70,000 BTL landlords exited the PRS this year

Government policy working, then.

It never ceases to amaze me how basically stupid those that run our country really are. A 5 year old child could do better at working out the sums and consequences. I wonder if Rishi is allowed to write off his new no. 10 refurb against tax as he supposedly financed it himself. All the £billions of waste now coming out and who pays for it, we do of course. Rant over.

Not to mention the recent reams of tenancy legislation that benefits no one but activist lawyers, career politicians and anti-landlord charities.

The figure of 116000 properties lost to the PRS is based upon the number of properties declared by private landlords on their self assessment tax returns.

The missing statistic is how many of these are now owned by the 47400 new BTL companies formed in 2021 and are therefore still available to rent.

Similarly, the number of landlords who have left the market needs to be reduced by the number of new companies which results in a net loss of 22600 and is far less dramatic.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/01/soaring-rents-making-life-unaffordable-for-private-uk-tenants-research-shows

“According to Zoopla, the demand for private rented housing is up 142% so far this year compared to the five-year average,” Norris said. “In stark contrast, the supply of such housing has fallen by 46%."

Reply to the comment left by Martin Roberts at 28/12/2022 - 11:37”Working” is not normally a term applied to government policy. I am still puzzling about why. Why would a government that pays housing benefit drive up prices and suppress supply?

Reply to the comment left by Contended Ted at 28/12/2022 - 22:09
Simples, its us tax payers that pay housing benefit, not the Govt.. They force prices up because of some self interest involved such as being landlords themselves through carefully hidden networks, chummies etc. The best way to make money is to create a demand, basic economics and who better than the Govt. Good example diesel engined cars, had a good run on them, I fell for it, now caning us on cost of diesel because initial findings were "wrong" ha ha. Same happening to electric cars already.

The words most feared by anyone in business: "I am from the government and have come to help you".

We are on the way to the third world countries pattern, where the wealth belongs to the rich only, putting the tax on private landlord force them to exit from industry or increase the rental, which only benefits to the big companies, since they are exempted from the tax on the interest, this way the rental value increased and blamed to the private landlords, on top of that the tax band for the private landlord is higher then the companies, the rule should be same for companies and private landlord to pay the taxes, the private landlord helps the economy in several ways, they use letting agents to manage the property which help other people to make their living, and the money curculate in the hand of our own people, they also help good tanents to keep the low rent and stay in the same property, because 80% of the private landlords buy the second property for their pension after retirement, which still support the economy as a tax payer of the rental property even after retirement, then the inheritance tax , if their children take over the property they pay tax on the transfer of ownership, whilst the rich big companies just add or resigned the director and transfer for free, government either apply the same tax band for the companies on their rental and the inheritance tax on adding the director and same capital gain tax on resigning the director , I would love to see if big companies also stay in the market, this is totally unfair with the private landlords on their hard working of life time.

116,000 out of 2.82 million isn't that much but might represent the smart money leaving the sector. Maybe this year there will be more?