I'm willing to admit you've got me on the logic here but when I've asked my mum about it — she's a
parasite estate agent — she says a lot of buyers tend to be cash buyers; the usual flash gits looking to expand their property portfolios.
I'll save you some misery but I've sat there on many evenings listening to her rants about how they usually buy and then raise the price of the rent compared to what it was before because they're looking to maximise their investment. What apparently is not happening so much is that rents are staying at a decent level for tenants, which I feel would be more likely to happen if you're dealing with a landlord who has one extra property they're renting out. Historically this was a more normal thing and personally I've always enjoyed dealing with those landlords more (they care about getting good tenants and usually maintain the property better). Couple in rises to interest rates and it really has been a bit of a perfect storm to get them to sell.
However, this also relates to one of the better changes the tories made during their tenure which was to make it exceptionally difficult to grant HMOs. What I gather was happening before was that a lot of properties were being sold off to property portfolio vermin and carved up into HMOs so it became hard for single/couples to find places for themselves.
Of course, it doesn't logically follow that those houses become unavailable as rental properties which is what I was arguing so
feck you for making me concede my point I'll give you this one.
I think going back to
@Jippy's original point, that's what a lot of these changes have done - disincentivised smaller landlords while not massively impacting bigger ones who can afford to weather the storm.
