Rocketing rent is ‘number one concern’ for tenants

Introduction of the Renter Reform Bill is highly likely to drive more Landlords out of the market, and excerbate the current shortage. That'll in turn result in rent increasing still further.
Tenants be careful what you wish for!

Doesn't anyone remember the days of "rent controls"? That killed the market and didn't do any favours????

Whilst I sympathise that there is a 'cost of living' crisis ( hich appears not be home grown ( ie Blame Russia / China virus spread etc). The 'cost of renting crisis' is home grown. Whether that is overzealous Councils with borough-wide licensing money making schemes or government short termism towards landlords as investors/tax targets and not treating use like Business people.. ie Over regulate the market (RRB) then business people go else where.
As Business people we will logically have to charge what the market demands (when supply is on a downwards spiral) as our business costs have gone up too. We are not charities.

Why is it that every other day I read about landlords expanding their portfolios and the next day I read that they are selling up. Is it that some landlords are buying from other landlords, in which case there is still the same amount of houses to rent, or if not where are all the new buyers coming from?

Reply to the comment left by Jack Craven at 12/01/2023 - 13:25
Recently, every time I let out 50% claim their landlord is genuinely selling . That's why there are moving.

Goodlord says the average rent for a home in England is £1,071 – that’s 8.7% higher than at the same time last year.

Isn't that lower than the general rate of inflation so in real terms makes rent cheaper (compared to other things) than it was a year ago?

We are defiantly trying to reduce the amount of residential property that we have in our portfolio. The interesting part is that we completed on 4 sales between 1st November 2022 to 19th December 2022. Of these 4, one was sold to an owner occupier who was downsizing , one block of five flats was sold to a short term letting operator who immediately gave all the tenants a section 21 notice, one was sold to an overseas investor who has an agent managing their portfolio and the last property was sold to an active student landlord who was managing his own portfolio.
This is an effective 50% reduction in the amount of available residential accommodation, the point I want to make is that not all rented property is being sold to other residential landlords so this constant reduction in supply is going to have an effect over the longer term.

Reply to the comment left by Michael Johnson - Amzac Estates at 12/01/2023 - 15:10
Yes, we too are down-sizing. I managed to shift five HMOs this year, originally providing 32 homes. Only one has remained an HMO, the others all had cash payments made to the tenants by the new owners to get them all out, then were re-furbished and sold on to owner-occupiers, so now only 8 rental rooms remain and four owner-occupied homes. Lucky the UK's population is not exploding .... Ooops, it actually is!!

Well done Michael Gove and the Tory anti-landlord government

I know I need to sell one, perhaps two of my properties held in my name due to the changes in tax. I don't need to do it urgently and will do this when the market starts to show an upturn. Why ? Not being able to offsest mortgage costs even when my overall portfolio has a 22% LTV.