With the property market on the backfoot currently as a result of Covid-19 it is important to shift the mindset to see opportunities and ways to help people, where others are only seeing challenges and reverting to self-preservation. We believe you can both seize opportunities the market will provide, whilst helping tenants and landlords during these challenging times.

As members of the National Residential Landlord Association (NRLA) we receive regular webinars and we wanted to feedback notes taken from a webinar on Possessions during and after Covid-19.

We hope this provides you with some learning and key take-away pointers and if you would prefer to view this in video, then please visit our YouTube page!

• Due to the current Covid situation there will likely be a rise in unemployment, which will have an impact on people’s ability to make mortgage and rent payments. This is not surprising, but it does allow us as landlords to be able to help people during this time, for example by preventing re-possessions, communicating with tenants on difficulties and also communicating with councils to provide housing for tenants. With unemployment likely to rise, coupled with the ongoing housing shortage there may an increase in demand from the PRS to deliver social housing if unemployment hits people hard and for a sustained period depending on their sector of work.

• With the implementation of the Coronavirus act, the Courts could well likely be overwhelmed in the 2nd half of the year. The act has suspended court hearings for 90 days and there has been talk that this may be extended to October 2020. Therefore, when the courts re-open there will be a significant back log of section 8 and section 21 cases to deal with. The current situation may also cause the government to accelerate the banning of section 21 to ? ease pressure on court system. There will likely be some cases where there are bad tenants and a section 8 may be needed but it may be a time to sharpen our communication skills whereabouts we communicate early with our tenants to avoid any negative situations festering or tenants burying their heads in the sand in rent arrear situations.

• Leading on from this the Government may also be looking at pre-action planning for social tenants if in arrears; so the government are looking to reduce cases going to court – such measures include whether the tenant has difficulty reading/speaking English, is the tenant vulnerable, consider tenant mental health, understand causes of arrears, and landlords to provide rent statement to tenants.

• Landlords may well likely exit PRS sector with section 24 and abolition of section 21. This will create opportunities to discuss with tired landlords or accidental landlords and how we can create win win situations.

• Demand for housing is still strong as not enough homes are being built to address housing shortages. This we already know but it is easy to be drawn in by negative headlines and thus we need to stick to our fundamental of investing which are demand vs supply.

• Advice to decrease rents to attract more tenants during this current climate. I think this will depend on where you Invest, tenant type of employment and demand in your area. Having a good product is important people and councils are always on the lookout for quality living accommodation.

• Interestingly LHA rates have increased by 13% and landlords may be looking at this as part of a strategy shift in order to survive BUT also is an opportunity to help people (tenants and council) during this time with housing shortage and unemployment likely to rise and more people claiming universal credit and on social housing register.

To find out more about our investment areas and strategy, please visit our investors page on the website.