Room for optimism in rental market despite agents’ gloomy forecast

admin    Uncategorized     agents

The majority of letting agents expect to see more landlords leave the market in 2023, against a backdrop of rising arrears and falling house prices.

Goodlord reveals that 58% of more than 160 agents surveyed believe that landlord volumes will drop this year, partly due to the pace of regulatory change. “A lot of the new policies have been deterring or restricting supply – encouraging landlords to look elsewhere for how to deploy their capital,” says CEO William Reeve. “This obviously has an impact on stock.”

Arrears volumes

Agents believe inflationary pressures and the cost-of-living crisis will also be felt in arrears volumes, with 66% expecting to see rent arrears increase by up to 5% during 2023.

Michael Cook, group MD at Leaders Romans Group, believes that a lack of quality rental stock means improved yields due to increasing rental prices and reducing sales prices. It expects to see a reduction in the number of landlords selling, as a result, which will help supply. “The buying landscape will still force many potential tenants into the already-congested rental space, with supply unlikely to catch up to the demand quickly enough,” he adds.

Frustrated sellers

Chestertons says a significant proportion of the new rental properties coming to the market were properties that had previously been up for sale, suggesting that sellers are reacting to the slowing sales market by switching to the rental market. These ‘frustrated sellers’ have added much needed supply to the rental market, resulting in some landlords having to rethink the level of rent they can ask. “We expect these stabilising trends to carry on well into 2023, meaning that rental price growth should slow to around 5% by the end of 2023,” adds COO Richard Davies.

View Full Article: Room for optimism in rental market despite agents’ gloomy forecast

Government urged to ban sale of gas boilers within a decade

admin    Uncategorized     agents

New and replacement gas boilers should be banned by 2033, two years earlier than current plans, according to the government’s net zero tsar.

Conservative MP Chris Skidmore believes it should make the decision to decarbonise homes by next year to help the country meet its climate change goals. His review found that the average household could save between £400 and £6,000 a year through the move to net zero, mainly from switching petrol and diesel for electric cars, as well as swapping boilers for heat pumps.

Upfront price

About 1.8 million gas boilers are sold annually in the UK, compared with only 55,000 heat pumps last year. Skidmore said the earlier date would reduce the upfront price of the pumps, which cost between £7,000 and £13,000, according to The Times.

“Bringing the mandate of no new gas boilers forward from 2035 to 2033 helps households save money by doing this sooner rather than later,” Skidmore said.

Longer-term funding

Such a move would radically update the government’s target of installing 600,000 heat pumps annually by 2028.

Government should also mandate landlords to include ‘average bill cost’ alongside EPC ratings when letting out a property, according to the report. This would help renters understand what costs to expect, while also helping to put a premium on energy efficient homes.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme has already faced criticism that landlords would need longer-term funding to help them meet energy efficiency targets. Using BUS, they can get £6,000 off the cost and installation of a ground source heat pump, £5,000 for an air source heat pump, and £5,000 for a biomass boiler.

The NRLA recently slammed the government for having no chance of meeting the deadline to improve EPC ratings (improving new tenancies to a band C by 2025 and existing tenancies by 2028) following its failure to respond to a consultation which closed two years ago.

View Full Article: Government urged to ban sale of gas boilers within a decade

Alarm as Scottish ministers look to extend rent controls

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The Scottish government has admitted it is considering long-term proposals for rent control after the Cost of Living Act has expired.

Minister for Tenants’ Rights, Patrick Harvie, told MSPs he was satisfied that the moratorium on evictions and the cap on rents in the private rented sector would continue until at least the end of March, but that he expected the rent cap to extend beyond that date. As he delivered the first report in Holyrood – covering October to December 2022 – Harvie said unprecedented economic challenges were continuing to impact on renters and that the measures remained “necessary and proportionate”.

Cliff edge

He added there needed to be a bridge between the emergency legislation and the longer-term work. “The changes to the rent adjudication methodology that the emergency act allows us to take forward in future will achieve that. If we simply return from the rent cap to open-market considerations, that could create an extremely damaging cliff edge.”

Some MSPs expressed concern that there had been a marked increase in the number of landlords who were seeking to sell their properties. However, Harvie insisted: “If we had not taken action, tenants in Scotland would have been lumbered with the same kind of excessive, eye-watering increases that tenants south of the border are living with.”

Damage ignored

Propertymark says the Scottish Government has again failed to acknowledge the damage that legislation capping rents is causing. Timothy Douglas, head of policy and campaigns, adds: “Unlike for providers of social rented accommodation there has been no task and finish group for the private rented sector to formally raise our concerns.

“Alarmingly, the Minister also failed to acknowledge the impact of planned future legislation for the private rented sector that also includes energy efficiency targets that many landlords will struggle to afford.”

View Full Article: Alarm as Scottish ministers look to extend rent controls

Tenant to pay 6 months upfront rent but with guarantor?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Hello. I am planning to rent out my property on ATS for the entire 12 months.

The potential tenant, whom I really like, failed the reference check, and the guarantor has agreed to cover only 6 months.

So we are currently looking at the following schedule of payment with this Tenant: 1 month deposit plus 6 months advance rent;

View Full Article: Tenant to pay 6 months upfront rent but with guarantor?

Buy direct or use a property investment company?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

First of all, a little background about my particular circumstances, which led to this question.

My step-mother passed away last September and left me her house. It’s fully paid for and is worth around £420K.

I now have a number of choices regarding how to use the house or to sell it and use its value

View Full Article: Buy direct or use a property investment company?

Janet Finch-Saunders: Welsh tenants are being let down by their Government

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Not only has the Welsh MS Janet Finch-Saunders branded the new tenancy laws in Wales as a ‘disaster’ for landlords – but says that tenants are being failed by the Welsh Government and homelessness will get worse.

The Labour-led government in Wales is supported by Plaid Cymru which has seen the introduction of Rent Smart Wales in recent years –

View Full Article: Janet Finch-Saunders: Welsh tenants are being let down by their Government