9:31 AM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago 21
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It was comforting to read the words of Nigel Terrington, the chief executive of Paragon Bank, who recently highlighted a stark reality: we need more landlords!
He was talking about the UK’s population being projected to surge by 4 million by 2032 – has anyone voted for this? – and most newcomers, particularly immigrants, will rent rather than buy.
This is piling unprecedented pressure on an already strained rental market, pushing rents skyward and leaving tenants scrambling for scarce properties.
Yet, instead of nurturing the PRS, the government seems hell-bent on driving small landlords out of business.
Mr Terrington’s warning is clear, that demand for rental properties is outstripping supply, with 15 to 20 tenants vying for every available home in many areas, especially in student towns.
This isn’t just a statistic; it’s a crisis.
While Mr Terrington can see the problem AND a solution, it appears that the incompetent Labour government cannot see either.
The Renters’ Rights Bill and the proposed ludicrous Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) regulations are squeezing small landlords, many of whom are selling up rather than navigating a hostile buy to let landscape.
Who can blame them? Who wants the aggro?
So, let’s talk about the EPC regulations. No-one is sure yet what they will consist of from next year, but we could see changes to the EPC calculation so that properties which are currently rated C, being downgraded to D.
That’s a massive blow beneath the waterline for landlords since it renders those homes unrentable unless landlords fork out thousands for heat pumps or solar panels.
The downside to small landlords leaving the PRS is that the market will be dominated by large portfolio landlords but eventually, I believe, they too will be squeezed out.
That will leave tenants at the mercy of corporate players or HMO landlords catering to those who can’t afford even a modest one-bedroom flat.
Poorly paid tenants, and those on benefits, are looking at a worrying future but they don’t seem to realise just how bad things are going to be.
I’m guessing that when the council hands them a tent, the penny might drop.
Thankfully, and just in time, Angela Rayner has this week legalised rough sleeping!
Labour’s apparent disdain for small landlords is baffling, and it looks like sixth form common room politics have survived the journey into Parliament.
They’ve ignored MPs, the House of Lords and the National Residential Landlords Association, all of whom have warned that strangling the PRS will only worsen the housing crisis.
Instead of encouraging investment in rental properties, policies seem designed to eradicate small players.
Higher rents mean higher profits, and higher profits mean more tax revenue – cynics (not me) might argue this is no accident.
But it’s not just about supply. The Renters’ Rights Bill, while protecting tenants, has shifted the balance so far that landlords face huge risks.
Non-paying or destructive tenants will be near-impossible to evict without costly court battles and bailiffs.
Decent tenants, who make up the majority, suffer as a result.
Labour appears to be ignoring the bigger picture: there’s a chronic shortage of homes, exacerbated by a failure to address mass immigration’s impact on housing demand.
Again, we should be grateful for Labour’s promise to build more social homes this week.
Those homes will mostly be for the people who are turning up in the country, not the ones whose taxes will be paying the bill.
Some might argue that Mr Terrington’s call for more landlords misses the mark and that the real issue isn’t a lack of landlords – it’s a lack of properties.
Immigration, while a lightning rod, is only part of the equation.
We have decades of underinvestment in housing, coupled with a planning system that stifles development, which have left the UK woefully unprepared for population growth.
Calling for an end to mass immigration, as some suggest, might ease pressure temporarily, but it sidesteps the deeper structural failures.
We need bold action: streamlined planning, incentives for new builds, and a private rented sector that doesn’t punish small landlords for daring to invest.
The warning signs are there, and Mr Terrington’s plea for more landlords is a cry for common sense in a policy landscape that seems anything but sensible.
The housing crisis isn’t just a market failure – it’s a government failure. Landlords, tenants and the country deserve better.
Until next time,
The Landlord Crusader
Freda Blogs
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Sign Up9:53 AM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
I fear Mr Terrington’s remarks, while welcome, are a bit too late as I and many others are already baling out of the PRS, unwilling to be tenant puppets having to bend to every whim that Govt, Gen Rent et al want to inflict.
My property, my money, my choice.
Reluctant Landlord
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Sign Up10:09 AM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
no. It's clear they don't care about the end user from the plans of legislation afoot.
Anti LL rhetoric is borne of pure spite and off the back of winning the vote of the those they will not help themselves.
Labour think ' we have to find a scapegoat for our own failings and total inability to address the issue'.
Far easier to divert blame to someone else....new and existing tenants are in for a rude awakening very soon....
David100
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Sign Up10:43 AM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
"Sixth form politics" sounds about right.
Socialists have a deep ingrained hatred for landlords.
Its very evident in the writings of Marx.
Landlords were the number one enemy of socialism to him.
Stems from the fact he was an intensely lazy man, and relied on others to pay his rent.
When they got fed up doing that, he got evicted.
Hundreds of thousands have followed his example.
Mick Roberts
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Sign Up11:00 AM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
She wont' turn to us, but Reeves may increase CGT in Autumn budget to 40% to stop us selling as she needs us.
dismayed landlord
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Sign Up11:58 AM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
Not a chance. Wouldn’t trust them with any assets of mine. Whatever government is in they all have done landlords no favours at all. Nor have any media formats.
They all made it clear - we were demons and parasites.
They have no to harvest what they have sown.
And sorry tenants - your the collateral damage, but you did nothing to stop stigma.
It’s too late now.
Micks right CGT may slow the exit. However I’ll just pay it lbw side if any government can think they can control by fear and oppression the we have reached the end.
Reluctant Landlord
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Sign Up14:11 PM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 13/06/2025 - 11:00
...then there will be a rush to sell if this is announced in the autumn budget (to be applied from April 2026) and before the RRB comes in.
This also coincides with the MTD palava from April 2026 too.
Final straw that breaks the landlords back?
Beaver
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Sign Up15:51 PM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
The announcement this week that Rachel Reeves was going to spend £39bn on affordable housing over the next decade (presumably at the request of Angela Rayner) needed a second look.
If that was £36bn on new homes then with a build cost of £150K per home for say a 2-3 bed house that would only amount to about 240,000 new homes (although you do have to wonder whether they'd be able to buy the land for an affordable price as part of that £150K build cost per home).
But if you take a second look and accept that the recent report by the Guardian newspaper is correct at least some of that money is being given to housing associations to buy 'affordable' homes that developers have already built and that housing associations cannot 'afford' even though they are affordable. And I'm sure that won't be for as little as £150K because £150K is the build price of an average 2-3 bed property, not the sale price, even for an 'affordable' home.
If you look at the numbers this week, even if you believe that Rachel Reeves' promises are funded and that she doesn't have to find more for defence for example to meet NATO commitments then this is a tacit admission that labour cannot solve the UK's housing needs without the help of the market, whatever flavour of politics ex council tenant Angela Rayner and her former spouse might espouse having bought their council house for a big discount courtesy of the tax payer.
So how attractive are labour making it to do something socially-useful, like provide a safe, warm, cheap-to-heat property like a band D property? For comparison the Financial Times has just reported that Philip Morris International has soared 50 per cent this year while British American Tobacco is up by almost a quarter. Defence stocks are soaring and I would have thought that oil stocks ought to do reasonably well now that Israel has attacked Iran. Bit of a shame that more isn't coming out of the North Sea. I would be able to invest in all of that lot via a SIPP if I wanted to (although I wouldn't be permitted to invest in a residential property directly via a SIPP...this is the devil's work).
As a small portfolio landlord with my band D property, modern condensing gas boiler, gas safety certificate and EPC I am a villain. And my investment should be condemned to hell via the Renters Rights Bill, even though my tenants are happy. They aren't going to be so happy though when I eventually evict them in order to do the EPC upgrade.
LaLo
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Sign Up17:03 PM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
I let out at £95 p.w, but after averaging out expenses, void periods, taxes etc I’m left with approx £60 p.w. which isn’t much! If I have a tradesman out to fix electrical/gas /roofing problems etc they charge around £75 for just ‘one’ hour in comparison!! Just had a gardening quote to trim two hedges and two lawns of average size £550 !!! I could go on!
Mr Blueberry
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Sign Up17:07 PM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
Somewhere between 36% and 37% of private Landlords are mortgage-free.
Candyman1980
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Sign Up19:11 PM, 13th June 2025, About 4 weeks ago
Reply to the comment left by Mr Blueberry at 13/06/2025 - 17:07
Very insightful.