Thinking of switching from students to family lets?

From the days of rent controls in the 80's through to the financial crash, we saw wave after wave of government incentives to get people investing in property. This had the dual benefit that it provided housing to replace that which was being lost from the social sector whilst also pushing up house prices which made the majority of voters feel richer (and thus, in theory, encouraged them to say thankyou when they went to the polling booth).

However, the tide has now turned - the proportion of voters disgruntled that they cannot get on the housing ladder has grown to a size where governments of all colours have realised that ever increasing house prices may have worked once but is not a recipe for success anymore.  The Labour party talk about re-introducing rent controls and this week, Conservative MP Neil O'Brien writing for Onward (a centre-right think tank) argued that the crackdown on landlords has not gone far enough and mortgage interest relief should be scrapped altogether and that there should be further reforms to property taxes.

Locally, we see block after block of student housing going up - you cannot blame the developers, no other development type avoids council tax, business rates and section 106 CIL obligations - but do we really need so many?

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that some of our older members are having second thoughts about whether to continue with student accommodation or not - whilst they have had a reasonable income over the years from the service they provide, it is now getting harder and harder for them to manage their properties in the way they always have done.  I asked one such couple to give me their thoughts.....

I first met this couple one summer, I had just bought a student HMO and they were outside the house next door touching up the pristine paintwork. I soon realised that they too were student landlords and they had got their houses to a standard over the years such that repainting the little details (such as the red tiles on the door step) helped ensure the pristine look of their houses.  That particular house switched to a family let a couple of years ago and their last student HMO switches this year - I asked why and this is what I was told:

"The house in Hudson Road has been empty for a year now as we decided early on that we wanted the property updated to make a nice home for a young family rather than students. Our reason for getting out of the student market was partly due to our increasing age (it gets harder every year) and also we could see the writing on the wall regarding student lettings.

With all the additional flats etc. being built specifically for students, we felt it would become increasingly more difficult to find student tenants. Over recent years the applicants for accommodation seemed to want a one bedroomed flat "for me and my girlfriend", and the old well worked system of four or five young people sharing a house and becoming life-long friends (sometimes) seems to have gone by the board - sadly !

Not to mention of course the need to "jump through hoops" to continue as a HMO landlord (which had worked perfectly for the previous twenty years!)

You might think us crazy but we do actually have a sense of affinity towards the house, and did not want to sell it to someone who was going to have students in there.

So "the old girl" is having lots of tlc at the moment and we hope that it will eventually be a well cared for and much loved home for a young family. We have yet to put it on the market. The downside is that we now have to pay FULL Council tax, not to mention insurance, utility bills etc. and we understand that if the house is empty for two years then it becomes DOUBLE Council tax. The property next to yours has been let to a Polish family for three years now and it has its upsides and downsides. It is let through an Agent and I cannot go into specific details but it has not been all plain sailing. I think the main frustration is that we are unable to go in and do the basic maintenance jobs that we used to do in the summer - check the shower drain, clean all the outside windows, and all the other things we used to do which saved more serious problems down the line. We do not regret our time as student landlords but felt the time was right to back out.

We have met some really lovely young people over the years and we like to think that in a small way we helped them to achieve their dreams, by providing them with a safe, happy place to live."

There is a view among councillors that student halls are good as they free up homes for families  and whilst in some cases such as this one, that is true it also means that in many cases the 'caring landlord' is replaced by a faceless letting agent or worse.