21:00 PM, 18th October 2024, About a month ago
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This week the Telegraph hit the nail on the head when they reported that Landlord profits had collapsed in the past decade following an onslaught of taxes and red tape.
That coupled with the unbelievable amount of hoops landlords have to jump through has pushed the entire sector to breaking point.
You can attempt to whip out as many rose-tinted glasses as you like, but the fact of the matter is, we’re deep into a war on landlords, and it’s pushed many of us to the decision that it’s time to get out. For Shauna, a landlord from Warrington of over 30 years, she shared that like many others, she’d make the decision to downsize.
The figures are grim. According to analysis from estate agents Hamptons, in 2013 a London landlord in the higher rate income tax band would have made £2,200 profit on a £500,000 property. In 2024, the same landlord today on average makes a £1,300 loss despite near-identical mortgage rates. The situation isn’t just bad, it’s shocking.
It’s no surprise that hundreds of landlords per week are now coming to us to sell. In fact, according to figures from Rightmove last month, almost 1 in 5 rental properties are now up for sale. Our investments are time-bombs in the rental sector, and you’d be sensible for thinking they’d be far better placed elsewhere.
As the owner of portfolio exit specialists, Landlord Sales Agency, the biggest question I’ve been getting this week is: “Can I beat any possible Capital Gains Tax increases in the budget?” The answer is yes, but only if you act today. Like Shauna’s portfolio, we’ve got a couple of properties including a flat above a shop and a block of flats where we’re going to exchange contracts for the clients by the 30th October – one of them is already done.
However, the latest rumours are that CGT increases will not directly impact BTL and 2nd home property sales, but will be raised on stocks and share sales. Obviously this would then become a consideration for property companies looking to sell shares rather than individual assets.
For all other landlords, there’s problems of equal magnitude: renters reforms, The Renters Rights Bill, Section 21, damp issues and the decent home standard. If you’re a landlord worried about these issues, we can also assist with that. We’ve got national relationships with solicitors that have a 100% success rate of helping sell tenanted properties, be it evictions, paying tenants to leave, or rental increases so that they’re attractive prospects for buyers.
Once we’ve got a sale agreed, we’ve got a 100% success rate with completing on tenanted buy-to-lets. We’ve also got a national solution for any damp and repair issues to prevent them from holding up sales.
It’s important to get straight to the point here, because like myself, and probably like you if you’re reading this, many landlords simply don’t have the time to waste. In the case of Shauna, she’d heard about us through Property118 and wanted to sell fast.
In the past when she’d tried to sell rental properties herself, it had taken her 8 years to sell 14 properties through other agents while waiting for tenants to leave so she could list the properties as vacant possession.
From the moment she got in touch with us to sell the remaining 23 properties in her portfolio, we sold them for the agreed price just 16 days after listing.
So, with just 2 months to go until Christmas, the least you can do is get in touch. We specialise in selling all landlord properties, whether it’s whole portfolios or individual buy-to-lets. We’ve got access to over 30,000 private buyers queuing up to buy your properties – either to switch them to first time homes, or new, younger landlords who want to take a punt and take rentals off our hands.
The result is that when you contact us, your buy-to-lets immediately go out to our vast network via a series of alerts and a bidding war begins, driving up the prices so that we can get you the highest price possible, fast. Got an issue with tenants? No problem, we can sell with them in. Got a property that needs desperate refurbs? No worries, we can sell them too, and in some cases, even pay for the refurbs for you to get a higher price.
Landlords still need to be realistic – gone are the days when you could get out fast and walk away with 100% market value, but we’ll make sure we get you a price you’re happy with, so you can exchange contracts before Capital Gains Tax at the end of this month, or exit before Christmas, and still recoup the costs to put your investment elsewhere.
So get in touch with us via the form below, and let us jump on it for you.
You’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
