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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Bidding war for properties to rent

With demand from tenants gathering pace, at a time when there has been a reduction in the number of new properties for renting, many prospective tenants now face having to bid against each other, pushing rents up in the process, in the latest sign of Britain’s overheated property market.

Various reports suggest that a growing number of letting agents are now turning to open days and ‘sealed bids’ to achieve record rent levels.

The supply-demand imbalance is placing upward pressure on rental values, according to JLL Residential.  

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The company says that it has seen a 57% increase in applicant registrations and 40% rise in offers made from those looking to rent.

Activity has picked up significantly with competitive bidding now taking place on a number of properties, and rental prices being achieved on some new build developments, for example, reaching 5-10% higher than anticipated.

Lucy Morton, head of residential agency at JLL, said: “It has been an exceptionally busy few months for the lettings teams across all the JLL agency offices, and well-presented properties have let with fewer voids than in recent years.

“The quality of rental stock has increased considerably, with renting no longer considered the second option but the preferred option for many.

“Punitive changes to stamp duty have shaped how people are interacting with the property market, most notably at the higher end. Once upon a time, if you were looking to live in London for two-three years you would automatically look to buy, but now with the cost of stamp duty, along with more stable price growth, you are likely to only break even in this time given the cost of buying a home.”

She added: “An unspoken perk of renting is the ability to ‘Right-Size’, which is an exclusive benefit of renting as opposed to buying.

“Tenants have more flexibility around where and the type of property they rent, so if the ‘shoe doesn’t fit’ you can move easily, allowing young professionals to upsize when they become a young family, or families to downsize when the children leave the nest.”

 

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    Surely this can’t be true?!?! Really?? I mean, the govt have repeatedly told us rents won’t go up and the anti-landlords keep telling us they can’t go up. And I completely trust the government. They’re always right. Especially the munchkins at the treasury, the little tinkers!

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    The facts / Truth are starting to come out ( not that it was Rocket-Science to start with, errrm, How did it go - business costs are going to be increased but that will happily be taken on the chin by suppliers and Not passed onto the customer. Like the kind of phrase 'Trust me, I'm a Politician'
    Articles recently - Rents increasing, bidding war for diminishing numbers of properties available, House-building decreasing ... Talk about a Perfect Storm, only just into the First year of Sec 24.
    As a Landlord, I genuinely feel for Tenants as its going to get increasingly harder for them as a result of Govt policies

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    i too feel for my tenants they are all good working people and we get on fine, however as with any business as my overheads rise so does their rents.

     
  • G romit

    All the predictions that Landlords have made are coming into effect :
    homelessness - up
    rents - up
    no. of properties to rent - down
    no. Landlords exiting market - up

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    64 calls in 24hrs for one of my houses and let it for 100 over asking price says it all had people begging me

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    • 26 April 2018 14:01 PM

    Thanks to the only accepted hate campaign in the UK, landlords are forced to take emergency steps or leave the market NOW
    Section 24 (introduced by our tenant friendly Einstein, George Osbourne) forces landlords to pay tax on their mortgage interest payments, yes money they paid as a legitimate cost of doing business and supplying housing to people who choose to rent or can't afford to own yet. But big landlords won't have to do this, why? I don't know, but probably to take smaller landlords out of the market so rents rise and the big landlords can charge more because the sector is losing rentable houses at an extraordinary rate.
    Its a bit like charging Taxi Drivers tax not on just their profits, which is normal throughout the world, but to also charge them tax at 40% on all of their expenses, fuel, car payments servicing, yes they'd be out of business in 2 weeks or so because no one can afford to pay tax on money that isn't theirs, in their bank or profit as its known.
    So what happens when landlords are faced with this?
    1. Rents go up to try to pay for demands from the Government - Result Families are asked to pay more rent as the money must come from somewhere - those who can't afford it are left homeless
    2. Landlords sell their properties to save bankruptcy and tenants are evicted and are left homeless
    3. Landlord can't sell the portfolio as there isn't anyone prepared to pay enough to cover the mortgages - landlord is bankrupted and all tenants are evicted and homeless
    4. The landlord has millions in his bank account and pays these ridiculous taxes despite making a huge loss for years and tenants get to stay forever - (just joking folks).
    The losers are Tenants (and landlords), most or all tenants are pushed to pay more rent or leave. This is because the Governments pernicious legislation, a tax on income targeted ONLY at the private landlord (because we are horrible people apparently), this is forcing rents to rise to unheard of levels (and they blame landlords in the press). Landlords can't afford to pay for endless fees for a plethora of legislation as all of their money comes from tenants. And the government despite their waffle don't care about you.
    Only landlords care about tenants, because tenants provide the rent to keep their business going, and that is why the vast majority of landlords and tenants get along very well and honour each others commitments, as they need each other. The rogues are a very small number but the councils are to bloody useless to deal with them, its easier to blame landlords than do what your paid to do? Distraction distortion deflection!

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    All said in 5 lines by Barryin Wilts and you took ages to do this write up!

    Well stated Barryin.

     
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    Great post and hits the nail on the head s24 is going to be a national scandal when it starts to bite properly I really is a ticking time bomb

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    I doubt S.24 will be seen as a scandal by anyone other than buy to let landlords. Even if the private rented sector does implode I can't see there being any great degree of sympathy for the landlords.
    The housing crisis and cost of living will get worse before it gets better but what the vast majority of people will blame first is a shortage of housing and house building, and open door immigration. No one is going to care for the plight of landlords, as you say this is a business, very few are actually doing it for the good of their tenants or wider altruistic motives.

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    So tenants are now having to submit sealed bids? Welcome to the real world! Landlords have had to do this for the best properties for decades.

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    Another unintended consequence of ill conceived legislation.

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    If any letting agent is found doing this ARLA will remove them from their association. not forgetting that tenants also find out exactly where the greedy letting agent lives. fair rent to a fair landlord from a fair tenant. every one should then be happy. not forgetting rent capping what happened to that no one knows.

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    Buy to let portfolio means absolutely nothing, that is just a way of saying that you are governed by the bank (new council) you get a property make sure all is good, rent out then maintain it. then when you do not get your rent the bank (the new council) snatches it back, wait until furlough is over 5 million in the uk alone. that is when that funny brown stuff will hit the fan.

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    Not every landlord operates on borrowed money Ray, in fact most of us that have been landlords for 20, 30 or more years carry no debt, so are strong enough to weather any storm that might be around the corner, but then homelessness could well hit an all time high, but that will be a problem for government and councils not landlords.

     
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    Well is it but 2 let or buy to subsidise housing for other people cheaper than they could possibly do it themselves.

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