What Happens To Rents after a General Election?

Jo: Spot on as usual.

You are quite right. Those with mortgages have to increase rents over several years, in the meantime we have to cover the shortfall from our own savings or by selling a property, which is what I am doing. Using capital gain (after GCT of course) to cover mortgage interest payment isn't really right though.

If by some miracle Reform win, then I will seriously look at investing in more property again. If, as expected, Labour win then I'm comfortable having sold in the last year and will sell more when tenants vacate in the coming years. That, quite simply, is the reality for the majority of small landlords.

The likes of Generation Rent, Shelter etc know this. They do a huge disservice to the people they claim to represent.

The Lib Dems may end up with less votes than Reform but more MPs, such is our electoral system.

If that happens, Ed Davey is the Leader of the opposition! We'll see his face (and stupid antics) plastered all over our TV screens for the next 5 years. God help us.

The Lib Dems were predicted to have more seats than the Tories in whichever poll I was reading earlier.
In my constituency it's a different prediction every day. It's been Conservative for years but last week different newspapers were predicting Reform, Labour and Conservative. This week it's supposed to go Lib Dem.

A S
Perhaps if Ed "the talking horse" Davey does become leader of the opposition, he will find the cajones to appear before the Post Office Inquiry?

Hey, don't knock the Monster Raving Loony party, they are probably more sane than the rest of them.

"We are fighting this Election on the basis of CHANGE..

LOOSE CHANGE as this is all we’ll have left under a Labour/Conservative Government

The Loony Party will build 5 million new homes, fill up 5 million potholes, employ 80,00 teachers, policemen and NHS staff and reduce taxes to 5%……….yeah right…lol

MP’s will have to sit in stocks during their surgeries, while their constituents throw custard pies at them. This will help them judge their popularity with in the community. Companies would also be encouraged to design new versions of stocks to trade at the Stock Exchange.

Rwanda…We will send all MPs who misbehave to Rwanda.

V.A.T….We will get rid of VAT as it adds no value.

Fly Tipping..We will ban all tipping of flys, insects, and zips of any kind..

Immigration..We will replace employees of the Border Force with GP receptionists. This will dramatically reduce the number of people getting in.

Cost of Living…To help with the cost of Living and to raise money for the Treasury we will Convert Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street into a Hair salon, Which we will call ‘Government CutZ’. "

Etc.......

Yeah, we've put off raising rents until this year - after the covid thing. But all we can see is having to accept double cost mortgages, and that would leave properties with low or negative cashflow. So, prices will go up for a few years.
What I just don't understand is why Landlords are the bad actors here, when its the banks and lenders who pulled the carpets from under us - and like any other business all we do is pass on costs.

Mortgages are fixed for 5 years so there is no expectation that rent should be linked to interest rates. It will take years to recoup the extra some of us have been paying on any recent fixes. We still have 2 or 3 years of low fixes remaining on other properties but need to prepare for whatever mortgage rates may be doing when those fixes end. We were caught unawares by the speed and magnitude of increases over the last 2 years and are unlikely to make the same mistake again.

So true Jo, and the inconvenient fact that high fixed mortgages have a long time to run will be overlooked. As soon as rates come down and rents don’t, this will be paraded as more proof of how unaccountability greedy we all are.

If only we got as much of the rent as the mortgage lender or the government. It's crazy that we're portrayed as being greedy when the government get more of it as tax than we keep as income.

Margaret, I'm putting up my rents this year for sitting tenants for the first time ever. I normally only do it when re letting a house.

I know some of them can not afford it and are already struggling. You cant get blood out of a stone, so for now some will have to stay the same.

Why wait until after the election, Richard? If a rent freeze is implemented on July 5, you'll have missed the boat. Do you want to gamble on that happening? Do you feel lucky?

Why 3%? I tend to look at how much Social rents were increased in April and work from there. This year it was up to 7.7%. Most authorities go for the maximum allowed.

I try to keep self funding tenants increases a bit lower than the Social percentage increase because it's easy to justify as being a good deal. Market forces are now restricting some increases. HMOs seem to be more impacted by that than self contained units.
As AS says, Why wait until after the election? If a miracle happens and Reform win you could always change your mind about the magnitude of the increase. No tenant is going to be upset if you decide to cancel a 6% increase and replace it with a 2% increase.