The Quiet Landlord Exodus: Why South London Renters Should Be the Ones Worrying

Drive around Clapham, Balham or Brixton at the moment and you start to notice something. Flats that were quietly let for years are appearing on the sales portals. A landlord I have known for a decade told me last week he is cashing in two of his three flats near the Common. He is not angry about it. He has just done the maths - and the maths has changed.

Here is what is actually happening, away from the headlines. Property118 reported this week that Capital Gains Tax changes are now the single biggest reason landlords are selling. At the same time, the landlords who are staying in are restructuring hard: company incorporations are up an extraordinary 1,700% as buy-to-let owners move their portfolios into limited companies to shelter what they can from the tax. Overall landlord sentiment, on every survey I read, is weak and getting weaker.

That might sound like a landlord's problem. It isn't. It is a renter's problem, and in South London it is becoming an acute one.

Follow the chain. Every flat a landlord sells to an owner-occupier is a flat that leaves the rental pool for good. Propertymark now counts roughly eight renters chasing every available property. Nationwide has rents up 3.3% over the year, even as house-price growth has cooled to 1.8% - a telling split, because it shows demand pouring into renting exactly as supply drains out of it. Fewer rental homes plus more tenants competing for them equals one thing: higher rents and less choice for the very people the tax changes were never meant to hurt.

This is the uncomfortable truth I keep coming back to. We have spent several years making it less attractive to be a private landlord - higher taxes, more regulation, less flexibility - in the name of helping renters. But you cannot help renters by shrinking the number of homes available to rent. If the goal was genuinely to improve life for tenants in Clapham and across SW London, the answer was always going to be more homes, not fewer landlords.

So what do I tell people? Landlords: don't make an emotional decision. If you own a good flat in a strong South London location, the case for holding - or incorporating and holding - is often stronger than the case for selling into a flat market. The demand for your property has arguably never been higher. Renters: understand that the squeeze is structural, not a blip. When a well-priced flat comes up in the area you want, be ready to move fast, have your references and paperwork in order, and treat a good landlord as someone worth keeping.

Are you a South London landlord weighing up whether to sell or restructure, or a renter feeling the squeeze first-hand? I would really like to hear from you - drop me a line at jeroen@claphampropertyblog.com or call me on 07837 093554.