Over the past year, it has been impossible for landlords and property management agents to escape the shadow of upcoming legislation that looks set to change the rental market forever, but at the same time, statistics confound conventional wisdom.
The Renters’ Rights Bill, currently in the House of Lords but expected to be passed into law, included a wide range of reforms that had led to concerns that landlords would sell their homes.
However, according to the most recent Rightmove Rental Tracker, there are 18 per cent more rental homes available than there were at the same time, and 11 per cent more new properties available.
This inevitably begs the question of why this is the case. Are there more landlords renting out properties than ever before, or is something else going on?
The Renters Rights Bill Does Not Affect Good Landlords
Part of the reason why the expected exodus has not necessarily happened yet is that most landlords and tenants are already working with each other rather than against each other.
Whilst the apparatus of rental legislation implies an adversarial relationship where what landlords want is the opposite of what tenants want, in most cases, tenants just want a place to live that is in good order and reasonably priced and most landlords want a long-term reliable tenant.
In both of those cases, the Renters’ Rights Bill is actually beneficial, as it supports secure long-term rental arrangements and encourages fair treatment.
In many cases, it improves these relationships as it reduces the fear from tenants that they could be adversely affected by asking for repairs or permission to have pets and make their rented accommodation more personal.
The Overall Impact Is Smaller Than Expected
In 2024, an impact assessment on the Renters’ Rights Bill was published, and the overall average cost to landlords was calculated to be £22 per property.
The reason for this is related to the first point; almost all of the provisions of the Bill are initiatives landlords are already doing, and so the landlords facing the highest costs and thus are the most likely to leave are the ones who were providing the poorest service to tenants.
As the Rightmove statistics ultimately confirmed, most landlords are far less affected by the laws than they expected, and as the housing market as a whole settles following an utterly chaotic five years, the incentives to sell will ultimately reduce compared to the secure income of regular tenants.
There Are Still Willing Landlords
The fears of a landlord exodus were predicated on the idea that there would be no housing supply to replace them, but that does not seem likely to be the case.
Outside of landlords working with agencies to help with the day-to-day management of rented homes, other landlords are keen to buy established rental properties, especially if they already have regular tenants who are supplying a regular income.
There are also initiatives such as Giroscope willing to buy empty homes, renovate them and make them available to people who are in need of secure housing.
