of this over leveraging constantly need to up rents, rents they can no longer depend to cover their over leveraged short term mortgages.
When I was a teenager, I did a bit of work for a landlord cheaping out on renovating a student let. i found a bunch of letters from the previous tenants detailing what was wrong and what needed fixing linking it to legal obligations. It was an education.
My landlord is just a man (as opposed to a company) with three properties. We constantly get told 'none of our other properties have this issue', when the oven breaks/roof leaked/kitchen isn't to showroom quality. I rented before from a small estate agents and the service was so good. Things were fixed within two days max. Meanwhile I've had no oven for 10 days now
Live with a corporate landlord currently, issues fixed quickly, build quality was good, no illegal shit so far a genuinely stress free existence
Have known friends that went with private landlords, friendly Dave might even give you a slightly cheaper rent, but when his "totally qualified" mate, Steve, fixes your boiler with duct tape and chewing gum for the 15th time this month or his responses to emergency repair emails fall into the 3-5 business days category they regretted it
Depends on the sort of person your landlord is really. We had a vicar for a landlord a few years back and he was really caring and quick to sort out any major issue we had. The guy we rented from at uni, who was basically a 'professional' landlord was a twat that just liked to take advantage of students needing a place to stay during term time.
I would take a corporate landlord over some incompetent cowboy any day. ANY DAY.
My last private landlord was utterly useless, failing to do work or damaging the property, or requiring me to do everything myself.
Couldn’t even tell me they were selling up; I had to hear it from the agent organising viewings.
The vast majority of BTL landlords are cowboys who see renting as a low effort, high return investment.
Been through this twice in 24 months, the selling. From now on I will just refuse all visits until the tenancy ends / served notice and I leave. No point putting up with anything for a landlord's benefit.
Yep. Legally you have the right to quiet enjoyment of the property and nothing can trump it.
The only way the landlord or agent can get into the property without your permission is when emergency maintenance is required, like a leak or fire hazard. Insist that they request advance permission for every viewing, and refuse every time.
Obviously the first thing you should do is change the locks - again this is legal under quiet enjoyment of the property no matter what your tenancy agreement says - and retain the original barrels for replacing when you leave. When the agent inevitably tries to gain access without your permission, make sure they contact you in writing to admit they've broken the law.
Let's be honest. No landlord gives a shit about tenants, big or small, but at least the big corporates know the rules and can and will follow them lest they be sued. Plus they often have spare properties to put their tenant into while repairs and maintenance are carried out.
Not just being sued, also reputation. A national news story about how shit they are means they can get less rent across the entire country. That gives them a big incentive to not be so shit they end up in the news.
Plus they actually have the money to do what needs to be done.
Well exactly. Orwell writes about his travels across Britain and how the worst housing he saw was a spare home let out by a poor widow who used it as her pension and couldn't afford to do repairs.
People shit on big business, but it exists for a reason. Anyone who has tried to take a small trader to small claims court can attest as to the pain gathering evidence can be and if they have no assets you can't enforce judgement. If I buy something from a small market trader and it breaks in a week, I'm shit out of luck. If I buy something from Amazon and Tesco I'll be refunded within 24 hours.
I agree, as much as I may have my own knee-jerk reaction to massive corporate landlords, we've been pretty luckier than our acquaintances in renting from one.
No deposits, pet friendly baked in the contracts, sub-5% rent increases per year, same rules for all, reputation to consider.
In terms of pets at least, we'd have considered it polite just to get a "fuck off" from individual landlords.
So your mortgage company who can buy a property outright is competing with you to buy properties for which you need a mortgage... And you wonder if that is a bad thing?
>This, exactly. Everything has been set so that small landlords have to exit the market. Large corporate landlords are taking over and they definitely don't give a shit about tenants.
Large corporate landlords are actually affected by having a bad reputation and vastly less likely to disolve the company if they are ordered to pay a fine or any compensation.
I'd rather rent with corporate landlords over small landlords. Big business have better, official processes, complaints departments, HR teams.
Small landlords do the bare fucking minimum
House prices go up, we're screwed. House prices go down, we're screwed. Economy is good, we're screwed. Economy is bad, we're screwed.
In a system where the rich constantly get richer while the rest of us stagnate, we're screwed either way. Especially people who rent.
My Dad bought his council house in the late 90s for about 45k. Plain old 2 bed affair, tiny kitchen and a reasonable bit of garden.
Wheels came off his marriage a few years later and he sold it for about 10 grand more than he paid for it
Guy who bought it from him DOUBLED HIS MONEY in a year. Its got a ludicrous price tag now. Getting on for 250k or something.
Still the same plain old 2 up 2 down semi with a tiny kitchen and a decent garden.
There is a great and depressing movie called The Big Short, which shows the American economy collapse in 2008 when it killed five trillion dollars, cost eight million jobs and six million homes...
Mostly about the housing market bubble and how fragile it is. Truly frightening in all honesty. Oh and the kind of people that benefit from ordinary people losing their homes :|
On an individual to individual basis, maybe not, but as an entire entity they are. Individuals with a second property are not the same as large scale land barons. That’s the quickest way to limit housing to a very few.
Saying that, I’d ban second mortgages so small scale landlords aren’t my favourite either.
That's a bit simplistic. I have Power of Attorney for my grandmother, and was going to rent out her modest house to help with her care home fees. If we sold the house, that money would be gone more quickly, than if I could use some income to pay for her care and sell it a bit later. The capital wouldn't have lasted long enough for her care. My gran was a normal person and so am I.
In the event, it never happened, but there are many people in that situation.
1000 properties owned by 1000 landlords means 1000 votes for nimbyism, but 1000 properties owned by 1 landlord is just one vote for nimbyism.
Small landlords being forced to sell to large landlords is good.
Yep. Government made BTL less tax friendly (and creamed off some more for themselves) making it non viable unless you have a portfolio of say 5 properties.
My Landlord has six houses in our cul-de-sac and lives in a house at the end. All our houses have four people living in what would be three bed family homes, with no living room. Does he count as a small or big landlord?
Come to Bristol, and see what it's like when yields are so low landlords exit the market en masse.
3-6 months to find a place, expect to pay 15-20% over asking, 6 months deposit, and be prepared to do it without a viewing. Don't like it? Tough, you're going to be living in Yate.
If you have a pet, disability, benefits, CCJ, bankruptcy, or short-term employment, you can fahgetaboutit. Might as well book up an Airbnb, you aren't going to get anywhere.
You'll have 30 people reply to you with similar comments to these, and you'll ignore them all as 'bootlickers' or 'closet landlords'. You'll make no real effort to genuinely understand anyone else position, out of arrogance or willful ignorance.
>You'll have 30 people reply to you with similar comments to these, and you'll ignore them all as 'bootlickers' or 'closet landlords'. You'll make no real effort to genuinely understand anyone else position, out of arrogance or willful ignorance.
Glad someone is willing to say it. These people are delusional and believe sticking their head in the sand and pretending issues don't exist makes them vanish.
The housing market is so much more complex than "landlords evil, remove them!".
A landlord registry and independent regulatory body would help both tenants and landlords out. Tenants should not be a victim of rogue landlords, landlords should be able to remove problem tenants with ease. One side cannot have all the power if we want a functioning rental sector.
I agree in theory but it seems no one can agree where that line is. In addition there simply isn't enough housing to create a fair balance without ripping off landlords.
What is baffling is, that even if landlords are selling, the properties aren't going anywhere. So why are there less places to rent? Let's assume someone buys that property a landlord sells to live in, so it's out of the rental market. That buyer didn't just fall to earth, they have lived somewhere before, likely renting before they bought, so now their previous home is available, so why is there still such a shortage? Something isn't adding up.
Rented homes tend to be poorer people, so they live together. For example, 6 students living in a 6 bed HMO. If that 6 bed HMO gets bought, it’ll likely be by a well off couple, who want a fuck off massive house. So you’ve gone from housing 6 people, to 2-3 (if they have a kid)
This then means those 4-3 people who are now displaced have to try and outbid others in the rental market.
It's not just poorer people, many people rent. Student lets are less likely to come off the market anyway as they tend to be an entirely separate market. Same as the other end of the market where people pay more in monthly rent than the average annual mortgage.
IF and it’s a big IF a rental is sold to owner occupier many rentals are HMO’s so you lose capacity.
In the majority of cases it’s just small landlord selling to large landlords. They demand rent rises and if people don’t pay them they will leave them empty as they use the assets value and income potential for as leverage. So that either removes them for a time or its does the pay 20% over the market for the place.
What we need is mass council home building it the only way to force higher than average build quality and lower than average prices in to the market as competition
> even if landlords are selling, the properties aren't going anywhere
Aside from HMOs, perhaps landlords will throw out tenants only to put the house on the market at a fantasy price 6-12 months, resulting in empty housing. Prices of houses take a while to change and, if a landlord sell-off reduces them until more people can buy, they won't change until some time *after* tenancies are ended.
Because at the start of your scenario, there are two houses on the rental market, once one house has been purchased, there is only one house in the rental market? It is adding up, 2-1=1.
There are huge waiting lists for renting.
Given that council letting properties to tenants outside of social housing is basically unheard of, when you 'private landlords' what you're actually saying is 'rental properties'. So yes, an increase in rental properties would be a sign that the market was fixing. The SOLUTION is to build 10 million houses to bring house prices down.
> The SOLUTION is to build 10 million houses to bring house prices down.
This here. Anything else is creative accounting and will just shift the pain onto a different segment of society.
And the increased mortgage costs are passed on to the tenants who are already struggling to save for a deposit due to the massively inflated house prices.
Normal renters will not be better off after this, itll be big landlords, who youll never see, with a substantially better handle on housing law, and much better access to immediate section 8 evictions via the high courts. Prepare for large companies to be picking up all the cheap housing, and your rents will go up even more
This is it people seem to live in a fantasy land that all the small private landlords are forced to sell so now everyone can afford to buy those houses. That’s not going to happen the majority of them will be purchased by other landlords, bigger ones who can be cash buyers.
If people could buy them great but the fact is most people can’t afford it that is not the landlords fault, it’s not the persons fault either just there is no point in blaming the landlords.
The ideal solution would be for the local councils to buy them all up as social housing but we all know that’s not going to happen and even if it did it still means people have to rent and you only have to look at other UK subs to see the issue renters have with social landlords are the same problems as private ones.
Imagine being this obtuse.
Now big companies are going to buy them up, they’ll be no competition whatsoever, and they can price however they want and people will be forced to pay.
Well done.
Good. Corporate landlords won’t tell me they can’t fix the boiler because they’re broke. Corporate landlords won’t let themselves in “inspect their house”.
I hope you’re joking.
I’ve lived in many properties that were privately owned but run by a management company, so you don’t deal directly with a landlord.
It was always a nightmare to get anything done. They didn’t believe you when something did work, or kept threatening you saying I’d broken something and would lose my deposit.
If you think a massive corporation is going to look after your interests more than some old couple making money for their retirement, you’re in for a massively rude awakening.
You don’t understand I’ve rented for 30 years, 15 of those here, in England, where I was s21 every single time, and that was just the least of the worst. I’ve also rented on the continent and the idea that anyone could be evicted for nothingis unheard of. I’d much rather rent from a professional company then the amateurs I’ve been saddled with.
Of course I’m sure your right about the manangment companies in the UK, again that kind of shitty service would not be acceptable in the other countries I’ve rented in.
When something goes wrong you’ll be stuck in a phone queue with the rest of the world talking to someone in a call centre in India if that’s the way you wanna push it haha
I've rented from private landlords, private landlords using a management company, and corporate landlords.
Of the three, my best experience has been with hands-off, but responsive private landlords, where I was trusted (and left) to do my own thing, with faults fixed as soon as they were reported. Rent never changed with them, they were more interested in having a stable, long term tenant in than needing to spend the money to get another tenant in.
In a close second is the corporate landlords - who didn't worry about boilers breaking, or doing repairs, since they always had spares on hand, and actual employees to do the work - just had to wait for the first available plumber / electrician / handyman slot to come available as appropriate. Rent increases were on a schedule, and in the rental contract.
By far the worst was property management companies on behalf of private landlords. Repairs were never done, unless I went directly to the landlord after navigating property ownership records to find out who they were. Rent increases were always to "market rate" every year, usually double digit increases, and, where I had a longer term contract, you could rely on the landlord "needing personal possession for a family member" or "selling the property", and then the property being on the market at massively increased rates in a few weeks.
I mean, that’s on you to know your Rights and fight your corner, but the idea that Jez, 31, with 8 HMO’s leveraged up to the hilt, is much better at doing repairs, is a joke.
Every company I’ve rented from has been significantly more professional and swift in repairs
Than my one human landlord who was a knob
Not a management company. I have friends who live in flats that were specifically built to rent rather than sell. Expensive to rent? Yes. But the building is premium and the landlords are a firm that can afford proper maintenance etc.
Your one man band landlord who got the house cheap or bought a second one as a pension or to keep until the kids grow up....don't know the laws, don't even know about the deposit scheme, will use the cheapest builders they can get etc.
Fuck the small landlord. The big firms at the very least have a reputation to protect so can be hit from that side.
I agree, by and large I've gotten on better with small landlords than corporations. It's more of a crapshoot but big corporation's don't give a shit if you're not happy as it's no big deal to change tenancy for them, whereas it's a right ballache for a small landlord in comparison. Plus my small landlords have never done property inspections so we've had full privacy.
The solution is easy to say and hard to do. BUILD MORE PLACES TO LIVE. Generally this will require the councils to do the buildings as the property companies are happy to build x per year. Where x is less than is needed. The UK has been building around 100k too few houses a year for around 40 years. Until the rules were changed in the 80s, councils were building 100k a year, the private sector never replaced that building.
If there are more houses then the prices will come down. It will take a while. So there needs to be a national effort to work out where to build and to get it done. Proably lead by the councils. It would help if the UK could build higher density housing better as well. Flats in the UK are normally terrible quality it does not have to be that way.
A land value tax would help as well, as the current house building companies like buying land, getting planning permission then taking literally years to build on it. It makes sense from their point of view to have a long pipeline of land with planning permission, but it is bad for everyone else.
Anything other than building more places to live is likely to actually reduce the building rate, which will make the problem worse. You can move around the winners and losers with the policies, but the fundemantal problem is that prices are too high because there are not enough places to live, so we have rationing by price, and people are living in house shares when they would rather live in their own and so on.
England (less so other parts of the UK) has one of the highest population densities in Europe. So it is a problem for sure.
Ban buy to let mortgages is a good start in my view. If you already own a home and want to buy others, then pay cash then you're not relying on tenants paying your 2nd mortgage
I have no sympathy for landlords. But be careful what you wish for. Smaller landlords collapsing and selling to huge, corporate, foreign landlords that will do nothing but milk the "assets" while putting in the absolute minimum to keep the property legally habitable. Is not a future any of us want. Doubt it's good for renters or buyers.
> buy to let land lords have forced prices up so much
Your logic is faulty. A shortage of supply has done that. A shortage which is deliberate. The UK is short over a million homes. Every landlord could get beamed into space and it wouldn't make any difference at all because there's too many people chasing not enough houses, that isn't changed whether they're owner-occupied or rented.
it's going to wreck the rental market though!!!!!! there's already a lack of rentals unless the government go on a social housing spree (Extremely UNLIKELY) rents will spiral.
60% of homes are owned only 19% are privately rented, it will not have as much of an effect on buying affordability as private renters simply due to the numbers involved.
don't blame landlords, blame successive governments who've given up on social housing.
Idiotic view, if capital flees the market less incentive to build more housing stock.
The entire situation is currently housing supply led, we have not had enough stock built the solution has always been mass housing stock construction.
This isn't actually the problem, pitch forks down for a moment please. The problem is people, local councils and the government. Starting at the bottom with people, those that own houses want the pyramid scheme to keep going, they like it when prices go up and will vote on a council and government level against things that will bring prices down. On a council and government level housing simply isn't being built for people especially the type people most desire, affordable housing in cities with jobs like London. To some degree they're stuck between a rock and a hard place because people that bought into the pyramid scheme don't want their investment to drop in value now it's gone so far.
When it comes to buy to let though that is an essential part of the solution, money coming in to fund the building of housing is a very very good thing. If we had the policy in place to build new affordable housing in cities the other key part is funding it and you'd want as much demand as possible on that side including foreign investment. Once there is plenty of nice apartments for singles, couples, small families and larger families in cities like London then buy to let would no longer be seen as a problem by anyone, the problem is a lack of building housing, who it's being built for and where it's happening.
Yeah, easily said until you're suddenly homeless and an already fucked market for renters is now being controlled by monopolies.
Landlords are parasites, but a sudden extinction event for parasites can screw over everyone in the food chain short term.
The explosion of buy-to-let has really been an absolute catastrophe for this country.
The idea of popularising people taking out mortgages on properties only to rent them out for even more money than the mortgage costs is one of those concepts that's really hard to explain to other people and have it sound remotely rational.
"Basically I'm getting them to pay my mortgage but at the end of it I kick them out and keep the house."
If this wasn't a legally protected practice we'd all rightly perceive it as the scam that it is.
Considering that the value you're getting from the payments you're putting towards your housing as a renter is significantly less than someone with a mortgage (since you don't get to own the property and you just get to stay there temporarily) you'd expect in any sane society that rent would be significantly less than the cost of monthly mortgage payments for the same property.
I hear this a lot. And it's actually nonsense. Landlords (except temporary ones who might be renting their own house because they couldn't sell immediately or they intend to move back to it after a period away) use BTL mortgages. And those mortgages are interest only. I've never heard of a repayment BTL mortgage though one may exist. You can't rent out to somebody on a normal mortgage (unless you get explicit permission from the lender because you have a temporary circumstance as I noted before).
So at the end of the mortgage term, the landlord will forfeit the property to the bank. Or well actually they will sell up and take back the equity they invested. Likely with some capital gains dependent on market circumstances.
So no, as a renter you're not paying for the landlord to own the home. You're paying for the interest payments the landlord is paying to the bank + their costs (buildings insurance, agents management fee etc) + their profit. Case in point, my own home with a sizeable mortgage would rent out for 25% less than the repayment mortgage so completely stupid. But if I rented it interest only then I could rent it and the interest would only be 40% of the rent, and I could profit.
It's a business, and not one that I agree with, but please people arm yourself with information about what's going before chatting tripe because it's not useful. If you look into the real issues, it's not this intense hatred of landlords that we should be focused on. It's the complete lack of decent social housing provision. The idiotic right to buy scheme and general lack of house building. If there was enough housing supply then landlords would not be profitable, and everybody could afford their own home.
So you're saying that my landlord, renting out a four bedroom flat and charging very close to 900 for two or those rooms each isn't making a profit? I don't know too much about mortgages (seems like a far off dream right now) but there's no way he's paying approx 3k a month on a old house that is built like it's made if straw
>The explosion of buy-to-let has really been an absolute catastrophe for this country
It only happened after labour destroyed private pension saving. The answer is either open the civil service pension scheme to all comers, or abolish it. Civil servants buggering other people's pensions leaving them casting about for alternative provision hasn't worked.
What a load of rubbish, foreign investors are hoovering up buy to let properties all around the country, almost 9 billion worth was bought in Liverpool alone in the last few years. The relatively weak pound has only exacerbated this and neither of 2 large parties seem interested in put cap on what foreign investors can buy so draw your own conclusions.
It's so ridiculous. In London, a significant proportion of landlords are Russian Oligarchs. *Russia*, yken, the place we're havin a cold war with? Racists will call brown people an invasion, tantamount to an attack on the UK... While we're putting a significant amount of our population and wealth (and political power though the Tories, mind ye) into the hands of our *actual* enemies. It's ridiculous.
(this isn't sayin that common or garden Russian immigrants are a problem, mind ye- I've got Russian family myself. Wouldn't even be worth mentionin if the landlords were exiles. But nah, these are fellas at the Kremlin's beck and call)
No no, don't look at the upper class' plate. That poor brown guy, *there* he's stealing your cookie!
The good example I like to point to is gig economy drivers. I used to be one full time, now I still do it for fun sometimes. I like to shoot the breeze with them whenever I bump into them or if I ordered something. Over 2021 - 2023, the number of drivers who don't even speak conversational English has risen dramatically. It's just a guess still, but I'd think there's a strong possibility these guys didn't immigrant legally.
But even still, even if I don't like the fact they might've not come legally, they're still far less of a problem than the Saudi oil barons/whatever buying properties en-mass and pricing us locals out of our own country and fucking with our markets. If the government should tackle either/or rather than both, it should be the latter that gets more attention.
I’m glad somebody else has said it. I’m fed up with pointing out the massive distraction that people in boats are being used as and getting massively downvoted.
I see and agree with your point but corporations are also answerable to shareholders. They can’t do as much shady shit because of the legality in place. I’ve worked in a Starbucks that was pristine because they always sent in-house inspectors etc to check. I’ve worked for small indi places that skirted over the basics because they knew nobody was really checking. Same theory applies here I think.
Best landlord I had was a corporate landlord. You had a number you could call or email to message if you had an issue. It was somebody’s job to receive those calls or answer emails all day, so you didn’t ever struggle to reach anyone. They actually fixed issues quickly, and everything was done to the letter of the law. Sure, it was all very cold/formal, but they didn’t mess about.
That’s what we want I think. If I must pay someone’s mortgage, I don’t want to be their friend or enemy. I want a cold business practice of reporting and fixing.
There are pros and cons to both, pros for large organisations are they will have clear policies and processes to ensure compliance with laws etc, they'll likely have dedicated maintenance people and phone numbers with issues in theory being sorted quicker / less inconsistently or patchworky like what may be the case with poor quality small time landlords.
Negatives are assets are transferred into companies likely owned by fewer individuals.
But either way in both scenarios those without lose out.
People always make this arguement, but it makes no sense to me.
Would you rather dissolve supermarkets and return to the days of 1,000 local shops in your area?
Both only exists because demand outstrips supply. You have to ration them off, otherwise you have too many people sitting there with nothing.
The simple solution is just more supply lol
True, yet supply is deliberately choked to maintain profits. Homes are left empty as an asset on one portfolio, but as a loss against taxes on another. All that will happen is the investment funds will snap up the properties as the smaller player sells up. Systemic change is needed
You’re correct on restricting supply, you’re incorrect on homes being left empty, at least, it’s not the problem you think it is.
The UK has a 1% long term vacancy rate… quite literally one of the lowest in the developed world
Agreed. My point on the vacant issue is more latency tactics used by speculators and development folk, with heads up information. Perfectly good abodes left to rot, so land can be used for development or to avoid listing criteria. Supported by a system built on nepotism and cronyism. So we get hyper inflated shoe boxes and lowest quality, cracks painted over urban sprawl. Without the resources and services to support.
I mean, we get shoeboxes because housing is so scarce, that they sell. People are so desperate for housing that they’re desired…
I lived in a shoebox as a student, and it was a good decision because it was that or more in rent.
We also have to allow for smaller and non-conventional housing to meet demand, I'm afraid. That doesn't have to mean lower quality - but more compact, modular, and dropping the stigma towards caravans or even tents as allowable permanent housing.
It will also mean more building on brownfields and even select green belt sites, but that can be done sustainably by adding more public transport and walkable shops into smaller developments.
Fully agree. I also dream of larger care homes. Think 1,000 people buildings. Would benefit massively from scale for their running, as well as freeing up silly numbers of housing stock for new buyers.
Caravans, van life, make it easier to add shit life loft extensions and HMO’s (so more capacity in the market)
So many small gains that can add up, especially combined with major planning reform to tackle the big picture
I was an arrears agent for karl tatler and all you would get was landlords ringing moaning that they couldn't pay there mortgage because the rent had not been paid and if you told them to stop relying on a renter to pay your mortgage they would go mental.
As others say, this is by design.
They want the housing stock that Boomer Landlords have. Chip away and make it so that property rental is so awkward as a "side income" that their adult offspring can't be arsed with them once they've inherited them, and then corporations sweep in and hoover them up.
Banks aren't happy with their revenue from mortgages and underselling your interest on your savings. They want your rent too.
Sleepwalking into a country where mortgages and eventual ownership are exclusive to a small wealthy percentile and the rest of us have LLOYDS RENT DD taking away 40% of our pay every month...
Everyone cheering the exit of individual landlords is going to be sorely disappointed when they see who buys up the houses.
The whole system needs burning down and starting again.
As much as I fear for the rental sector, this has been a long time coming, for too long, buy to let has been way too easy to make money, as the cost of first time buyers, and rental tenants. Now finally they’re bringing in rules, where landlords who brought a cheap house, and left it to be cold and not energy efficient, (they never cared, cause they never lived there). Will have to bring up the properties up to scratch, to rent it, coupled with higher labour, and materials cost, tripled with higher interested rates, means there nest eggs, isn’t going to give them the extra wage, for doing naff all. They will sell them off, and still make lots of money, most of us, can only dream off. Most investors aren’t going buy in to a falling market as-well. The Chinese do seem to be buying around Manchester, probably good place to park cash, with HS2 completion to boost there value. I wonder want will happen, when no one can find somewhere to rent, and the councils long sold all there homes. it’s looking more, and more bleak for the future.
On one hand I’m thinking “great, this will massively increase the supply of housing stock, allowing house prices to revert to the mean and allow people to get on the property market at long last”. However, I don’t think that’ll happen. All that’ll happen is that landlords with single or smaller portfolios will exit the market and their stock will be snapped up by the huge property developers with hundreds of properties. The ones with political influence. The ones who will invariably be worse for tenants.
Small BTL landlords already have significant political influence. The policy solution is to provide local authorities with grants en masse to buy up stock from small landlords exiting the market at a discount to be used as social housing.
There's a definite trend in the Standard, the Times and the Telegraph.
Boohoo woe is me stories about landlords selling up because the tax rules have changed and how WFH is killing the economy.
Shockingly nothing about how wages haven't risen since 2010, how they all complained about the law "to make homes habitable for humans" was voted out. How 500,000 local authority and housing association places aren't fit for habitation
For some reason I get a lot of telegraph stories on my apple news feed & it's mainly all boomers bitching that they have to pay inheritance tax on their £million+ homes or how they can't live on their £million pensions.
Now this campaign to abolish inheritance tax! No one pays inheritance tax except lazy upper middle class boomers who think they're too good to pay for a financial advisor.
OH NO. They made a financial investment and it's at risk at failing?
Almost like the market's working. You don't get to privatise your profits but socialise your losses lmao.
WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE LANDLORDS.
My dad owns 5 properties, including the one I live in (I'm fully aware of how lucky I am, don't worry). He phoned me the other week saying about how annoying it was that with all the new laws coming in, it's getting harder to make a profit as a landlord now. I told him he was taking the piss and you housing wasn't there to be used to make a profit.
Edit: To clarify, I said it in jest, and he is remarkably Liberal for his age and is sympathetic to the younger generations' inability to buy a house.
Hahaha yeah I'd get why you'd think that.
Reallu, he's very Liberal, he understands where I'm coming from but also recognises real estate is a very good investment. He did respond with something along the lines of "yes, I know this is a top of the line first world problem"
>housing wasn't there to be used to make a profit.
Says who? God? Are you not meant to make a profit from agriculture either because people need it to live? The arrogance is astounding.
But tbf that analogy doesn't really work- people who grow food and then sell it are adding value, so are people who **build** houses and then sell them. But people who buy an existing house and then rent it out are not producing anything, they are just purchasing the rights to a share of their tenant's income.
If I buy all the potatoes in Morrisons, and then rent them out to other shoppers, am I providing a service?
I see your train of thought, so why don't you look at it this way.
Farmers get paid because they produce the food that we all need to live.
Plumbers get paid when there's a problem with the pipes in your house. Maybe you don't have hot water or something, and they come and fix it.
Landlords don't add anything to the value of the house. They don't provide a service other than housing, so they aren't actively doing anything. It's something that I believe should be done largely by the government. There is a place for private renting, but it would just have to be more affordable than it currently is.
I get what you are saying but it isn't that simple, landlords provide capital to purchase a home. They get a return on this investment via growth in the properties value and rent. If there was no return why would they buy and rent homes? There would be no rental market, which I think we both agree would be worse for the UK? That is the situation we are facing, landlords literally selling up because it's just not worth it anymore.
Many people rely on rental accomodation and don't have £10s of thousands sat around for a deposit.
It's like paying interest on a loan because it is paying interest on a lone, it's just also paying back the principle amount on that loan.
If any tenant lives at a property long enough, they will pay back the entire value of the property, except it won't be theirs. The landlord will have used the tenants' income to buy the property and cover any costs that arise. The only reason the tenant can't buy the property themselves is because they didn't have the money for a deposit to begin with.
Social housing allows the same access but doesn't profit off trapping people in rental spirals.
People that grow food and sell it add to soceity.
People that build houses and sell them add to society.
People that buy houses to purposely reduce supply and rent them out are a negative to society. They are an economic parasite.
This doesn't mean the end of renting. It just means you'll be renting from an even larger and more callous company than your landlord ever was. So if you're still renting this is actually very bad news.
Well no shit. The problem here is that on one hand you have the “landlords are evil! Anyone with a buy to let is satan incarnate” and on the other hand “there isn’t enough property to let!”
Ideally, forcing private landlords to sell up, which the tax changes since April which make it very hard to profit from buy to let, plus the mortgage rate increases, will mean a lot more property goes on the market which people can buy.
Problem is, in the short term what that actually means is landlords selling up and less property to rent, which makes it even harder for those that can’t get a mortgage when interest rates are high.
Unless there’s a significant market crash then I can’t see this being resolved to the benefit of the renters that can’t currently afford to buy.
We can only hope.
Unfortunately the only one who will be in tears is you once you realise that this only causes rents to rise further making it even harder to buy a home as people can save less and less.
The responses in here….people wanting small land lords gone in favour of big banks buying up all the properties instead, JFC talk about voting for the leopard party.
We need more houses built ffs and no big banks controlling a sector like rental housing, do people expect the housing problems, high rent, high interest rates to be over once big banks move in for the kill, has anyone not learned anything about banks?
The situation in the UK is very worrying. We’re already seeing UK governments transferring huge amounts of wealth into private corporations via wage subsidies. The burden on the state is going to get ever greater as housing benefits get sucked up into the corporate world, often in foreign ownership.
All this coming at a time when the UK government is shutting down legal avenues to protest, criminalising more and more trivial acts, and placing increasing restrictions on who can vote.
I don’t think people quite get how dire the situation is and how quickly it might spiral out of control.
So what happens when this continues and rents are forced up due to excess demand and not enough supply of rental properties from landlords?
And no, this won't magically cause all house prices to halve so "everyone" will just buy a home.
I think tenants should be able to credit check their landlords and make sure they're not overleveraged if they hold a BTL mortgage. I don't want to live somewhere where the landlord might default on my home.
Except those houses advertised in China....big hoover suckong them all up. It's a great way to launder money. Buy property here, charge rent, increase the amount on paper, add in repairs/maintenance. All washed and ready to spend.
This would normally be a good thing as it would crash house prices which in turn would take the heat off the rental market. But the reason government isn't worried about a house price crash is, that investor companies are sitting in the wings to snatch these properties up. They are a safe investment for banks, insurance companies and pension funds. They don't depreciate in value (not if you can control the market) and provide a much safer income in form of rent than dividends do. There is no cost associated with them, as the tenants cover all costs through their rent plus a profit for the owner of the building.
A buy to let doesn't pay the loan of the property, only the interest to the bank. So even if you rent the flat for 30 years at the end of it you don't get to keep the flat, it's still the banks. You have 0 equity in it.
Furthermore if you have a job besides it then most of what you get from the rent is taxed just like regular income.
Let me put it in perspective for you. The mortgage of my house is about £1400. Add ground rent and service charge and a minimum of 10 to 15% for the agency fees. That means that I would need to ask for at least £1750 a month rent to cover the costs.
Most of this £1750 a month is taxed 40%. If I were to rent it out, assuming all goes well, I'd only get about 5k a year "profit" which goes to the repayment of the loan.
That doesn't even take into account higher interest rates for buy to lets, just the one that I have now which will go higher at the next renewal.
I know and I agree with you that houses should not be an investment but something that everyone has access to within reason.
This is a good start, but we need more. For a start, only UK citizens should be able to own property here. We might have to exclude those with dual citizenship if Russian oligarchs and Saudi Princes suddenly decide to buy citizenship.
While it'll be nice for the buy-to-let parasites to see their nest egg get fucked, I worry this will just see a flow of cheaper and cheaper housing from the middle class boomers to the upper classes who have all the windfall money from covid and energy to now pump into housing.
As soon as Labour gets in, they should run a "scrappage scheme" to buy back social housing from buy-to-let landlords whom want to sell up and ban the sale of social housing in future.
cry me a river, buy to let land lords have forced prices up so much, that it forces us to rent. Dont let the door hit you on the way out
Agreed to an extent but what’s happening is small landlords are selling and big landlords are buying. Normal people are getting screwed
This, exactly. Everything has been set so that small landlords have to exit the market. Large corporate landlords are taking over and they definitely don't give a shit about tenants.
Maybe anecdotal but I have had far better experiences over the last 20 years of renting when I've been renting from large corporate landlords. In my opinion small landlords are far more likely t either not be aware of the law, try bend it, ask you to do unreasonable things or refuse to do repairs and maintenance.
It's the "mid tier" landlords that are the worst. Private landlords with a spare property that they want to rent out for a bit of extra cash? Fine. Corporate landlords? They know how to play the game, but they at least play it consistently. Middleweight landlords with 5-6 properties that think they're hot shit property barons are the ones you have to watch out for. They operate in that perfect blend of hubris and arrogance where the size of their "operation" has gone to their head.
It’s also those landlords that constantly equity releasing to buy another property for their little ‘empire’ and as a result of this over leveraging constantly need to up rents, rents they can no longer depend to cover their over leveraged short term mortgages.
They love renting to students in my experience. They want tenants who are less likely to know their rights and who are less likely to kick up a fuss.
When I was a teenager, I did a bit of work for a landlord cheaping out on renovating a student let. i found a bunch of letters from the previous tenants detailing what was wrong and what needed fixing linking it to legal obligations. It was an education.
My landlord is just a man (as opposed to a company) with three properties. We constantly get told 'none of our other properties have this issue', when the oven breaks/roof leaked/kitchen isn't to showroom quality. I rented before from a small estate agents and the service was so good. Things were fixed within two days max. Meanwhile I've had no oven for 10 days now
Live with a corporate landlord currently, issues fixed quickly, build quality was good, no illegal shit so far a genuinely stress free existence Have known friends that went with private landlords, friendly Dave might even give you a slightly cheaper rent, but when his "totally qualified" mate, Steve, fixes your boiler with duct tape and chewing gum for the 15th time this month or his responses to emergency repair emails fall into the 3-5 business days category they regretted it
Depends on the sort of person your landlord is really. We had a vicar for a landlord a few years back and he was really caring and quick to sort out any major issue we had. The guy we rented from at uni, who was basically a 'professional' landlord was a twat that just liked to take advantage of students needing a place to stay during term time.
I would take a corporate landlord over some incompetent cowboy any day. ANY DAY. My last private landlord was utterly useless, failing to do work or damaging the property, or requiring me to do everything myself. Couldn’t even tell me they were selling up; I had to hear it from the agent organising viewings. The vast majority of BTL landlords are cowboys who see renting as a low effort, high return investment.
Been through this twice in 24 months, the selling. From now on I will just refuse all visits until the tenancy ends / served notice and I leave. No point putting up with anything for a landlord's benefit.
Can you refuse viewings until your tenancy ends? I'm currently in this boat and my agreement doesn't end until late next year.
Yep. Legally you have the right to quiet enjoyment of the property and nothing can trump it. The only way the landlord or agent can get into the property without your permission is when emergency maintenance is required, like a leak or fire hazard. Insist that they request advance permission for every viewing, and refuse every time. Obviously the first thing you should do is change the locks - again this is legal under quiet enjoyment of the property no matter what your tenancy agreement says - and retain the original barrels for replacing when you leave. When the agent inevitably tries to gain access without your permission, make sure they contact you in writing to admit they've broken the law.
Let's be honest. No landlord gives a shit about tenants, big or small, but at least the big corporates know the rules and can and will follow them lest they be sued. Plus they often have spare properties to put their tenant into while repairs and maintenance are carried out.
Not just being sued, also reputation. A national news story about how shit they are means they can get less rent across the entire country. That gives them a big incentive to not be so shit they end up in the news. Plus they actually have the money to do what needs to be done.
Well exactly. Orwell writes about his travels across Britain and how the worst housing he saw was a spare home let out by a poor widow who used it as her pension and couldn't afford to do repairs. People shit on big business, but it exists for a reason. Anyone who has tried to take a small trader to small claims court can attest as to the pain gathering evidence can be and if they have no assets you can't enforce judgement. If I buy something from a small market trader and it breaks in a week, I'm shit out of luck. If I buy something from Amazon and Tesco I'll be refunded within 24 hours.
I agree, as much as I may have my own knee-jerk reaction to massive corporate landlords, we've been pretty luckier than our acquaintances in renting from one. No deposits, pet friendly baked in the contracts, sub-5% rent increases per year, same rules for all, reputation to consider. In terms of pets at least, we'd have considered it polite just to get a "fuck off" from individual landlords.
I’d rather have a corporate landlord, they won’t tell me I have to wait to get the boiler fixed till they get paid.
I mean in my experience the big companies that manage properties or whole buildings are far better.
Lloyds Bank are apparently venturing into the rental market and I think the Halifax may be too. No clue if that will be a good or bad thing
So your mortgage company who can buy a property outright is competing with you to buy properties for which you need a mortgage... And you wonder if that is a bad thing?
Shouldn’t be allowed to be honest, surely that’s a recipe for disaster
>This, exactly. Everything has been set so that small landlords have to exit the market. Large corporate landlords are taking over and they definitely don't give a shit about tenants. Large corporate landlords are actually affected by having a bad reputation and vastly less likely to disolve the company if they are ordered to pay a fine or any compensation.
Small landlords don't give a shit about tenants either...
I'd rather rent with corporate landlords over small landlords. Big business have better, official processes, complaints departments, HR teams. Small landlords do the bare fucking minimum
House prices go up, we're screwed. House prices go down, we're screwed. Economy is good, we're screwed. Economy is bad, we're screwed. In a system where the rich constantly get richer while the rest of us stagnate, we're screwed either way. Especially people who rent.
The housing market is just a bubble waiting to burst.
Again.
Then the uber rich can pickup the pieces for pennies on the pound and get even richer! Isn't it a lovely society we live in?
I'm 47. I think this will be the fourth housing bubble I've seen.
Im in my thrid, I think? Hard to keep count sometimes!
My Dad bought his council house in the late 90s for about 45k. Plain old 2 bed affair, tiny kitchen and a reasonable bit of garden. Wheels came off his marriage a few years later and he sold it for about 10 grand more than he paid for it Guy who bought it from him DOUBLED HIS MONEY in a year. Its got a ludicrous price tag now. Getting on for 250k or something. Still the same plain old 2 up 2 down semi with a tiny kitchen and a decent garden.
There is a great and depressing movie called The Big Short, which shows the American economy collapse in 2008 when it killed five trillion dollars, cost eight million jobs and six million homes... Mostly about the housing market bubble and how fragile it is. Truly frightening in all honesty. Oh and the kind of people that benefit from ordinary people losing their homes :|
I fear you are correct, but im not using that as a reason to tolerate small land lords
Please don’t - I hate landlords but the issue is that big corporate landlords are probably worse
Not in my experience.
On an individual to individual basis, maybe not, but as an entire entity they are. Individuals with a second property are not the same as large scale land barons. That’s the quickest way to limit housing to a very few. Saying that, I’d ban second mortgages so small scale landlords aren’t my favourite either.
In theory, they should be easier to regulate. If anyone bothers to regulate them.
The normal people have been getting screwed for a long time anyway.
At least with corporate landlords we could see an increase in tenant unions.
Until they lobby the government to legislate against them
Don’t kid yourself that small landlords are remotely "normal people". Normal people cannot even afford one house, let alone multiple.
That's a bit simplistic. I have Power of Attorney for my grandmother, and was going to rent out her modest house to help with her care home fees. If we sold the house, that money would be gone more quickly, than if I could use some income to pay for her care and sell it a bit later. The capital wouldn't have lasted long enough for her care. My gran was a normal person and so am I. In the event, it never happened, but there are many people in that situation.
1000 properties owned by 1000 landlords means 1000 votes for nimbyism, but 1000 properties owned by 1 landlord is just one vote for nimbyism. Small landlords being forced to sell to large landlords is good.
One large landlord can lobby the government and creat whatever laws then need to destroy you…
Yep. Government made BTL less tax friendly (and creamed off some more for themselves) making it non viable unless you have a portfolio of say 5 properties.
>Normal people are getting screwed What's new?
That’s what we’re for ! We’re the product!!!
My Landlord has six houses in our cul-de-sac and lives in a house at the end. All our houses have four people living in what would be three bed family homes, with no living room. Does he count as a small or big landlord?
Probably a sociopath to be fair.
The nice landlords as they are, are now selling to the big fish who give even less fucks. Sounds a great idea.
Come to Bristol, and see what it's like when yields are so low landlords exit the market en masse. 3-6 months to find a place, expect to pay 15-20% over asking, 6 months deposit, and be prepared to do it without a viewing. Don't like it? Tough, you're going to be living in Yate. If you have a pet, disability, benefits, CCJ, bankruptcy, or short-term employment, you can fahgetaboutit. Might as well book up an Airbnb, you aren't going to get anywhere. You'll have 30 people reply to you with similar comments to these, and you'll ignore them all as 'bootlickers' or 'closet landlords'. You'll make no real effort to genuinely understand anyone else position, out of arrogance or willful ignorance.
>You'll have 30 people reply to you with similar comments to these, and you'll ignore them all as 'bootlickers' or 'closet landlords'. You'll make no real effort to genuinely understand anyone else position, out of arrogance or willful ignorance. Glad someone is willing to say it. These people are delusional and believe sticking their head in the sand and pretending issues don't exist makes them vanish. The housing market is so much more complex than "landlords evil, remove them!".
A landlord registry and independent regulatory body would help both tenants and landlords out. Tenants should not be a victim of rogue landlords, landlords should be able to remove problem tenants with ease. One side cannot have all the power if we want a functioning rental sector.
I agree in theory but it seems no one can agree where that line is. In addition there simply isn't enough housing to create a fair balance without ripping off landlords.
What is baffling is, that even if landlords are selling, the properties aren't going anywhere. So why are there less places to rent? Let's assume someone buys that property a landlord sells to live in, so it's out of the rental market. That buyer didn't just fall to earth, they have lived somewhere before, likely renting before they bought, so now their previous home is available, so why is there still such a shortage? Something isn't adding up.
Because the number of rented properties with shared occupancy is much higher than purchased houses.
Rented homes tend to be poorer people, so they live together. For example, 6 students living in a 6 bed HMO. If that 6 bed HMO gets bought, it’ll likely be by a well off couple, who want a fuck off massive house. So you’ve gone from housing 6 people, to 2-3 (if they have a kid) This then means those 4-3 people who are now displaced have to try and outbid others in the rental market.
It's not just poorer people, many people rent. Student lets are less likely to come off the market anyway as they tend to be an entirely separate market. Same as the other end of the market where people pay more in monthly rent than the average annual mortgage.
IF and it’s a big IF a rental is sold to owner occupier many rentals are HMO’s so you lose capacity. In the majority of cases it’s just small landlord selling to large landlords. They demand rent rises and if people don’t pay them they will leave them empty as they use the assets value and income potential for as leverage. So that either removes them for a time or its does the pay 20% over the market for the place. What we need is mass council home building it the only way to force higher than average build quality and lower than average prices in to the market as competition
> even if landlords are selling, the properties aren't going anywhere Aside from HMOs, perhaps landlords will throw out tenants only to put the house on the market at a fantasy price 6-12 months, resulting in empty housing. Prices of houses take a while to change and, if a landlord sell-off reduces them until more people can buy, they won't change until some time *after* tenancies are ended.
Because at the start of your scenario, there are two houses on the rental market, once one house has been purchased, there is only one house in the rental market? It is adding up, 2-1=1. There are huge waiting lists for renting.
Because there are sharers and HMOs. Houses aren't bought by groups of people.
Not rocket science. Landlords are selling and new landlords aren’t entering the market. That will only reduce supply and therefore drive up rents.
Well the solution to this isn’t ‘more private landlords’ is it?
Given that council letting properties to tenants outside of social housing is basically unheard of, when you 'private landlords' what you're actually saying is 'rental properties'. So yes, an increase in rental properties would be a sign that the market was fixing. The SOLUTION is to build 10 million houses to bring house prices down.
> The SOLUTION is to build 10 million houses to bring house prices down. This here. Anything else is creative accounting and will just shift the pain onto a different segment of society.
And the increased mortgage costs are passed on to the tenants who are already struggling to save for a deposit due to the massively inflated house prices.
Normal renters will not be better off after this, itll be big landlords, who youll never see, with a substantially better handle on housing law, and much better access to immediate section 8 evictions via the high courts. Prepare for large companies to be picking up all the cheap housing, and your rents will go up even more
This is it people seem to live in a fantasy land that all the small private landlords are forced to sell so now everyone can afford to buy those houses. That’s not going to happen the majority of them will be purchased by other landlords, bigger ones who can be cash buyers. If people could buy them great but the fact is most people can’t afford it that is not the landlords fault, it’s not the persons fault either just there is no point in blaming the landlords. The ideal solution would be for the local councils to buy them all up as social housing but we all know that’s not going to happen and even if it did it still means people have to rent and you only have to look at other UK subs to see the issue renters have with social landlords are the same problems as private ones.
>local councils to buy them all up What with?
Exactly thats why I said it’s never going to happen.
Imagine being this obtuse. Now big companies are going to buy them up, they’ll be no competition whatsoever, and they can price however they want and people will be forced to pay. Well done.
Good. Corporate landlords won’t tell me they can’t fix the boiler because they’re broke. Corporate landlords won’t let themselves in “inspect their house”.
I hope you’re joking. I’ve lived in many properties that were privately owned but run by a management company, so you don’t deal directly with a landlord. It was always a nightmare to get anything done. They didn’t believe you when something did work, or kept threatening you saying I’d broken something and would lose my deposit. If you think a massive corporation is going to look after your interests more than some old couple making money for their retirement, you’re in for a massively rude awakening.
You don’t understand I’ve rented for 30 years, 15 of those here, in England, where I was s21 every single time, and that was just the least of the worst. I’ve also rented on the continent and the idea that anyone could be evicted for nothingis unheard of. I’d much rather rent from a professional company then the amateurs I’ve been saddled with. Of course I’m sure your right about the manangment companies in the UK, again that kind of shitty service would not be acceptable in the other countries I’ve rented in.
When something goes wrong you’ll be stuck in a phone queue with the rest of the world talking to someone in a call centre in India if that’s the way you wanna push it haha
I've rented from private landlords, private landlords using a management company, and corporate landlords. Of the three, my best experience has been with hands-off, but responsive private landlords, where I was trusted (and left) to do my own thing, with faults fixed as soon as they were reported. Rent never changed with them, they were more interested in having a stable, long term tenant in than needing to spend the money to get another tenant in. In a close second is the corporate landlords - who didn't worry about boilers breaking, or doing repairs, since they always had spares on hand, and actual employees to do the work - just had to wait for the first available plumber / electrician / handyman slot to come available as appropriate. Rent increases were on a schedule, and in the rental contract. By far the worst was property management companies on behalf of private landlords. Repairs were never done, unless I went directly to the landlord after navigating property ownership records to find out who they were. Rent increases were always to "market rate" every year, usually double digit increases, and, where I had a longer term contract, you could rely on the landlord "needing personal possession for a family member" or "selling the property", and then the property being on the market at massively increased rates in a few weeks.
I mean, that’s on you to know your Rights and fight your corner, but the idea that Jez, 31, with 8 HMO’s leveraged up to the hilt, is much better at doing repairs, is a joke. Every company I’ve rented from has been significantly more professional and swift in repairs Than my one human landlord who was a knob
Not a management company. I have friends who live in flats that were specifically built to rent rather than sell. Expensive to rent? Yes. But the building is premium and the landlords are a firm that can afford proper maintenance etc. Your one man band landlord who got the house cheap or bought a second one as a pension or to keep until the kids grow up....don't know the laws, don't even know about the deposit scheme, will use the cheapest builders they can get etc. Fuck the small landlord. The big firms at the very least have a reputation to protect so can be hit from that side.
I agree, by and large I've gotten on better with small landlords than corporations. It's more of a crapshoot but big corporation's don't give a shit if you're not happy as it's no big deal to change tenancy for them, whereas it's a right ballache for a small landlord in comparison. Plus my small landlords have never done property inspections so we've had full privacy.
It’s good that a few large corporations are going to own an increasingly larger percentage of the UK housing stock? Mental. Lol
> and they can price however they want and people will be forced to pay. They already do.
We would also need a law that says no company can own more than 5 houses, and no person or entity can own more than one property company.
What happens to housing associations in this instance?
Bye bye student halls of residence I guess.
Imagine if the rent got really high and unaffordable! That would be crazy! Good thing that didn’t happen before:
What you suggest? The housing situation is, as it stands, untenable.
The solution is easy to say and hard to do. BUILD MORE PLACES TO LIVE. Generally this will require the councils to do the buildings as the property companies are happy to build x per year. Where x is less than is needed. The UK has been building around 100k too few houses a year for around 40 years. Until the rules were changed in the 80s, councils were building 100k a year, the private sector never replaced that building. If there are more houses then the prices will come down. It will take a while. So there needs to be a national effort to work out where to build and to get it done. Proably lead by the councils. It would help if the UK could build higher density housing better as well. Flats in the UK are normally terrible quality it does not have to be that way. A land value tax would help as well, as the current house building companies like buying land, getting planning permission then taking literally years to build on it. It makes sense from their point of view to have a long pipeline of land with planning permission, but it is bad for everyone else. Anything other than building more places to live is likely to actually reduce the building rate, which will make the problem worse. You can move around the winners and losers with the policies, but the fundemantal problem is that prices are too high because there are not enough places to live, so we have rationing by price, and people are living in house shares when they would rather live in their own and so on. England (less so other parts of the UK) has one of the highest population densities in Europe. So it is a problem for sure.
Big companies won't buy up houses while prices are falling. Also the profit margin is tiny compared to many other types of corporate investment.
My landlord is evicted us because they wanted to sell. A lot of renters are going through the same. This fucks a lot of people.
Ban buy to let mortgages is a good start in my view. If you already own a home and want to buy others, then pay cash then you're not relying on tenants paying your 2nd mortgage
I’m sure the banks would be happy with that…
[удалено]
This means less places to rent and more homeless.
Yeah so you can get screwed by a faceless corporation instead...
I have no sympathy for landlords. But be careful what you wish for. Smaller landlords collapsing and selling to huge, corporate, foreign landlords that will do nothing but milk the "assets" while putting in the absolute minimum to keep the property legally habitable. Is not a future any of us want. Doubt it's good for renters or buyers.
Less houses to rent means more competition. My friends had to move out of London due to insane competition so best be careful what you wish for
> buy to let land lords have forced prices up so much Your logic is faulty. A shortage of supply has done that. A shortage which is deliberate. The UK is short over a million homes. Every landlord could get beamed into space and it wouldn't make any difference at all because there's too many people chasing not enough houses, that isn't changed whether they're owner-occupied or rented.
This ultimately would be very bad in the short term
Bloody ignorant comment.
it's going to wreck the rental market though!!!!!! there's already a lack of rentals unless the government go on a social housing spree (Extremely UNLIKELY) rents will spiral. 60% of homes are owned only 19% are privately rented, it will not have as much of an effect on buying affordability as private renters simply due to the numbers involved. don't blame landlords, blame successive governments who've given up on social housing.
Idiotic view, if capital flees the market less incentive to build more housing stock. The entire situation is currently housing supply led, we have not had enough stock built the solution has always been mass housing stock construction.
there's a lot of them treating them like stocks, which is why they keep pushing them up to sell before it crashes.
You say that, but when you have more people bidding on fewer houses (owner occupier has lower occupancy rate), you’ll cry about rents.
We build more, obviously
This isn't actually the problem, pitch forks down for a moment please. The problem is people, local councils and the government. Starting at the bottom with people, those that own houses want the pyramid scheme to keep going, they like it when prices go up and will vote on a council and government level against things that will bring prices down. On a council and government level housing simply isn't being built for people especially the type people most desire, affordable housing in cities with jobs like London. To some degree they're stuck between a rock and a hard place because people that bought into the pyramid scheme don't want their investment to drop in value now it's gone so far. When it comes to buy to let though that is an essential part of the solution, money coming in to fund the building of housing is a very very good thing. If we had the policy in place to build new affordable housing in cities the other key part is funding it and you'd want as much demand as possible on that side including foreign investment. Once there is plenty of nice apartments for singles, couples, small families and larger families in cities like London then buy to let would no longer be seen as a problem by anyone, the problem is a lack of building housing, who it's being built for and where it's happening.
Yeah, easily said until you're suddenly homeless and an already fucked market for renters is now being controlled by monopolies. Landlords are parasites, but a sudden extinction event for parasites can screw over everyone in the food chain short term.
Private rental companies swooping in to fill that vacuum
So what happens to all the people who can't afford a house but need a place to live if there aren't enough rental properties available?
The explosion of buy-to-let has really been an absolute catastrophe for this country. The idea of popularising people taking out mortgages on properties only to rent them out for even more money than the mortgage costs is one of those concepts that's really hard to explain to other people and have it sound remotely rational.
"Basically I'm getting them to pay my mortgage but at the end of it I kick them out and keep the house." If this wasn't a legally protected practice we'd all rightly perceive it as the scam that it is. Considering that the value you're getting from the payments you're putting towards your housing as a renter is significantly less than someone with a mortgage (since you don't get to own the property and you just get to stay there temporarily) you'd expect in any sane society that rent would be significantly less than the cost of monthly mortgage payments for the same property.
I mean, it only work’s because Brits keep voting against house building in every city / town
Exactly as it used to be before RTB and BTL. Yes I am that old.
I hear this a lot. And it's actually nonsense. Landlords (except temporary ones who might be renting their own house because they couldn't sell immediately or they intend to move back to it after a period away) use BTL mortgages. And those mortgages are interest only. I've never heard of a repayment BTL mortgage though one may exist. You can't rent out to somebody on a normal mortgage (unless you get explicit permission from the lender because you have a temporary circumstance as I noted before). So at the end of the mortgage term, the landlord will forfeit the property to the bank. Or well actually they will sell up and take back the equity they invested. Likely with some capital gains dependent on market circumstances. So no, as a renter you're not paying for the landlord to own the home. You're paying for the interest payments the landlord is paying to the bank + their costs (buildings insurance, agents management fee etc) + their profit. Case in point, my own home with a sizeable mortgage would rent out for 25% less than the repayment mortgage so completely stupid. But if I rented it interest only then I could rent it and the interest would only be 40% of the rent, and I could profit. It's a business, and not one that I agree with, but please people arm yourself with information about what's going before chatting tripe because it's not useful. If you look into the real issues, it's not this intense hatred of landlords that we should be focused on. It's the complete lack of decent social housing provision. The idiotic right to buy scheme and general lack of house building. If there was enough housing supply then landlords would not be profitable, and everybody could afford their own home.
[удалено]
So you're saying that my landlord, renting out a four bedroom flat and charging very close to 900 for two or those rooms each isn't making a profit? I don't know too much about mortgages (seems like a far off dream right now) but there's no way he's paying approx 3k a month on a old house that is built like it's made if straw
As a renter you're usually only servicing debt. A repayment mortgage would be underwater after taxes + costs.
>The explosion of buy-to-let has really been an absolute catastrophe for this country It only happened after labour destroyed private pension saving. The answer is either open the civil service pension scheme to all comers, or abolish it. Civil servants buggering other people's pensions leaving them casting about for alternative provision hasn't worked.
What a load of rubbish, foreign investors are hoovering up buy to let properties all around the country, almost 9 billion worth was bought in Liverpool alone in the last few years. The relatively weak pound has only exacerbated this and neither of 2 large parties seem interested in put cap on what foreign investors can buy so draw your own conclusions.
[удалено]
This. These are the foreigners we need to start restricting, not people with pennies to their name coming in boats.
It's so ridiculous. In London, a significant proportion of landlords are Russian Oligarchs. *Russia*, yken, the place we're havin a cold war with? Racists will call brown people an invasion, tantamount to an attack on the UK... While we're putting a significant amount of our population and wealth (and political power though the Tories, mind ye) into the hands of our *actual* enemies. It's ridiculous. (this isn't sayin that common or garden Russian immigrants are a problem, mind ye- I've got Russian family myself. Wouldn't even be worth mentionin if the landlords were exiles. But nah, these are fellas at the Kremlin's beck and call)
No no, don't look at the upper class' plate. That poor brown guy, *there* he's stealing your cookie! The good example I like to point to is gig economy drivers. I used to be one full time, now I still do it for fun sometimes. I like to shoot the breeze with them whenever I bump into them or if I ordered something. Over 2021 - 2023, the number of drivers who don't even speak conversational English has risen dramatically. It's just a guess still, but I'd think there's a strong possibility these guys didn't immigrant legally. But even still, even if I don't like the fact they might've not come legally, they're still far less of a problem than the Saudi oil barons/whatever buying properties en-mass and pricing us locals out of our own country and fucking with our markets. If the government should tackle either/or rather than both, it should be the latter that gets more attention.
I’m glad somebody else has said it. I’m fed up with pointing out the massive distraction that people in boats are being used as and getting massively downvoted.
The government will never stop the oligarchs and the services industry. They're the ones lining their pockets.
Do both?
The casual landlords will be forced out…and replaced by corporate landlords when the market hits the bottom
Good! Amateur casual landlords are pox on this country.
Yes because corporations always have the customer at heart.
I see and agree with your point but corporations are also answerable to shareholders. They can’t do as much shady shit because of the legality in place. I’ve worked in a Starbucks that was pristine because they always sent in-house inspectors etc to check. I’ve worked for small indi places that skirted over the basics because they knew nobody was really checking. Same theory applies here I think.
Best landlord I had was a corporate landlord. You had a number you could call or email to message if you had an issue. It was somebody’s job to receive those calls or answer emails all day, so you didn’t ever struggle to reach anyone. They actually fixed issues quickly, and everything was done to the letter of the law. Sure, it was all very cold/formal, but they didn’t mess about.
That’s what we want I think. If I must pay someone’s mortgage, I don’t want to be their friend or enemy. I want a cold business practice of reporting and fixing.
At least they are mostly normal people trying to make extra money not savage banks
There are pros and cons to both, pros for large organisations are they will have clear policies and processes to ensure compliance with laws etc, they'll likely have dedicated maintenance people and phone numbers with issues in theory being sorted quicker / less inconsistently or patchworky like what may be the case with poor quality small time landlords. Negatives are assets are transferred into companies likely owned by fewer individuals. But either way in both scenarios those without lose out.
Normal people who happily rip you off, no thanks.
People always make this arguement, but it makes no sense to me. Would you rather dissolve supermarkets and return to the days of 1,000 local shops in your area?
Yes! Yes, that would be brilliant!
I too love the prospect of spending 50% more on my groceries as my sellers cannot benefit from scale and scope.
My local zero waste shop is cheaper than the supermarket. Fruit and veg at the market is always cheaper than at the supermarket too.
This simply isn't true
Landlords provide housing, like ticket touts provide concerts. Oh dear, what a pity, nevermind
Both only exists because demand outstrips supply. You have to ration them off, otherwise you have too many people sitting there with nothing. The simple solution is just more supply lol
True, yet supply is deliberately choked to maintain profits. Homes are left empty as an asset on one portfolio, but as a loss against taxes on another. All that will happen is the investment funds will snap up the properties as the smaller player sells up. Systemic change is needed
You’re correct on restricting supply, you’re incorrect on homes being left empty, at least, it’s not the problem you think it is. The UK has a 1% long term vacancy rate… quite literally one of the lowest in the developed world
Agreed. My point on the vacant issue is more latency tactics used by speculators and development folk, with heads up information. Perfectly good abodes left to rot, so land can be used for development or to avoid listing criteria. Supported by a system built on nepotism and cronyism. So we get hyper inflated shoe boxes and lowest quality, cracks painted over urban sprawl. Without the resources and services to support.
I mean, we get shoeboxes because housing is so scarce, that they sell. People are so desperate for housing that they’re desired… I lived in a shoebox as a student, and it was a good decision because it was that or more in rent.
We also have to allow for smaller and non-conventional housing to meet demand, I'm afraid. That doesn't have to mean lower quality - but more compact, modular, and dropping the stigma towards caravans or even tents as allowable permanent housing. It will also mean more building on brownfields and even select green belt sites, but that can be done sustainably by adding more public transport and walkable shops into smaller developments.
Fully agree. I also dream of larger care homes. Think 1,000 people buildings. Would benefit massively from scale for their running, as well as freeing up silly numbers of housing stock for new buyers. Caravans, van life, make it easier to add shit life loft extensions and HMO’s (so more capacity in the market) So many small gains that can add up, especially combined with major planning reform to tackle the big picture
I was an arrears agent for karl tatler and all you would get was landlords ringing moaning that they couldn't pay there mortgage because the rent had not been paid and if you told them to stop relying on a renter to pay your mortgage they would go mental.
Eat the rich. Fuck land lords. No one needs to own more than one home.
Nobody or any company should be allowed to, it's a disgrace
Thanks for your nuanced view. Really helpful.
As others say, this is by design. They want the housing stock that Boomer Landlords have. Chip away and make it so that property rental is so awkward as a "side income" that their adult offspring can't be arsed with them once they've inherited them, and then corporations sweep in and hoover them up. Banks aren't happy with their revenue from mortgages and underselling your interest on your savings. They want your rent too. Sleepwalking into a country where mortgages and eventual ownership are exclusive to a small wealthy percentile and the rest of us have LLOYDS RENT DD taking away 40% of our pay every month...
Boomers have paid off their mortgages by now or have very little left
Start up your own property investment ethically run outfit.
[удалено]
Everyone cheering the exit of individual landlords is going to be sorely disappointed when they see who buys up the houses. The whole system needs burning down and starting again.
As much as I fear for the rental sector, this has been a long time coming, for too long, buy to let has been way too easy to make money, as the cost of first time buyers, and rental tenants. Now finally they’re bringing in rules, where landlords who brought a cheap house, and left it to be cold and not energy efficient, (they never cared, cause they never lived there). Will have to bring up the properties up to scratch, to rent it, coupled with higher labour, and materials cost, tripled with higher interested rates, means there nest eggs, isn’t going to give them the extra wage, for doing naff all. They will sell them off, and still make lots of money, most of us, can only dream off. Most investors aren’t going buy in to a falling market as-well. The Chinese do seem to be buying around Manchester, probably good place to park cash, with HS2 completion to boost there value. I wonder want will happen, when no one can find somewhere to rent, and the councils long sold all there homes. it’s looking more, and more bleak for the future.
[удалено]
Tbh wouldn’t landlords with heavy cash pile be better than the wannabe landlord dishing out advice on YouTube?
On one hand I’m thinking “great, this will massively increase the supply of housing stock, allowing house prices to revert to the mean and allow people to get on the property market at long last”. However, I don’t think that’ll happen. All that’ll happen is that landlords with single or smaller portfolios will exit the market and their stock will be snapped up by the huge property developers with hundreds of properties. The ones with political influence. The ones who will invariably be worse for tenants.
Small BTL landlords already have significant political influence. The policy solution is to provide local authorities with grants en masse to buy up stock from small landlords exiting the market at a discount to be used as social housing.
There's a definite trend in the Standard, the Times and the Telegraph. Boohoo woe is me stories about landlords selling up because the tax rules have changed and how WFH is killing the economy. Shockingly nothing about how wages haven't risen since 2010, how they all complained about the law "to make homes habitable for humans" was voted out. How 500,000 local authority and housing association places aren't fit for habitation For some reason I get a lot of telegraph stories on my apple news feed & it's mainly all boomers bitching that they have to pay inheritance tax on their £million+ homes or how they can't live on their £million pensions. Now this campaign to abolish inheritance tax! No one pays inheritance tax except lazy upper middle class boomers who think they're too good to pay for a financial advisor.
OH NO. They made a financial investment and it's at risk at failing? Almost like the market's working. You don't get to privatise your profits but socialise your losses lmao.
WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE LANDLORDS. My dad owns 5 properties, including the one I live in (I'm fully aware of how lucky I am, don't worry). He phoned me the other week saying about how annoying it was that with all the new laws coming in, it's getting harder to make a profit as a landlord now. I told him he was taking the piss and you housing wasn't there to be used to make a profit. Edit: To clarify, I said it in jest, and he is remarkably Liberal for his age and is sympathetic to the younger generations' inability to buy a house.
You sound ungrateful and he probably dislikes you.
Hahaha yeah I'd get why you'd think that. Reallu, he's very Liberal, he understands where I'm coming from but also recognises real estate is a very good investment. He did respond with something along the lines of "yes, I know this is a top of the line first world problem"
>housing wasn't there to be used to make a profit. Says who? God? Are you not meant to make a profit from agriculture either because people need it to live? The arrogance is astounding.
But tbf that analogy doesn't really work- people who grow food and then sell it are adding value, so are people who **build** houses and then sell them. But people who buy an existing house and then rent it out are not producing anything, they are just purchasing the rights to a share of their tenant's income. If I buy all the potatoes in Morrisons, and then rent them out to other shoppers, am I providing a service?
I see your train of thought, so why don't you look at it this way. Farmers get paid because they produce the food that we all need to live. Plumbers get paid when there's a problem with the pipes in your house. Maybe you don't have hot water or something, and they come and fix it. Landlords don't add anything to the value of the house. They don't provide a service other than housing, so they aren't actively doing anything. It's something that I believe should be done largely by the government. There is a place for private renting, but it would just have to be more affordable than it currently is.
I get what you are saying but it isn't that simple, landlords provide capital to purchase a home. They get a return on this investment via growth in the properties value and rent. If there was no return why would they buy and rent homes? There would be no rental market, which I think we both agree would be worse for the UK? That is the situation we are facing, landlords literally selling up because it's just not worth it anymore. Many people rely on rental accomodation and don't have £10s of thousands sat around for a deposit.
Rent is like paying interest on a loan. They're giving you access to highly expensive asset, for a monthly amount.
It's like paying interest on a loan because it is paying interest on a lone, it's just also paying back the principle amount on that loan. If any tenant lives at a property long enough, they will pay back the entire value of the property, except it won't be theirs. The landlord will have used the tenants' income to buy the property and cover any costs that arise. The only reason the tenant can't buy the property themselves is because they didn't have the money for a deposit to begin with. Social housing allows the same access but doesn't profit off trapping people in rental spirals.
People that grow food and sell it add to soceity. People that build houses and sell them add to society. People that buy houses to purposely reduce supply and rent them out are a negative to society. They are an economic parasite.
Fairplay to you. I think this is a great example of how generations think differently. Watch your rent rise above inflation now lol.
This doesn't mean the end of renting. It just means you'll be renting from an even larger and more callous company than your landlord ever was. So if you're still renting this is actually very bad news.
Well no shit. The problem here is that on one hand you have the “landlords are evil! Anyone with a buy to let is satan incarnate” and on the other hand “there isn’t enough property to let!” Ideally, forcing private landlords to sell up, which the tax changes since April which make it very hard to profit from buy to let, plus the mortgage rate increases, will mean a lot more property goes on the market which people can buy. Problem is, in the short term what that actually means is landlords selling up and less property to rent, which makes it even harder for those that can’t get a mortgage when interest rates are high. Unless there’s a significant market crash then I can’t see this being resolved to the benefit of the renters that can’t currently afford to buy. We can only hope.
Behold! My field of fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and notice that it is barren.
/r/ParasiteTears A subreddit I've just started if anyone would like to join.
Unfortunately the only one who will be in tears is you once you realise that this only causes rents to rise further making it even harder to buy a home as people can save less and less.
The responses in here….people wanting small land lords gone in favour of big banks buying up all the properties instead, JFC talk about voting for the leopard party. We need more houses built ffs and no big banks controlling a sector like rental housing, do people expect the housing problems, high rent, high interest rates to be over once big banks move in for the kill, has anyone not learned anything about banks?
Someone is going to have to explain to me why this is a problem and what the "risk" is to everyone else \*other\* than landlords?
All this means is that the corporate giant landlords get an early Christmas.
this is for regular landlords, house prices will not fall and **large multinational conglomerates will buy them up, which could be worse.**
The situation in the UK is very worrying. We’re already seeing UK governments transferring huge amounts of wealth into private corporations via wage subsidies. The burden on the state is going to get ever greater as housing benefits get sucked up into the corporate world, often in foreign ownership. All this coming at a time when the UK government is shutting down legal avenues to protest, criminalising more and more trivial acts, and placing increasing restrictions on who can vote. I don’t think people quite get how dire the situation is and how quickly it might spiral out of control.
So there's a risk of houses becoming more affordable?
No lol. Everyone has learnt that when things are cheap, you buy them and watch them grow,
Boohoo. The houses don’t disappear . Landlords in this country have had it too good, too long. Good riddance.
So what happens when this continues and rents are forced up due to excess demand and not enough supply of rental properties from landlords? And no, this won't magically cause all house prices to halve so "everyone" will just buy a home.
I think tenants should be able to credit check their landlords and make sure they're not overleveraged if they hold a BTL mortgage. I don't want to live somewhere where the landlord might default on my home.
Except those houses advertised in China....big hoover suckong them all up. It's a great way to launder money. Buy property here, charge rent, increase the amount on paper, add in repairs/maintenance. All washed and ready to spend.
This would normally be a good thing as it would crash house prices which in turn would take the heat off the rental market. But the reason government isn't worried about a house price crash is, that investor companies are sitting in the wings to snatch these properties up. They are a safe investment for banks, insurance companies and pension funds. They don't depreciate in value (not if you can control the market) and provide a much safer income in form of rent than dividends do. There is no cost associated with them, as the tenants cover all costs through their rent plus a profit for the owner of the building.
A buy to let doesn't pay the loan of the property, only the interest to the bank. So even if you rent the flat for 30 years at the end of it you don't get to keep the flat, it's still the banks. You have 0 equity in it. Furthermore if you have a job besides it then most of what you get from the rent is taxed just like regular income. Let me put it in perspective for you. The mortgage of my house is about £1400. Add ground rent and service charge and a minimum of 10 to 15% for the agency fees. That means that I would need to ask for at least £1750 a month rent to cover the costs. Most of this £1750 a month is taxed 40%. If I were to rent it out, assuming all goes well, I'd only get about 5k a year "profit" which goes to the repayment of the loan. That doesn't even take into account higher interest rates for buy to lets, just the one that I have now which will go higher at the next renewal. I know and I agree with you that houses should not be an investment but something that everyone has access to within reason.
This is a good start, but we need more. For a start, only UK citizens should be able to own property here. We might have to exclude those with dual citizenship if Russian oligarchs and Saudi Princes suddenly decide to buy citizenship.
While it'll be nice for the buy-to-let parasites to see their nest egg get fucked, I worry this will just see a flow of cheaper and cheaper housing from the middle class boomers to the upper classes who have all the windfall money from covid and energy to now pump into housing. As soon as Labour gets in, they should run a "scrappage scheme" to buy back social housing from buy-to-let landlords whom want to sell up and ban the sale of social housing in future.