Wednesday 11 January 2017

As we were saying...

From City AM (bottom of page 7 of this pdf version):

RENTS in the UK are moving towards an “affordability ceiling” as rental growth more than halved over 2016...

Martin Totty, Homelet’s chief executive, said: “While demand for rental property remains strong, landlords always have to be mindful of tenants’ ability to pay higher prices. We have now begun to approach an affordability ceiling, particularly in areas of the country where rental price inflation was previously highest.”

Some commentators in the property industry have said measures that increase landlords’ costs — including chancellor Philip Hammond’s decision to scrap letting agents’ fees for tenants – will push up rents. However, Totty said increasing rents could become “problematic” in parts of the country that are already expensive, as tenants simply won’t be able to afford higher prices.


So much to the KLN "landlords will pass on the LVT", eh?

6 comments:

Steven_L said...

You often see small time landlords boasting that they never increase the rent on a good tenant. I reckon the powers that be hate this. As rental property becomes more of an institutionalised investment (I see Legal and General are getting in on it, presumably egged on by Woodford and the likes) they will want there to be an increment on the yield every year.

I do reckon that in the next property crash, the small time BTL landlords will be rinsed and hung out to dry. The bailouts will go direct to the mortgage lenders and the title to the properties direct to the likes of L&G. All to 'help' the tenants of course.

Bayard said...

"they will want there to be an increment on the yield every year."

Not so much an increment every year, but they will want rents to rise in line with land prices, so that the yields don't "reduce".

Mark Wadsworth said...

SL, possibly and we will see.

B, he meant rent increases every year obvs.

Steven_L said...

They will need to ratchet up rents to drive up land prices with interest rates as rock bottom. Longer term contracts with some sort of rent increase written in is one way of doing this. The clamour to change landlord and tenant law in favour of longer term tenancies will grow. I expect something that can be sold as favouring the tenant, but favours institutional long term landlords more and looks to shaft small time landlords.

James Higham said...

More on the streets - a right little community.

DBC Reed said...

The thing to watch is the current Housing White Paper which Sayid Javid is supposed to deliver this month : much delayed, it was supposed to coincide with the Autumn statement.From the straws in the wind such as "UK Housing white paper risks huge backlash" in FT Jan 5th the Tory wankers are throwing their toys about because Javid is determined to do something to tackle high house prices which he and Greg Clark ( Business) seem to think result from big developers buying land then sitting on it while its value ticks up.Problem for Tories is Javid appears to have the bit between his teeth and is not succumbing to the usual pressure.
And they say Labour is split.