With SF threat gone, will landlords stay in?

Premos said:
I don't understand your post. Currently the rent I charge is €800 less than the market. Do you think I am the only one in this situation?
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I thinking someone very far behind the market rate has been like that for a long time. They've probably had rental since before the RPZ were created, then watched as the RPZ were expanded, the rent increases were reduced, then stopped during COVID. Been a LL when all the pro tenant legislation came in, through the changes to tenancies length, from 4 to 6 to unlimited, from the termination of tenancies rules were changes over and over. Etc. This is not the first election where SF were a strong contender going into it. Its the second. I'm thinking there has been opportunities during all this time, to leave the market, either sell the property then buy back in, leave it empty for 2yrs, etc.

If someone in still in the market at substantially below the market rent. They must have reasons (that escape me) to be maintaining that.
 
AlbacoreA said:
I thinking someone very far behind the market rate has been like that for a long time. They've probably had rental since before the RPZ were created, then watched as the RPZ were expanded....
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Threads on here would suggest there is, or at least was, a large cohort of landlords who did not really manage their business as a business., including many accidental landlords. It's still common to see people justify an investment in property letting on the basis of not understanding the stock market or other similar investments who greatly underestimate the increasing complexity of residential property letting.
 
Its almost like you don't think a landlord should achieve market rate irrespective of the length of time they are in the business.

With the increasing costs of property for me this is a future proofing for family members to avail of the properties as their ppr at some point. What you and others appear to not acknowledge that the "market" is being distorted whether people want admit it or not.

I am all for being in business with the risks and rewards associated with same. But what is currently happening is all the risks with very little rewards to the small landlord. Grand if you want a rental market then let it be exactly what it should be an actual "market" like every other market that rises and falls due to market forces.

Irrespective of which party will be in power they will be anti (small) landlord (just to different extent). Remember the mantra "landlord bad, tenant good". The vast majority of small landlords are PAYE employees who maybe using property as a pension. But sure hey lets injure those who are actually trying to look after their retirement requirements rather than relying solely on the State.
 
I am staying in for two reasons:

1. The value of my properties is increasing so the below market value rents is compensated for by the increase in prices.
2. Where else do you put money - banks pay no interest, I don't know anything about shares and exchange traded funds are out because of the tax rules.

I know that house prices can fall, but it seems less risky than cash in the bank (my only other realistic option) to my mind anyway.

I also have children who will need houses in the future.

I suspect that alot of landlords think along these lines - otherwise everybody would have gotten out long ago.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Sounds reasonable. But...

How can you sell it, or get a family member in.
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If you are asking me, you can using the ability to evict for sale or family use. These look likely to stay in place for the near term anyway.

I'm also very careful to pick better off short term tenants. If no one suitable turns up, I leave it vacant, wait again and readvertise. I know I am losing money, but a tenant would might be very long term is too risky these days.
 
I would suggest there are possibly three groupings to explain the above. One being accidental landlords in negative equity in properties they had purchased as starter homes, two those investors who wished to diversify their investment portfolios outside of the investment products offered by financial advisers and three those who seen the investment as passive income with little or no managing of the investment and its returns.

You can't manage being a small landlord as a business with one hand tied behind your back.
 
The Horseman said:
two those investors who wished to diversify their investment portfolios outside of the investment products offered by financial advisers
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I know AAM isn't fully representative but I've seen few if any posts along those lines.

The Horseman said:
You can't manage being a small landlord as a business with one hand tied behind your back.
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True, but I suppose I was referring more to those who got into the business before RPZs came into existence, neglected their business for years enjoying a close to passive income when times were good. They then failed to act as rent controls were debated in the Oireachtas and now complain about the super low rent they're stuck with due to letting emotions of relationships with good tenants cloud business judgement.
 
I am in property to diversify. I will have a DB pension, a state pension, an AVC and an investment in a diversified portfolio along with property.

Property investment before the RPZ's offered attractive returns and for those who purchased at the right time could still be earning an ROI of 8% pre tax. Although better returns are available if the market was allowed to find its own equilibrium.

Letting to good tenants for an easy life is a good option but the fact that you can't up the rent if another tenant replaces the old one is an issue I personally have. Why should a new tenant benefit from the relationship you had with the old tenant?
 
The Horseman said:
Why should a new tenant benefit from the relationship you had with the old tenant?
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In a normal market of course they shouldn't, but housing here has been far from normal for a long time, but that's another well covered debate.
 
The risk is that they change these rules.

Its over simplistic to think people only caught get with troublesome tenants due to not begin careful.
 
Greenbook said:
2. Where else do you put money - banks pay no interest, I don't know anything about shares and exchange traded funds are out because of the tax rules.
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The tax on ETFs is more less the same as the blended rate on capital gains and income on a rental property.

Your ETF will never call you at five to midnight with a broken toilet seat though.
 
There should at the very least be some way of being able to charge market rents when your tenants move on themselves. We should not be subject to having to remain within the RPZ rules when our property becomes vacant again. There was talk of this change coming in at some stage, whereby to hold landlords they were thinking of allowing them to charge market rent but only on the condition that the previous tenant has vacated the property themselves. I know not much use to that landlord who is getting €450 per mth for a 3 bed, those tenants may as well have won the lottery, they will never move on !!
 
Leo said:
Threads on here would suggest there is, or at least was, a large cohort of landlords who did not really manage their business as a business.,
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Each time these threads are put there is the idea that LL don't manage their business as a business. My rental was always a business, that is the reason why I apply the changing of the legislation as carefully as I can. Before the rent freeze and rpz, the rent was at an appropriately high level and reviewed as authorised. There is only one year that I reviewed perhaps less than I should have at the time (I had a sitting tenant and apply a reasonable increase but perhaps not as much as the market could have bare).The rpz were not supposed to be indefinite and the increases were up to 4%. I still see it as a business and know that my initial investment was right as purchased at the right time, in a good and practical location for us as LL and at a low price. Keeping it now is probably not. However, as I review my situation regularly, I took the decision 2 years ago to keep it as I know that in 3 years or before I will be out of the business of renting and it will be used by a family member. That's my plan and it's been heavily influenced by the rpz zones and the changing legislation as well as the general mess of the rental market. I avoid long-term tenants as above even if it means more work and more vacancy which of course is not the goal of the legislation but the way it influences my decisions as a landlord, I prefer having that flexibility. Rules can always change as well as tenants situation/goals. However, my last tenants said they would move in 12 to 18 months and they did just in time. The current ones said 24 to 36 months and the last time I spoke to them, they were clearly on track for that. We have shares and pensions invested in shares, so it is a way of diversifying. However, it's not something I plan to do again at that point.
 
Leo said:
They then failed to act as rent controls were debated in the Oireachtas and now complain about the super low rent they're stuck with due to letting emotions of relationships with good tenants cloud business judgement.
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Most landlords weren’t in a position to act.

At the time, there was a two-year “rent freeze” in effect so most landlords weren’t in a position to adjust rents to the market rate in advance of the introduction of the RPZ regime.
 
What is can't fathom is how the market rents have remained so high - I understand the supply and demand but I would expect the majority of rental stock to be existing, not new but based on gut feeling and not hard data.

Is it really the case that so many more new rentals that aren't subject to RPZ are coming on the market, given how few new builds seem to be happening? Most landlords are surely complying with RPZ rules?
 
ClubMan said:
I find it amazing that so many people still put this argument forward as a reason to avoid shares - and that's even people who are willing to act as landlords running a property rental business!
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Investing in individual shares is very, very difficult. I have investigated doing this thoroughly - it is genuinely difficult to make consistent returns. If I could find something other than being a landlord, I would gladly move in to it. Exchange traded funds would be ideal as they are essentially a composite of an entire index, so much less risky than trying to pick individual shares, but the tax treatment makes them very unattractive.

I feel I understand the residential property market at this stage in my life. With shares, I would be starting from scratch.

Do you invest in shares yourself?
 
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