‘Lots of us are very anxious’: why Britain’s buy-to-let landlords are selling

theguardian.com:

D esigner Philip Harris, 42, who has properties in south and east London, became a landlord by accident after meeting his now wife. She already had a flat, but rented it out, and the couple bought a property off-plan, when it was still at the design stage. When their children were born, they needed more space and bought a third property, renting out the second one. At the time, they saw their small portfolio as a retirement investment, but now, worried about mounting costs, they want to reduce the risk by selling one of the homes.

It’s a picture playing out across the country. Landlords sold 35,000 more properties than they bought across 2022, according to Hamptons analysis of data from Countrywide, as the jump in mortgage costs and tax changes make buy to let an increasingly unappealing proposition.

Eight years after the then-chancellor George Osborne clamped down on what many saw as the excessive tax privileges enjoyed by buy-to-let investors, some landlords are claiming the government has embarked on a fresh mission to “destroy” the sector.

And those in the industry who claim landlords have been subjected to a long “war of attrition” have found an ally of sorts in an influential committee of MPs, which is calling for changes to be made to make buy to let “more financially attractive” to smaller landlords.

The first blow came in 2015, when Osborne introduced reductions in tax relief on buy-to-let mortgages. A three percentage point stamp duty surcharge on buying additional properties followed.

The regulatory burden has increased and this year, Michael Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, plans to strengthen tenants’ rights with greater regulation, including scrapping section 21 “no-fault”