“Most rent is more than a mortgage, at least in the SE. It's been that way for years... Hence posters above talking about getting £200/month over their mortgage in 'profit' etc.”
Selling is very difficult at the moment in my area. Most property around here has been up for sale for 6+ months and are still not selling even after price drops. Its not like you can have tenants in either while selling so the landlord often ends up finding its too expensive to sell as they cannot afford 6+ months without a tenant while they attempt to sell. All to sell as a depreciated value. It can turn into a large loss compared to staying as a landlord. So they get stuck being a landlord even though they want out. What a lot of people miss is even if the house is worth £10,000 more then when they first brought it then depreciated down to £8000 more then when they first brought it that isn't £8000 profit if its been sitting empty 6+ months while you try to sell and are building up all the ongoing associated costs for how ever long it takes to sale. If was a different story years back when you could put up a home and it sold in days or weeks with minimal effort. Now its months or longer the situation has massively changed.
Rent is not more then a full mortgage anymore not when you look at all the additional costs. As for £200 “profit” a month is not as much as it sounds. So that’s £2400 a year. Now subtract tax and that’s not tax on £200 profit you pay tax on the entire rental income now. The tax bill alone can be equal to or around £2400 “profit”
Now subtract all the running costs like insurance, surveys, electronic checks, boiler checks and everything the landlord has to pay for. Now you need £5000 in a pot for refurbishments, £5000 to meet all the new changing requirements from the government, another £2000 to cover emergencies like needing a new boiler. That £2400 needs to stretch to cover £5000+ of bills, fees and work and you still need a pot of refurbishments and emergency. Suddenly that £2400 profit doesn’t actually amount to anything. Its not fun, free money for the landlord.
Yet some delusional posters on here think that makes the landlord evil and immoral taking £200 profit a month over the mortgage and the landlord should instead lower the rent to cost making the landlord lose even more money.
It seems like most of the anti-landlord people in here are massively underestimating how much tax landlords pay and underestimating how many bills and services the landlord has to cover and pay for. All they see is that’s £2400 free money for the landlord to splash out on toys. Which is a load of nonsense in most cases.
(some of the figures above are variable based on differing situations)
“Again, how does the tenant have less stress than the landlord? The landlord might have to decide to sell and maybe lose money in the investment. The tenant loses their home ffs. They might be a family of 4 with two kids in local schools, local jobs/good commute and a network of friends and family nearby. Your whole life could be flipped upside-down through no fault of your own when your landlord sells.
As I said before the tenant can choose to negotiate protection into the contract so they cannot be kicked out in 1 months’ notice without warning, massively reducing the risk, stress and problem of losing there home.
The Tenant doesn’t have to worry about moving out and still having to pay the monthly mortgage despite the place being empty. The tenant doesn’t have to worry about unexpected bills, fixing things, services, consent change to government policy or things like the boiler suddenly breaking and needing £1000’s to replace. You’re missing that the landlord’s entire life can be flipped upside down all because the Tenant decided to move out without notice and not leaving the property fit to rent out for the next person. For every time a tenant life could be flipped upside-down through no fault of your own there is a matching situation where the landlords life can be flipped upside down through no fault of your own due to the tenants actions. Just losing 1 months’ rent can eats up 6 months “profit” but the outgoing costs of being a landlord do not go down and stop just because the tenant moved out and 1 months rent is missed. There is a lot more stress for landlords that tenants do not have to face. Just look at how many tenants say they like renting as it removes all the stress and the landlord has to deal with everything.