My one bedroom flat in central London has been on the market since September. An unfortunate perfect storm of high leasehold prices, etc, means viewings are not converting into offers.
I used to live in the flat and it is sweet but I moved counties 3 years ago (renting myself).
My tenants left this weekend because they (understandably) didn’t like the insecurity of not knowing when it might sell (despite assurances that it would take a long time).
The Renters Right Act makes me nervous to try and rent again for the shorter term while the market recovers and relaunch.
I’m not sure if any tenants would want to rent a flat that is on the market.
So the flat will now cost me a chunk in mortgage and service charge a month.
There are building restrictions around short term lets but I might be able to plead my case with the board - although short term lets have their own costs and risks…
It is a terrible time to sell but I’m not convinced prices will bounce back to pre-Covid prices for flats any time soon and honestly would rather have the deposit in a tracker fund.
I’m really unsure what to do… I appreciate it is unbelievably fiscally inefficient to rent out my actual home and rent where I live. There are reasons…
Any ideas or experiences? I always get great advice here!
You need to decide if to keep renting and hope to get a better price in future or sell now. Will the increase in value plus any profit after tax etc from renting outweigh the hassle and not having access to the capital and income youll get from sticking in an account
If you price at the right price it will sell. If you take on tenants then decide to sell you can’t do that in first 12 months of the tenancy
" Ground 1A - sale of dwelling house
You can use this ground if you intend to sell your property. You cannot ask your tenant to leave within the first 12 months of a new tenancy for this reason."
Equally once you evict on those grounds you cant then rent for a while, I ‘think’ a year from the possession date
"The landlord won’t be able to re-let or re-market the property for letting or the grant of a licence to occupy (eg Airbnb) for a “restricted period” from the date the notice is served until 12 months from the later of:
the relevant date in the notice (ie 4 months after the notice is served), and
the date on which a claim form or particulars of claim are filed with the court to bring proceedings for possession.
A landlord or agent will commit an offence if they let or market the property for re-letting as a tenancy or a licence (eg on Airbnb) during the restricted period, say if no buyer is found. The agent will have a defence if they can prove that they took all reasonable steps to avoid it."
You need to look long and hard at the bottom line. Calculate your total costs for an empty property over the next 6 months. Could you knock that off the asking price and shift it sooner? It’s time to cut your losses if you can’t absorb the impact of that and wait for the market to recover.
Ps if not sold for 6 months you are likely pricing it too high above the real market value especially if you haven’t had any offers. So the idea that waiting 6 months or a year you will get a higher price than you are listing it at now seems unrealistic. Prices falling in central london at mo
“In the past year alone, the average price of an inner London flat has fallen by 6.2%, stripping around £35,000 from what sellers can expect to pocket”
On the other hand, it isn’t easy to sell if you have tenants in there while you are trying to do viewings and it raises a lot of questions in the minds of buyers, like is this guy going to be able to get the tenants out before we buy. So maybe this was one reason why it didn’t sell. You can hand it over to a short-term lets agency if its in central london and they can air bnb it for you, and then just make sure it is empty for viewings. So it might actually be easier to sell now. But don’t expect the market to recover any time soon. Did you try auction sale?
