YOUR MONEY: Are landlords selling up because it's getting too expensive?

It's no surprise that many smaller landlords will want to exit their investments. There is fear in the market, and fear creates panic. This will undoubtedly provide potential opportunities for home hunters and investors alike, but only time will tell whether the overall impact will be a positive one, or not. In recent years landlords have suffered a great deal of legislative changes, and to date there remains much uncertainty of how some of those changes will affect their business. Many landlords feel the Government wants them out of the market, and I can understand how they might think that. Removal of income tax relief for properties owned in personal names. Reduction in capital gains tax allowances. Greater council tax bills for certain rental properties. A new Ombudsman for renters. Removal of the option to evict tenants deemed not at fault. Changes to energy efficiency meaning many properties will need significant capital expenditure to meet the new requirements - and yet no clear route of how this can happen in practice.

The main reason the small private landlord may be looking to sell up and look at other investments is due to the rising costs of being a landlord from a tax perspective and licensing perspective alongside rising interest rates, which in turn means higher rents for tenants; no one actually benefits if small landlords sell as larger corporate landlords just purchase the property and not enough housing is being built so this myth of if landlords sell it benefits first-time buyers it actually doesn't from first-hand experience as large pension funds also purchase property not enough housing is simply being built nor is enough social housing being built and as there is no incentives for properties to be sold squeezing small landlords on tax actually does the opposite makes families homeless as they can't afford to move or have no deposit to put down to purchase a home.