IMLA blame 80% decrease in BTL investment on government policies

There are 391 apartments in our development with a healthy mix of tenures including tenants moving to home occ. We know of many sales and although the majority have been to other, often foreign, investors many have moved into owner occupation. In just our block and to our own knowledge, the available rental pool has dropped by about 5%, continued rental demand is strong; rents?

As the author of the above mentioned report I'd like to thank you for running the story.

However, just one small correction - above you say "IMLA figures indicate Buy to Let lending in 2015 totalled £35 billion and last year this fell to only £5 billion." The report actually says that net investment in new properties by buy-to-let landlords fell from £25 billion in 2015 to £5 billion in 2017." Obviously, this isn't the same thing as buy-to-let lending.

Rob Thomas

Reply to the comment left by money manager at 07/02/2018 - 12:33
The report of this on Property Industry Eye has a number of comments from letting agents all giving figures far in excess of 5% for landlords instructing them to put properties up for sale as tenancies end. Obviously there will be regional variations and I should imagine many landlords who use managing agents are in full-time employment so most likely to be affected by S.24.

A 4.4% reduction in rents in real terms and yet the likes of Shelter continue to make ridiculous statements about 'soaring rents.' This will be a useful piece of research to point them to whenever this nonsense is spouted. I am banned from their FB page so would appreciate it if others could point them to this.

Reply to the comment left by Rob Thomas at 07/02/2018 - 12:42
Thank you very much Rob and correction made 🙂

I don't think 'blame' is quite the right word if the Government's policy is having the exact effect they intended.

I tend to house some of the most unpleasant people our society has to offer.
I am currently evaluating all of my properties and those not performing are going to be sold off and my tenants will be dumped onto waiting lists for council houses that no longer exist.
The BTL market is now in deep trouble, It’s like watching a train crash in slow motion.
Section 24 isn’t fully implemented yet and we now have restrictions on lending via the horrendous red tape in obtaining a simple BTL mortgage.
Today I’m in West Yorkshire and I will be looking at selling off, a property there.
It has been wrecked twice by the tenants, who are now on a housing list, now evicted, unemployed and claiming every benefit they can get their grubby little hands on.
It’s not making enough money and probably has a bit of equity in it.
That’s another one that won’t be replaced.
That household have to be housed somewhere, it’s the law!
But it won’t be by me.
My letting agent says that there are many landlords now selling up and the rents are now rising at the request of remaining landlords.
They deal with the pleasant tenants, not the social misfits that I deal with, so for them to be worried, things must be bad.
For example, Liverpool are now cracking down into the HMO market with new proposed article 4 directives, with one aim in mind, which is to kill off the independent HMO landlord to try and fill the expensive chrome and glass student accommodation with as many people as they can.
I would suggest that they reconsider that idea and fast.
They have given planning permission for a market that doesn’t yet exist of over 88,000 student roooms.
What about families, seperated couples etc?
They will eventually become monuments of failure, they will be turned into wrecks by the scum I currently house.
I passed Byrom Point yesterday, just outside the Mersey Tunnel, the doors were filthy and it’s already looking grubby, from the outside.
It only opened last year.
There are now more being built and they will end up failing.
The ones not full will have space bought by the councils and they will mix some of these nutters with normal tenants.
That will mean gang rapes, drugs and beatings for anybody that gets in the way of their drug habit.
They haven’t evaporated into outer space, you politicians are idiots!
they still have to be housed!
This government and local councils haven’t got a bloody clue, they are attacking the people that bring choice, peace and tranquility to the rest of the housing market.
But I’m not the type of person that gives up on residual income.
I will probably move on to commercial, where if you don’t pay the rent, I can evict in weeks, as opposed to months in the residential market.
My attitude used to be that I provided a much needed service, I now feel that I am a victim of every moronic politician, stuffed into the Houses of Parliament and Town Hall.
Hey if you don’t want my investment money, that’s fine Mrs May, I can and will find a home for it elsewhere, you can now house the scum of the Earth and the taxpayer can foot the bill, you can eventually vilify the corporates and watch them leave the market in 10 years time, as their chrome and glass tower blocks turn into concentrated drug dens.
Corporates have no interest in being a social service and will make you pay for whatever you ask for, with a big fat invoice.
You had someone who housed some of the most ghastly tenants, ex offenders, arsonists, paedophilic scumbags and professors in lying through their teeth, you would never want to meet, spread out, buried amongst normal, pleasant folk, out of sight, out of mind, but you decided to attack my business and I will now move on to pastures new.
So watch out any remaining landlords, you have some of the most cringeworthy, scum in the tenant market, coming to a town near you and they are not very nice people.

Reply to the comment left by Gary Dully at 09/02/2018 - 08:50
I agree, Gary, that these tower blocks will in the future be used to house the 'lowest' end of the market. And I agree that the Government has behaved in a moronic way, promoting these whilst constantly engaging in a populist attack against those of us who provide an essential service to 5 million households. Every landlord who can will move away from the lower end of the market.

Our nation’s private rental sector investors provide a vital service that’s vital to millions of UK tenants. We need to support and protect a sector that does so much for so many.

An 80% reduction means 80% fewer homes that could have been provided to the market and more people who are otherwise homeless or in unsatisfactory housing. Why doesn't the government get it?