76% of councils report an increase in landlords selling up and warn of increased waiting lists

Call me a cynic but Im going to propose a contrarian view to the current situation of the UK PRS; that everything is going perfectly to plan.
Q. What is the purpose and objective of a Government and its Ministers?
a. To stay in power for as long as possible and to serve the best interests of the General Public…. or
b. To stay in a well paid job for as long as possible and serve the best interests of themselves and their Corporate mates. Job perks are guaranteed salary and pension, lots of holidays, few responsibilities, lavish lunches and office parties and many opportunities to line up your next job as a Company Director for one of your mates in the Corporate world after the Government gig is finally over.
A. I will let the dear reader decide.
Problem; you are a Government and one of your responsibilities is to facilitate the building of private homes and also to provide the means for Local Authorities to house homeless residents. But you are too lazy and uncaring to do this and know you are never going to put up the money for the tens of thousands of desperately needed affordable homes which you have promised for years. As Government you could choose to either spend billions on housing the homeless or billions on giving tax breaks to your Corporate mates. So the problem is how to appear to be doing your duties but at same time not actually doing that but lining up your next gig as Company Director?
Solution; your highly paid (by the Taxpayer) consulting firm (a Corporate mate) has a stroke of genius.
You can build millions of homes, provide social housing, make loads of money for your mates, attract millions of votes and stay in power for years, line up a cushy job on the board of a Corporation, be a hero to the public.
Phase 1. Drive out the many smaller Landlords from the PRS by making life very difficult.
Force Landlords to be licensed and spend thousands in the guise of “improving” tenant safety and property energy efficiency. Pass laws to make older housing stock unviable and whack Landlords with 30k fines for the slightest mistake. Demonise Landlords constantly in the media and pay backhanders to “independent” parties to spout propaganda, think Shelter and Gen Rent. Make sure to exempt LAs and social landlords from these onerous regulations.
As a bonus, the youngsters of Gen Rent cast votes for your party at the next election because they believe your anti Landlord lies and see you as being their protector, the naive and innocent and inexperienced twentysomethings don’t know they are being played.
Phase 2. After a few years when the PRS has been sufficiently softened up, and many Landlords have sold, you encourage your Corporate mates to build new housing to latest standards to fill the need, give them lots of tax breaks and tax payer funds and you deliver to them tens of thousands of desperate tenants who cant afford to buy a home nor find a rental property and have nowhere else to go but to your other mates, the Corporate Landlord, sometimes they will be Housebuilder and Landlord at same time.
Phase 3. Later after thousands of private Landlords have left the sector you can “relax” the regulations to help your Corporate mates.
Phase 4. LAs would like the money to rebuild Council Housing but you don’t directly give them the money but force them to work with Corporate Housebuilders who are paid lavishly to build council housing. There are many cost overruns but the contract is not a fixed price and was awarded on a no-compete basis (a Government stipulation) and allows for the project to go millions over budget (cost overruns paid by the taxpayer), all part of the plan.
Phase 5. You retire from your Government Minister gig with a fat pension and take your seat on the Board as a well paid executive at one of you Corporate mates companies.
Conclusion. You have stayed in power many years longer than you have should due to the grateful votes of Gen Rent, you have provided vast profits at taxpayer expense for your Corporate Housebuilder mates. you have delivered the PRS into the arms of your private Corporate Landlord mates, you have “delivered” social housing to LAs by having them built privately. You light up a cigar and think "Mission Acconplished".

Oh I nearly forgot to mention some extra bonuses.
1. HMRC collect millions in CGT from fleeing Landlords.
2. Govt "appears" to reduce UK carbon foorprint.
3. LAs are not actually allowed to manage their Corporate built Council Housing, the contract to manage the housing is awarded to a private management company, another of the Minister's mates. In other words, benefits tenants are profitable as well.

Reply to the comment left by David Price at 13/12/2021 - 12:34
I just wonder if one is feeding the other?

Reply to the comment left by Bristol Landlord at 13/12/2021 - 16:27
Nailed it

Totally agree with everything you have said. The one extra thing missing is once Corporate Landlords take over expect Rents to rise CPI or RPI + 3-4% pa. Contracted! It will be a cash cow for Hedge Funds/Private Equity investors looking for returns. Just like they are with Care Homes. Private Landlords work in a proper market. Corporate Landlords will drive the market.

Anecdotally, just been asked by YouGov for our thoughts on our BTL properties. We are only a small landlord, just three BTLs, but one of our tenants set a properties alight in the summer and we have had enough after 14 years. The property has an EPC rating of E so we would have had to sell it anyway as it would cost far too much money to get it up to a C rating. Also the possible abolition of Section 21 is a step too far.

That should please the "landlords are pricing first-time buyers out of the market" brigade.
Changes to EPC is the reason I'm considering selling two of mine, not because of costs, I just can't find any companies offering cavity wall insulation.

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 13/12/2021 - 11:17
so true - but we all saw this coming - it will get worse when landlord licencing comes in to many more areas. ! I cannot understand why they did not think about this

Reply to the comment left by MarkT at 13/12/2021 - 11:28
The government have no idea of the impact of their draconian measures on private landlords and tenants.

Well, what a surprise!! I am currently selling my properties and have started trading FTSE shares. Ironically, I am making more money and have less stress than I do being a long-suffering Landlord - I wouldn't wish this hideous industry on anyone - Get out while you can, it will only get worse!