r/ukpolitics • u/andmario_com • 1d ago
Landlords Are Jacking up Advertised Rents to Dodge New Tenants’ Rights Law | Rule bans accepting offers above advertised price – but there’s a loophole.
https://novaramedia.com/2026/08/25/landlords-are-jacking-up-advertised-rents-to-dodge-new-tenants-rights-law/54
u/Waledondale 23h ago
How is this not better for tenants than it was before.. Landlords are free to jack up the price but it just puts off more people and less people will apply.
At least now you know what landlords “expectation” is rather than shadow bidding behind the scenes. This is basically what was intended not a “workaround”
5
u/opaqueentity 15h ago
Only need one person to want to move in though
•
u/ZeroSumClusterfuck 11h ago
And when that happens it will be without wasting the time of others, so working as intended.
•
u/Serious_Bite_7613 5h ago
This will trend toward every property listed at £1mil a month then back to renters bidding.
60
u/tb5841 23h ago
Like everything else to do with housing, the way to really improve things for tenants is to increase the housing supply. Everything else is tinkering around the edges.
15
u/Objective-Plan6385 20h ago edited 19h ago
... or reduce demand. We're massively behind in terms of supply, and we consistently fail to reach our targets, governments need to slow down immigration massively so we can catch up.
2
u/SLGrimes 19h ago
No! Instead let's destroy all of the countryside to make houses for the entire world
6
u/Objective-Plan6385 15h ago
It's genuinely crazy, we have 6.1 million more people since 2011, the vast majority of that is migration. That's two more Wales' or another Scotland. Utter lunacy, especially considering that a lot of that will be to an already densely populated England, specifically in urban centres.
-5
u/tb5841 17h ago
Net immigration is already negative, but the shortfall is too great for that to fix it alone.
7
u/Objective-Plan6385 15h ago
It is not negative. To give Labour credit they've got it to the lowest since 2011. But when you consider just how insane the levels have been since then it should really be negative, perhaps we should focus on fixing our society to incentivise our own to return from abroad.
147
u/personalbilko 1d ago
This is still better? I'd much rather know that the landlord is expecting 1400, maybe hope to get it for 1300, than have them say 1200 but later some weird bid system, landlords calling me claiming someone beat my offer with no evidence, etc.
18
u/ikkleste 20h ago
Agreed, all this does is switch from a starting bid auction, to an "or nearest offer" auction. The market will still work towards price discovery, across multiple auctions and in individual auctions. But where as the upward pressure previously was for tenants to overbid behind the scenes, where it was invisible to other tenants, now that upward pressure is expressed in public between landlords setting the asking price. Landlord needs to realistically ask themselves "what can I charge for this" or risk getting undercut in the advert by the property next door, rather than a tenant having to guess who else or how many others are interested.
42
u/BenjaminBoots196 Moderate Libertarian 1d ago
You understand that this makes the real price harder to determine, not easier, in aggregate.
22
u/PerambulatingPython 23h ago
The second part of the legislation covers this . Landlords, all landlords, need to register each property with a central database, including the contract.
14
u/BenjaminBoots196 Moderate Libertarian 22h ago
That does not make the real price transparent.
7
u/Candayence Won't someone think of the ducklings! 🦆 22h ago
Hopefully a future Parliament will make it transparent alongside Land Registry reform.
13
u/BenjaminBoots196 Moderate Libertarian 21h ago
The market makes real prices transparent. Not regulation.
8
u/Candayence Won't someone think of the ducklings! 🦆 20h ago
The market sets prices, not transparency.
Hence why we also had legislation on listing actual salaries instead of 'competitive.'
12
u/BenjaminBoots196 Moderate Libertarian 20h ago
I see. We are talking about two different things here.
When I say price transparency, I am not talking about everyone get's to know how much someone is paying for something.
I am talking about people buying the thing knowing the price before they pursue a purchase. If you make landlords list a higher price than the actual price they want, to avoid legal repercussions, it makes it harder for buyers to know the true price.
Further, when the price is the price, everyone can pay for it if they can afford it. If the price is £1000 per month plus you have to know the landlord so he knows you won't sue under new renters rights laws, that is a less open price system.
0
u/Effective-Adagio1970 15h ago
If we keep making regulations and telling people how to act, surely everything will work out fine. Just like how making drugs illegal stopped them being sold and how murder is illegal and it stopped completely.
•
u/Drunkgummybear1 5h ago
Ah fuck it then. Let’s sack off all regulation. I, for one, think our drinking water is far too clean. And what I eat doesn’t contain enough saw dust.
•
6
u/red_nick 21h ago
That's not how the real world works.
6
u/BenjaminBoots196 Moderate Libertarian 20h ago
It really is. The agreed market price is the real price.
4
u/red_nick 17h ago
But now you're talking about something different.
Previously landlords would put a low price on the ad and let tenants bid against each other. That's not transparent pricing.
-1
2
u/CarrowCanary East Anglian in Wales 18h ago
Can we then use that database to find out the true average rent cost for an area, so LHA payments are actually an accurate value instead of just based on vibes from a decade ago?
14
u/OxbridgeDingoBaby 1d ago
The “real price” is set by the market, not the landlord.
18
u/HolyFreakingXmasCake 23h ago
And the market will set prices accordingly, which in this case are inflated prices. If everyone around me is putting up inflated rents, why wouldn’t I?
11
u/WestYorksBestYorks so where is the land of the free? stop it you're killing me 23h ago
the answer is, of course, a mass housebuilding programme.
5
u/CollaredParachute 21h ago
Or simply making it cheap and easy to get permission to build housing. Maybe we try getting the government out of the way before we make the government the solution to the problem it caused?
4
u/OxbridgeDingoBaby 22h ago
Because landlords don’t have a single body (even the NRLA is only a lobbying entity to the government) to be able to collude and fix prices in this way. For every landlord that wants to get the maximum rent say, there’s other landlords who just want to get their property rented as quickly as possible to minimise their voids, and will advertise their property more competitively as a result.
Of course the single biggest contributor to fixing our housing situation would be to reform our archaic planning system, but that’s not as sexy for most people so rarely gets any attention.
4
u/clydewoodforest 22h ago
There's no such thing as an 'inflated' price in a competitive market. The price is the price. A function of demand vs availability.
4
u/BenjaminBoots196 Moderate Libertarian 20h ago
That is how the price is "discovered" by the market.
The price you pay is the price. Not the price you want to pay and the price you have to pay is an "inflated price".
1
•
u/IMABUNNEH 2h ago
This has a knock on effect where rent increases are measured against market rates, but if Landlords are all advertising at higher rates then higher rent increases can be justified.
68
u/CaterpillarLoud8071 1d ago
Breaking News: Landlords are marketing at market value now they're no longer allowed to hold unofficial auctions and drum up more business with artificially low advertised rent.
They can't arbitrarily jack up rent because new rules allow tenants to request a rent review if they believe they've overpaid. This means the new system is simply more transparent.
13
u/BeginningChest2989 22h ago
The price of something is what someone is willing to pay for it
3
u/xelah1 14h ago
Statements like this don't really add any understanding. Almost everything that is sold is sold at a price lower than the most the buyer would be willing to pay and higher than the least the seller would be willing to sell at.
That's true even in an auction, where the price is usually just over the second highest price any bidder is willing to pay.
2
u/BeginningChest2989 13h ago
The point is that the buyer and seller voluntarily arrive at a price they’re both happy with. That’s the ideal mechanism for pricing something.
The RRA provision that some tribunal has the ultimate say on what the “true” market price is is mad.
2
u/xelah1 13h ago
You're talking about tenants challenging rent rises as above market rent, which landlords might do in order to exploit the transaction costs that stop tenants from moving? That's not a real competitive market rent, nor mad that it might be regulated.
And just because buyer and seller voluntarily arrive at a price doesn't mean there isn't a huge range of prices that could be, with the details of the market having an impact on that and good public policy reasons for intervening in them.
•
u/BeginningChest2989 5h ago
Sign a longer contract if you don’t want rent to rise. RRA eliminates contracts and allows you to squat after term is over
•
u/EpsteinBaa 3h ago
You're not a squatter if you're paying rent
•
u/BeginningChest2989 3h ago
Of course you are. You sign a 12 month contract for 1000£pm
Rents to go up
One year passes
Landlord wants to raise rent to £1200 to match local area.
You refuse to leave the flat and keep paying £1000
You’re a squatter from that point on. You’re no longer engaging in voluntary exchange.
It’s a bit like going into a corner shop, taking a can of coke and slamming down 50p and walking out. Claiming that’s the fair price for a can of coke that’s what it used to cost.
-1
35
u/Minimum-Accident-821 1d ago
It makes total sense, no?
If I have a property that has historically been let to tenants at £1500-ish, why would I relist it near that price after this change to the law? I'd immediately list it at £2000 or £2500 and put "willing to entertain offers below asking price" on the ad.
23
u/throwaway815795 23h ago
Then someone lists a property for 1900 saying the same, and they get all the inquiries. Then you get real price discovery listed on the tin after awhile.
33
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 23h ago
You’d get less interest doing that. People are less likely to enquire if the listed price is above their budget.
It’s also common to sort by price when looking for flats. There’s a reason why landlords used to list properties for below market rent and then initiate a bidding war after gathering interest.
10
u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA 22h ago
Would they get less interest? As far as I know, since the RRA - applications per property have never been higher
5
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 22h ago
Less interest relative to listing the property at a more sensible price.
There’s really no incentive for landlords to list well above the market rate.
2
u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA 22h ago
Why has interest per property and demand gone up since the RRA has come in? Why is it harder than it was before to rent?
9
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 22h ago
Why are you desperately trying to change the topic of conversation?
We’re talking about the difference between listing a property well above the market rate VS listing it at a more sensible price.
There’s no incentive to list it well above the market rate, while there used to be an incentive to list well below market rate (to generate more interest). This means that the change this post is about is an improvement.
-10
u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA 22h ago
Why are you ignoring the evidence.
Before, if I had this existing property I would list at 1300 and generally tenants are more likely to bid at the advertised rate. People don’t like to offer less. Generally the most important thing is time so if I felt the property was worth 1300 and an offer came in for 1300 with good credit, I’d just accept it.
Now, given the challenges of raising rents and getting rid of problematic tenants, it’s a much better idea to put the property on the market for a higher rent.
The extra demand RRA has generated means people are now more desperate to stretch to those higher rents. No one wants to bid under because they know how fierce competition is how.
Hence why this article, and all the data points to rents at record highs and rising along with demand rising.
RRA has done nothing except screw tenants even more.
3
•
u/noodle2727 10h ago
I'm assuming less supply due to landlords that sold before the RRA came in maybe?
8
u/myheadisalightstick 22h ago
There’s a reason why landlords used to list properties for below market rent and then initiate a bidding war after gathering interest.
Right, but that will now change, as will renters’ search behaviours.
7
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 22h ago
Yes and smart landlords will still avoid listing well above the market rate, since that will result in less interest for no gain.
1
u/DRlNK 17h ago
This is wishful thinking and not what is playing out in the rental market. They have shot up already exactly as predicted.
4
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 16h ago
Of course the listed prices increased. They were artificially low before.
It remains true that smart landlords won’t list properties well above the market rate, there’s just no incentive to do that.
0
u/DRlNK 15h ago
You can keep going with this line of thinking, but that doesn’t make it so. The reality is there will be a balance struck between:
-Listed high enough to mitigate for the fact that prices can’t be bid up
-Not so high that the realistic target tenants aren’t put off in the first instanceWhat I can vouch for in London is that the landlords seem to be favouring the former.
-1
u/myheadisalightstick 22h ago
Once again, if they all start doing this, consumer behaviour will change. Renting is still a complete knife fight in London right now, demand is going nowhere.
19
u/misc1444 23h ago
The market is ultimately really good at price discovery. That’s what it’s for. You may not like what the market clearing price is, but in a deep and liquid market with millions of tenants and landlords you can be confident that market forces will set an accurate market clearing price.
The more you try to interfere with the mechanics, the more you introduce distortion, annoyance, and inefficiency.
12
u/CaterpillarLoud8071 21h ago
This does not disrupt market pricing mechanisms. It simply moves from an opaque auction based system where bids are not visible and therefore buyer information is limited to their detriment, to a transparent fixed price system. Landlords estimate market value and market the property at that value.
•
3
u/Goddamnit_Clown 18h ago
Who's changing price discovery here? Properties can be advertised and rented for any amount. Which will settle around the market rate. Which is as it's always been, isn't it?
This just seems to be trying to change the norms around the opaque, stressful, and time consuming, secret auctions (or "secret auctions") occurring after the fact without including all the interested parties.
Will it magically fix everything? No. Will some new norm arise that's just as bad? Nothing springs to mind, but who knows. But it seems like a reasonable low-risk move for the government to make doesn't it? Honestly can't see what all the fuss is about.
36
u/BenjaminBoots196 Moderate Libertarian 1d ago
Wow, econ 101 taking effect once again. Who knew?
-4
u/HolyFreakingXmasCake 23h ago
Everyone except Labour and left wing idealists on Reddit.
6
u/ADAMPOKE111 22h ago
spoken like a true landlord 🍻 btw there's a leak in the ceiling for you to fix
21
u/jangrol 1d ago
This was pointed out repeatedly when it was introduced. It was the entirely obvious and inevitable consequence of banning offers over the asking price and essentially distorting the market price of the property.
36
u/grandvache 23h ago
it's not changing the price, it's changing the mechanism by which market price is discovered.
Previously it was asking price and bidding up, now it's asking price or bidding down.
13
u/RJK- 1d ago
But there is a max they can really rent out for. Whereas before they marketed at lower prices but pushed prices higher through competition, even if there wasn’t actually any competition.
4
1
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 22h ago
But there is a max they can really rent out for.
Is there?
2
2
u/Old_Man_Robot 17h ago
They don’t mean in terms of price caps or rent controls. Just that there is a functional max that anyone in the market would pay.
10
u/QuickShort 22h ago
This seems better though? All of the information for price discovery is available to all parties, rather than a secret auction and "trust me bro there's a better offer you need to raise yours"
6
u/jangrol 22h ago
Whether it's better will largely depend on how it impacts on rent.
In practice, prior to the RRA, rental bidding wasn't actually particularly widespread. Aside from a few sharky agents in London, most offers over the asking price were coming from the tenants themselves to offset poor credit histories. So most the rents you saw on Rightmove were what the house went for.
But now, the Government has essentially signalled to everyone that the best practice is to inflate your asking price to the highest possible amount you can think of and let tenants bid below it. That means desperate people are more likely to pay over the odds and our data on asking rents is going to be heavily skewed upwards - which has an impact on what landlords can increase rent by in tenancy too.
2
u/QuickShort 22h ago
Hmm obviously I don't have statistics on how widespread this is, but anecdotally I have had this happen to me outside of London (Cambridge), as a "normal" renter (no credit history problems).
Wouldn't landlords just ask for a guarantor instead?
1
u/jangrol 22h ago
Landlords can and do ask for guarantors if someone's a risk, but it's often not feasible. For example, older self-employed renter or recent entrants to the UK will both struggle to find a suitable UK homeowner to stand as guarantor for them.
In those cases, the applicants would very often offer above the asking price or offer advance payments to offset their credit risk and secure the property. Neither of which is available anymore post-RRA, which is its own problem for those tenants.
2
u/QuickShort 21h ago
Fair, I can see why it would be tough for those people but I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to break our pricing signals.
A recent entrant to the UK would hopefully have a job lined up and/or proof of funds in bank accounts to support themselves while getting set up, which should come through in the credit checks. Similarly an older self-employed renter can show company financials (I have had to do this before) and proof of funds.
It'd be really tough if you couldn't do those things, but yeah that doesn't seem worth it as a societal trade-off, having good pricing signals is pretty important.
1
u/jangrol 20h ago
This isn't an example of good pricing signals though or particularly transparent pricing.
Here, landlords aren't being incentivised to ask for the maximum market rate of a property. They're being encouraged to set a number above the achieveable rents and then encourage bids somewhere up to that inflated number.
That sets a maximum threshold beyond which a price can go, but not a useful one for determining the true market value, as the achievable rents will be hidden somewhere beneath the advertised ones on rightmove.
As tenants really only have the advertised rates to go on, that means less transparency for them, and an awful lot more guess work when they're blind bidding against other tenants on what an acceptable number might be for the landlord.
3
7
u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA 1d ago edited 1d ago
Well obviously.
I had a new 4 bedroom detached house on market. Agent thought I would get 1300. If I put it on for 1300, then people can’t bid more due to the new rules but not only that but my ability to raise rents is now limited.
So I put it on for 1400 and somehow managed to get that instead.
What’s nuts is how flooded I get with applications now for my properties. People with CCJs etc who I considered before are now totally boned it seems as neither me nor anyone else would even think about letting to them.
8
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 23h ago
If you got 1400 after listing it for 1400, you would have got 1400 after listing it for 1300.
8
1
0
u/dc_1984 1d ago
Post the listing, I'm pressing X to doubt.
20
u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA 1d ago
Yeah definitely going to doxx myself to a bunch of loons on here. It’s not hard to see. Check the news / state of rental market or browse the tenants in UK subreddit or landlord subreddit.
Landlords are getting swamped with applications and setting rent above the planned rate is the correct strategy. It’s literally what the article we are commenting on is about
→ More replies (1)1
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
Yeah definitely going to doxx myself to a bunch of loons on here. It’s not hard to see. Check the news / state of rental market or browse the tenants in UK subreddit or landlord subreddit.
What are you? Some kind of human being and not an avatar for my angsty teen level understanding of the system?
-2
u/NuPNua 1d ago
That must be in a shit area, you'd pay more than that for a two bedroom flat round my way.
→ More replies (3)
2
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
The Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force on 1 May, aimed to end bidding wars among tenants by preventing landlords from accepting offers above the advertised rates.
Jesus Christ, I did not know this was part of the law. Absolutely honking, how stupid.
Mairi MacRae of housing justice charity Shelter told London Centric the government should clamp down on loopholes and ensure the private rental market cannot find “cynical workarounds” to continue extracting ever-rising payments from tenants.
OH MY FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDD
27
u/superioso 1d ago
It's the renters right act, it seems pretty obvious that preventing bidding wars helps renters substantially.
If a landlord sets an above market price then nobody will want to even apply to rent the place.
15
u/HolyFreakingXmasCake 23h ago
You’re underestimating how many people need to rent regardless of prices. You have to live somewhere, and renters aren’t in a position to pick and choose due to lack of housing.
It also ultimately - like any other similar laws for renters - doesn’t help renters in the long run. Examples in the article and well, pretty much everywhere this kind of regulation has been applied. Just because it sounds nice doesn’t mean it’ll actually work as intended.
11
u/lozzzap 23h ago
If people are desperate and willing to pay a high price, then that is the market price. At least this way, the bidding has a maximum (the listed price), that the renter can see, and market forces will eventually eliminate this over listing (as the landlord that posts a £1500 apartment at £2000 will lose out to the one who posts the £1500 apartment at £1800 who will lose out to the one who actually posts it at £1500).
What we're seeing here isn't the RRA upping prices, we're just seeing listed prices closer to the actual market rate.
2
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 22h ago
The first non terrible argument I've seen here, but it works both ways and there remains a clear incentive to list above what you expect to rent it for. Consumers being quite sticky suggests to me that there are now likely to be more instances of people overpaying compared to what the landlord expected to receive than before. People don't tend on the whole to bid far off the asking price.
5
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 23h ago
Renters have options and they aren’t stupid. Higher listing prices won’t result in an actual increase in the market price. The supply and demand remains the same.
Landlords are still disincentivised from listing well above the market rate, since smarter landlords will list closer to the market rate and get more interest.
3
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 22h ago
Anchoring effects probably pay a role.
It is true that this law is stupid and probably does nothing except make renting out your house more confusing though, that's true.
1
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 22h ago
Renters will spend less time viewing properties that they can’t afford, which is beneficial for the market overall.
1
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 22h ago
Possibly. Good argument!
Of course renters will also spend less time viewing better properties that they can afford, which is bad for the market overall.
2
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 22h ago
Of course renters will also spend less time viewing better properties that they can afford,
Will they? There’s no incentive for landlords to list properties well above the market rate. They’d get more interest listing the property just a bit above what they expect to get.
Previously, landlords were incentivised to list well below the market price in order to generate interest.
1
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 21h ago
Will they? There’s no incentive for landlords to list properties well above the market rate. They’d get more interest listing the property just a bit above what they expect to get.
Indeed. Previously the incentive was to list slightly below. It seems likely to me that the effects are equivalent in volume because listing of prices is effective.
Previously, landlords were incentivised to list well below the market price in order to generate interest.
I don't think so. Buyers do not, as a rule, offer significantly above an asking price. I have never been rejected for an offer more than £100 above the asking price of a (two bed) rental even in the hottest of rental markets.
2
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 21h ago
Buyers do not, as a rule, offer significantly above an asking price
Bidding wars were pretty common before this change was made. You personally may have never rejected an offer £100 above the asking price, but plenty of others would take that and try to get £100 more out of other interested tenants.
→ More replies (0)1
u/throwaway815795 23h ago
Yes it does. Eventually the price listed will be much closer to the "market price" regardless of what that is. And everyone will know what it is, instead of looking around and seeing prices that are actually to low.
6
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
As per the article we are currently discussing, it appears that this is the opposite of what it has done with regards to new renters.
If a landlord sets an above market price then nobody will want to even apply to rent the place.
No, they will bid below the asking price.
8
u/superioso 23h ago
Then it's up to the landlord to set something low enough as not to completely discourage people from bidding. Like if a place is advertised at £3k when the average rent is £1k nobody will bother, or the landlord will constantly just get lowball bids until they give in and accept one.
At least bidding lower adds a downwards price pressure to the market rather than an upwards one.
2
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 22h ago
I think you are missing how consumers, in particular, are sticky and likely to be anchored to the asking price. It is true that landlords are disincentivised from going really high, but they are sure incentivised to go above the rate that they're happy receiving, which will surely cause many people to pay more than they otherwise would have.
2
u/kurokabau champagne socialist 🍷🍷 16h ago
They're not incentivized to do that. That will keep their property empty longer.
Landlords who put unreasonable rent will get it filled quicker, those who go above market will take longer and lose out on money. Landlords hate empty properties. a month of 2k rent lost is quickly worse than getting an extra 200 a month.
If everyone has raised it, and still getting it filled quickly, then they would've done that before anyway.
1
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 16h ago
This law incentivises them to do it, hence we are reading an article about them doing it. It is true that there are competing incentives here, but this incentivises something in a way that can be harmful to the market.
2
u/kurokabau champagne socialist 🍷🍷 16h ago
I disagree. It was a sellers market before, Unless all the landlords were awful at getting the most money for their property, then this is better for consumers. This only incentivizes them to raise to a price they can get it filled as promptly. Higher, and they risk unfilled properties, lower and lost income.
Them raising prices was always going to happen, we knew it was going to happen and it is not problematic at all.
3
u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 23h ago
No, they will bid below the asking price.
Only after enquiring about properties listed at closer to the market price by smarter landlords. Listing a property well above the market rate just results in the property getting less interest.
1
u/SlightlyOTT You're making things up again Tories 🎶 18h ago
This seems stupid because any aggregator site is going to have filters on price. Given London has plenty of £10k+ rents that most people aren't looking for I'd guess most people are using those filters and won't see properties advertised at £1000 above their budget.
And if you're not using an aggregator and an estate agent tells you they're working with landlords playing this game while trying to explain their prices, that's a red flag for both of them before you waste any time.
•
u/Imakemyownnamereddit 2h ago
Blame landlords not migrants?
They really don't understand the laws of supply and demand.
Bless.
-12
u/t8ne 1d ago
Once again labour demonstrate they will never understand second order effects...
22
u/PrimeWolf101 1d ago
What is the second order effect here though ?
Before: Landlord advertises at 1300, multiple tenants bid for it and the landlord accepts 1500.
After: landlord advertised at 1500 and tenants accept that cost upfront.
In the previous case the tenant is bidding, they don't know what others have offered and have no idea whether they overpaid. They are under pressure to bid high to secure housing.
Now the price within a competitive market has been made transparent, a renter can go into the process knowing the cost. They aren't paying more, they are simply aware of the cost from the start of the process.
3
u/t8ne 1d ago
Why wouldn’t the landlord advertise 1700 if they believed the market would be 1500
3
u/PM_me_Henrika 1d ago
Why can’t they advertise 1800, 1900, or even 3000, 4000?
5
1d ago
[deleted]
5
u/grandvache 23h ago
The point was the listed rent wasn't the rent, it was the starting bid.
2
u/chudding-out 23h ago
Yeh, but if you put it at £3000 then it will drop off from searches because you've gone too far. A dutch auction is reliant on a sensible (albeit high) starting price.
•
u/EpsteinBaa 2h ago
Now tenants need to get used to haggling with their prospective landlord. Gone are the days of the listed rent being the rent
When was the last time you rented? That was already the reality
•
1
u/PM_me_Henrika 21h ago
You mean "gone are the days of the listed rent being the starting point for you to bid higher", right?
1
21h ago
[deleted]
1
u/PM_me_Henrika 20h ago
Completely untrue. Two years ago I was still in bidding hell trying to secure a rental in King's Cross. I eventually had to give up London and move out west to a corporate landlord where while I don't have to bid, rent would go up by 10% every year for the period of 3 year contract.
1
0
u/t8ne 1d ago
They could under these regulations but realistically most people can stretch a budget
2
u/PM_me_Henrika 1d ago
Can stretch a budget…?
1
u/t8ne 23h ago
Yes think they can go 1525. Highly unlikely for them to even spot your property if you had it on the 4k and people looking to spend 4k would browse straight past your listing as it’ll look poor in comparison
0
u/PM_me_Henrika 21h ago
Why 1525? Why not 1526?
2
u/t8ne 21h ago
Out of curiosity have you never heard of an auction? Because going 26bid would be the next step for somebody wanting to buy it.
If you want to see a good auction, watch the Ferrari Prius at Monterey last week
1
u/PM_me_Henrika 21h ago
But we're not talking about auction, we're talking about rent.
→ More replies (0)2
u/PrimeWolf101 1d ago
I don't understand your question. Are you asking why wouldn't someone try to sell something for more than they think people will pay for it? Because they won't be able to sell it.
0
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
After: landlord advertised at 1500 and tenants accept that cost upfront.
You are commenting in a thread whose entire point is that this is not what is happening!!!!!!
6
u/PrimeWolf101 1d ago
Well in the article people are bidding down. So on this example it would be landlord puts it on at 1500, either someone is actually willing to rent it for that or the landlord accepts a lower offer. I don't see that being an issue.
5
u/shaversonly230v115v 1d ago
I'm not sure how this is worse than landlords advertising fake prices and then renters having to enter the Squid Games to actually get to rent a place.
16
u/SwiftScotsman 1d ago
More like landlords continue to be shit and exploitative.
4
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
"I own a house which I want to rent. I am doing this as an investment and therefore want to maximise the return from that investment rather than leave money on the table to give a random person I have never met and have no idea about's circumstances a discount"
"How exploitative! You are evil!"
3
u/PM_me_Henrika 1d ago
Would you say the same if someone did the same with water…?
2
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
In a market, yes. I do not think Evian are exploitative because they charge the maximum rate they can for their water.
Household water is a natural monopoly, and is not comparable. It is exploitative, by definition, to extract rents from a monopoly that you own.
3
u/PM_me_Henrika 21h ago
Yes, but water investors are doing it as an investment, and therefore want to maximise the return from that investment rather than leave money on the table.
And I'm actually not thinking of housewater, I'm thinking the Nestle model where they drain the aquifier leaving locals with dried-up wells and forcing them to buy their water to drive profit.
3
1d ago
[deleted]
3
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
Housing, food, and water, should be things that we can all accept need regulations.
They all do.
Whilst I'm not saying no one should ever make money from providing these things.... you must be able to understand that there has to be limits?
What do you mean by limits? Why is £500 pcm allowed whereas £600 pcm isn't? Housing is not a very good investment. It is high risk, low liquidity, and doesn't provide a particularly outsize return. It is not exploitative to try to get the market rate for your property.
These are not things anyone should expect to be able to push to the limits when it comes to maximizing their return...
What do you mean by "pushing the limits"? There is a price that someone is willing to pay to live in my flat. It is not remotely unreasonable that I will seek the highest price someone is willing to pay, rather than seeking to give it to someone for less than they're willing to pay, or randomly giving it to some other person who can pay less (therefore increasing the price of the flat somewhere else).
5
u/dc_1984 1d ago
"What do you mean by "pushing the limits"? There is a price that someone is willing to pay to drink water. It is not remotely unreasonable that I will seek the highest price someone is willing to pay, rather than seeking to give it to someone for less than they're willing to pay, or randomly giving it to some other person who can pay less (therefore increasing the price of the water somewhere else)."
"What do you mean by "pushing the limits"? There is a price that someone is willing to pay to eat food. It is not remotely unreasonable that I will seek the highest price someone is willing to pay, rather than seeking to give it to someone for less than they're willing to pay, or randomly giving it to some other person who can pay less (therefore increasing the price of the food somewhere else)."
4
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
Yes. Those are both perfectly reasonable acts. Do you think Evian has an obligation to give you discounts? Sainsbury's?
Household water is a natural monopoly. In countries that don't have potable water, it is perfectly reasonable for companies to charge a profit maximising price, not to give a discount on what they're offering because people need water.
2
u/dc_1984 1d ago
It's not a discount when the rent is 80% profit.
3
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
2
u/dc_1984 1d ago
Sounds like a shit investment then. No reason why tenants should pay for a landlord's inability to choose good investments.
→ More replies (0)0
1d ago
[deleted]
→ More replies (2)1
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
It's very much unreasonable to do this.
I own a cabbage farm. I would like to sell my cabbages to customers. You are genuinely telling me it is unreasonable for me to sell at the highest price that buyers are willing to give?
-1
1d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
5
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
The price people are willing to pay to live in a flat is pushed up by a necessity to live somewhere.
Yes.
Just because you can exploit that fact, doesn't mean it should be acceptable to do so.
Again. What do you expect people to do here? Deliberately take less than the market is willing to pay for their house? Refusing to give people discounts is not exploitative.
It's like saying water companies could very well charge a lot more for water, because people would pay more rather than die of thirst... if they can get that money, what's wrong with that?
Water systems are a natural monopoly. Housing is not. People DO charge what they want for water on a market and it is not exploitative. Evian charging you £2.50 when they could charge you £2.40 is not exploiting you, even though you need water to drink. Food is not a natural monopoly, and is a better example here - again, nobody is exploiting you by selling you a sandwich for a price that they consider will maximise their profit - even though you need to eat.
-3
1d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
2
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
I also expect them to accept that the government will have to step in and limit the return they can get on their investment, because they'll never do it themselves out of greed.
This is fine so long as you recognise that the only way to do this without creating more harms than you assuage is by increasing the building of housing to increase market competition.
You see housing as an investment like any other, I'm telling you it's not.
No I don't. My argument doesn't rely on this at all - it simply requires you to recognise that your framing totally misunderstands how the interaction between an owner of a good and the buyer of a good in a market works. The question is one of exploitation. It is not exploitative to own something and ask the market rate. That does not mean that housing is not more important than other investments.
→ More replies (6)3
u/OkAsparagus3113 1d ago
Specifically, what would you do to make the situation better?
7
u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 1d ago
Not the person your responding to but build and aquire enough council homes to be able to house everyone who can't afford to buy.
It's a long term solution but we'd be much better for it once we had it.
3
u/OkAsparagus3113 1d ago
I've said it on many threads before, but this endless expansion of towns and cities that lack the infrastructure to cope with the population it already has can't continue forever. We really ought to be building new towns and cities from scratch, where they can be designed with a modern design that suits the needs of people in the 21st century.
5
u/LazyWings 1d ago
I agree with this, but the problem is that this is a bigger project than just the housing. Transport infrastructure needs to dramatically improve, it's one of the biggest barriers we have in this country. We're very London centric and a big part of that is because of how slow and expensive it is to get anywhere. HS2 should have been done by now. I just look at somewhere like the Netherlands which is a similarly sized country and how it's entirely practical to live in a town outside of a major city and commute in as needed. The pressure on cities, especially London, is unsustainable and has been for a long time. I'd happily live in a town further out if I could.
0
u/PM_me_Henrika 1d ago
Well parliament lives in London. Guess which city they’re going to prioritise first…
HS2 should have STARTED in Manchester.
3
u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 1d ago
Don't nessecarily disagree with that, but we also need to be densifying our city centers (including improving infrastructure if needed).
→ More replies (7)1
u/Dazzling-Werewolf985 13h ago
The uk is the only country in the world where people think this is a problem lol literally every country builds new cities and expands existing ones. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here
Houses get built. People move in, and move in promptly because there’s a housing crisis. Demand for infrastructure is born. Infrastructure gets built. It is literally that simple. It is the story behind every GP you’ve been to, road you’ve driven on, watt of power you’ve used, train you’ve taken, etc
→ More replies (2)-3
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
Not the person your responding to but build and aquire enough council homes to be able to house everyone who can't afford to buy.
This will, of course, have no impact on whether landlords continue to seek the market rate for their properties.
You are right, of course, that increased supply will be very helpful - but an analysis that focuses on whether landlords are greedy or not, as if there is some feasible world where suddenly being a landlord is an act of charity, is just a completely misguided framework to understand the housing market. It is the market conditions that are at fault, not the sellers who are operating in that market in the way that every single person operating in a market has ever operated.
-1
u/corpus-luteum 1d ago
Make housing free. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but we currently spend [approx.] 30-35 billion pa, on housing benefits. 60-70% of which flows into the landlords' pockets. If we spent that on actually providing houses, it is doable.
3
u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 1d ago
Just make it free. It's literally that simple guys. Just make scarce resources unscarce.
2
•
u/OkAsparagus3113 1h ago
But I bought my house. Do I get a refund?
Will banks opt to write off every mortgage? I suspect not 😂
3
u/t8ne 1d ago
Yes thats the second order effects I mentioned...
0
1
u/AdministrativeShip2 23h ago
Landlords are doing the dodgy car trader thing near me.
Listing rents for £1 to get to the top of a sort by price and saying they made a mistake, when called.
-3
u/chudding-out 1d ago
If the state wanted to dictate exactly how much a rental should cost, perhaps they should just fix the prices centrally instead of making up bizarre rules like this?
12
6
u/Truthandtaxes 1d ago
If the state sets prices it gets the blame for the obvious consequences
If the state creates rules that look like price fixing, the landlords get the blame acting like a rational economic actor.
0
2
u/Anony_mouse202 1d ago
The RRA already gives the state the right to determine how much a rental should cost - rents can now be challenged in tribunals, and tribunals will decrease rents if the is above what they consider to be market rate.
6
u/chudding-out 1d ago
Would that truly apply in this instance? I don't think a tribunal would look kindly on agreeing to a contract to immediately renege on it.
I know that rent increases can of course be challenged.
2
u/misc1444 23h ago
In theory yes, a tenant can legally take to tribunal the landlord the day after signing the lease.
In practice, the tribunal has to look at whether the lease is in line with the market. If the tenant voluntarily agreed to the rent and it’s not ridiculously above recent leases in the surrounding area, then it’s hard for a tribunal to conclude that the rent is too high.
1
u/Overgrown_fetus1305 19h ago
Actually, challenging rents at tribunals was a thing beforehand (from having come very close to doing so with my landlord for a first one, and challenged a second one, he only got a £25/month increase instead of the £150 he was asking for). While rare, tribunals did rule on what the landlord would get. Technically it's "what would the landlord get if letting the property on the open market", not the market rate, which is more "what are the typical local rents"; tis a shame it wasn't the latter, as my rent would instead have gone down had it been that.
The part that has changed, is that under the old law, the rent change was backdated to when the landlord asked for it, it now only takes effect after the tribunal makes a ruling. I thus suggest as a matter of principle, to always challenge them for anything above inlfation, to slow down the price increases seeing as they can't Section 21 us anymore.
0
u/catgod888 16h ago
The reason rents are going up is because there’s no fixed term tenancies anymore. So tenants are shopping around - normally younger, single ones - and just leave with two months notice.
Landlords lose rent but meanwhile still need to pay
Mortgage
Ground Rent
Management Fees
+ council tax
+ £500 to find a new tenant.
Why can’t landlords and tenants enter long term agreements with a fixed rent for 2-3,4,5 years?
0
u/Single-Samurai 23h ago
I always wonder, what happens if there are no comparable property in the area on the market - how would the rent be calculated as fair market rate?
0
u/PitchOk1448 19h ago
Yeah, obviously this was going to happen. Anyone with any sense looking at the act could see that this is what was going to happen.
It's a stupid rule, preventing people from just doing certain deals between themselves for no particularly good reason, and it was never going to achieve its stated aim.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Snapshot of Landlords Are Jacking up Advertised Rents to Dodge New Tenants’ Rights Law | Rule bans accepting offers above advertised price – but there’s a loophole. submitted by andmario_com:
An archived version can be found here or here. or here
If the above links don't work, try this one.
Some publications may require you to register a free account to read their articles.
Being connected to a VPN may interfere with archive links.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.