What a Labour Government Really Means For The Future Of HMO Investors

The Labour Party is in power, but what does this mean for property investors across the UK? More specifically, how will it impact HMO property investors like you and me?

In this episode, I'll walk you through some of the key mandates and policies that will affect the property market. We'll cover tenant protections, potential changes to stamp duty, Labour's house-building ambitions, home buying aspirations, sustainable development programs, possible tax changes, and the overall investment uncertainty.

I'll share my thoughts on what the future holds and what actions we can take right now. As you'll soon discover, significant changes are coming. This is definitely an episode you don't want to miss.

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Transcript

Andy Graham (00:02.67)
Hey, I'm Andy and you're listening to the HMO Podcast. Over 10 years ago, I set myself the challenge of building my own property portfolio. And what began as a short -term investment plan soon became a long -term commitment to change the way young people live together. I've now built several successful businesses. I've raised millions of pounds of investment and I've managed thousands of tenants. Join me and some very special guests to discover the tips, tricks and hacks, the ups and the downs, the best practice and everything else you need to know to start, scale and systemise your very own HMO portfolio now.

Andy Graham (00:40.706)
Well, the conservative reign is well and truly over. Labour are in, but what does this mean for property investors across the UK? And more specifically, what does this mean for HMO property investors like you and I? Well, in today's episode, I'm going to walk you through some of the mandates, some of the policies that are going to impact the property market. And I'm going to tell you what I think the future holds and what we can potentially be doing about it right now. As you're about to find out, things are going to change. So this is definitely an episode you do not want to miss. Please sit back, relax and enjoy today's episode of the HMO podcast.

Hey guys, it's Andy here. We're going to be getting back to the podcast in just a moment, but before we do, I want to tell you very quickly about the HMO roadmap. Now, if you're serious about replacing your income, or perhaps you've already got a HMO portfolio that you want to scale up, then the HMO roadmap really is your one -stop shop. Inside the roadmap, you'll find a full 60 lesson course delivered by me.
 

Teaching you how to find more deals, how to fund more deals and raise private finance, how to refurbish great properties, how to fill them with great tenants that stay for longer, and how to manage your properties and tenants for the future. We've also got guest workshops added every single month. We've got new videos added every single week about all sorts of topics. We've got downloadable resources, cheat sheets and swipe files to help you. We've got case studies from guests and community members who are doing incredible projects that you can learn from. And we've also built an application just for you, that allows you to appraise and evaluate your deals, stack them side by side and track the key metrics that are most important to you. To find out more, head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk now and come and join our incredible community of HMO property investors.

Andy Graham (02:29.398)
Welcome back gang. So today, we're going to talk about what a Labour government really means for the property market in the UK. What it really means for HMO property investors like you and I. Now Labour have already been setting their stall out and there have been some very interesting things coming out of Labour camp. We're going to cover it all in detail in today's episode. Most importantly today, what I want you to take away is that we're going to have to be on our toes. We are inevitably going to have to adapt to what Labour want to do.

The Conservatives, let's be honest, beats us to within an inch of our lives as landlords, as property investors, didn't they? More taxes, legislation. Well, unfortunately, there is a lot more to come as you're about to find out in today's episode. But the caveat is there is some potentially very positive stuff. They're certainly saying some of the right stuff at the minute as well.

Now, of course, the proof will be in the pudding. Let's see what actually happens and how things evolve over the next few years. But I think we're going to have to be ready to adapt, be on our toes and actually, of course, always through adversity and there is going to be some adversity with this often comes opportunity. What I think we should be doing is trying to spot that as early as we possibly can. So as you might imagine, quite a bit to get through in today's episode. But before we dive in, just a very quick recap on what happened. It was a landslide victory, wasn't it? It was inevitable. Conservatives just didn't stand a chance. Reform got a few votes. Interestingly, they were quite proactive and pro landlord, which was interesting to see, but nowhere near enough the popularity to get them anything really. Kiyostama got in with about two thirds of the country voting for somebody else. There's a really good indication of actually the popularity of Kiyostama. More people actually voted for Corbyn a while back. So again, tells you a lot about Kiyostama. Will it be a new star? I don't know. We've heard excuses coming thick and fast already.

So as always, I'm very, very, very skeptical. I think labor are going to come out charging. I think they're going to try and do a lot of the tough and difficult stuff very early on. I think they're going to ruffle a few feathers and hopefully as far as they're concerned, by the time the next election comes around, then we'll have all forgotten about it. Let's wait and see. So a few things to tackle today. And what I'm going to do to kick us off is actually just summarise what you can expect in today's episode.

Andy Graham (04:53.016)
So policies on tenant protections that labor are talking about and what we can expect. Potential changes to stamp duty, house building ambitions already set out by labor and how that is going to impact the property market. House buying aspirations that labour have already set out and how that could impact the market. Sustainable development programs, things that labour are already talking about. This is an interesting one for us and unfortunately not great news. The potential changes to taxes. And then I'm going to share what I think is likely to be the impact on

market stability and how labour are actually trying to potentially manipulate market stability with some of these changes around the housing market. Strict regulations, it is going to be more regulation, I'm afraid. What it means for the investment market per se, let's be honest, the last few years have been cloaked in uncertainty. We've made it through, but that has been the reality of the last few years, hasn't it? And I think underline all of this with what I think it means for landlords and what we can be doing and potential investors and what we should be doing now to be able to continue growing our businesses, to be able to continue thriving in the property market. I've got a bit of information and advice for existing investors as well as for new investors. And I'm going to conclude on what I think are likely to be the outcomes over the next few years of that love labours of proposals to change a variety of things. So let's start with tenant protections.

And I think that this rolls off quite nicely from some of the last fairly political stuff that we talked about on the show recently. Of course, we had Ben Beedle, CEO of the NRLA on the show and we had a very interesting conversation. And before that we'd had some quite in -depth sort of analysis of the renter's reform bill. Now, just a quick recap that didn't go through before the new government was formed and it kind of left everything just hanging in the air. Now, inevitably that is going to be picked up by labour. This labour were very much behind this as well,

What do I think is going to actually change? Well, Labour have already said they are going to immediately abolish Section 21 evictions. And interestingly, what they said, and the Conservatives didn't agree with them, the Conservatives weren't going to do, is they are going to do this before court reform. So the big concern here is, Labour come in, they abolish Section 21, that's our ability to issue no -fault evictions without reforming the court system so actually...

Andy Graham (07:12.96)
While grounds will still be in place for things like antisocial behavior and accelerated eviction orders, that relies on the courts and their involvement as well. And whilst the courts are still in disarray and they have been certainly since COVID, but even pre -COVID, the practicalities of actually therefore getting people out of properties if we need to, is going to be very, very difficult. So this is something that I think we all need to be very, very aware of. And I think that this is probably going to happen very, very quickly. They've been so clear and so transparent on this objective.

I suspect they will do their best to make it happen. This is actually something that we're actively thinking about now. We've got a building, we rent the building out on standard ASTs and we're thinking about bringing in a company who will take the whole block of flats for a number of years. They manage a particular tenant demographic, but of course to do that, we would need to be able to serve all of our tenants a notice to leave the property.

If labour come and change the process and the law around serving notices on tenants, that could be a real problem for us. And whilst we don't know how soon that's going to happen or how soon they could even do it, it makes it a little bit tricky to plan. So definitely something to have on your radar. Let's talk about further regulatory changes then. And I think the big one is definitely going to be by way of the renter's reform bill. It's inevitably going to be picked up. Now, my opinion, and I said this quite publicly,

It was the rent reform bill while the whole thing was a hassle and far more complicated than it needs to be. It wasn't really fair, which is what it was always framed at. It was intended to be a fairer rental sector for everybody. I don't think it was any fairer for landlords whatsoever. I think it was all sided towards the tenants. That was pretty obvious, but I thought in its format, sort pre -election, it looks pretty good. And actually there were a few things that we could have adapted to. on the whole, didn't think it was that bad.

The real worry now is that Labour could be a lot more aggressive with some of the policies and procedures that were set out in there, certainly by way of giving tenants a lot more by way of rights. And this does concern me. I think inevitably there will be changes to the way that the bill had been proposed and inevitably I don't think they will be favourable for us. I think ultimately what it's going to mean is that it's going to cost us more. It's going to be

Andy Graham (09:34.55)
increasingly unfavorable for us as landlords to rent properties. And that's just something we're going to have to factor in. think tenants are going to be given more rights. I think it's going to be increasingly difficult to remove tenants from properties. I think tenants are going to have more and more of a say in that's going to make our lives increasingly difficult as landlords and as investors. And in terms of running profitable businesses, it's going to be an increasing challenge that we just need to be really, really aware of. Slightly more concerning is the idea of rent caps, caps on rental increases, possibly even rent controls. Now, I think the idea of rent controls is very, very unlikely. I think even Keir Starmer can see that it hasn't gone very well in Scotland, hasn't gone very well in Ireland. I think that that's unlikely, but of course there are people, Siddiq Khan, the mayor of London, one individual in particular, calling for this sort of thing. With enough pressure, who knows? It absolutely could happen. I think it's unlikely, but I wouldn’t completely take it off the table. Caps on rent increases. I think there's definitely going to be more control on rental increases. Exactly how they do it. I'm not too sure, but I think that that is likely to be something that comes. Of course, over the last few years since COVID rents have rocketed. In most cases, landlords who have put rents up have done it reasonably where their costs have also rocketed. Of course, interest rates is one of the biggies there. So let's wait and see. But I think caps on rental increases. That's something to be mindful of. Rent controls.

Probably unlikely, but not totally off the table. I think the bottom line of all these tenant protections that Labour are talking about and have already set out, in fact, they set them out pre -election campaign. They all have the potential to impact our profitability, running profitable investment businesses. So in short summary, I don't think any of it looks good. I don't think Labour are going to come along and make anything better for us or more favourable. So just be aware of that. It's happening to what extent? Let's wait and see.

Okay, moving on, number two, stamp duty changes then. So there's going to be a reduction of the first time by a stamp duty threshold, I think from 425 ,000 to 300 ,000 pounds. I actually think this is a good thing. I think stamp duty is one of the things that clogs up the property market. Inevitably, it just ends up on the bonfire of money that the government have to spend and it doesn't really go back into housing or anything like that. I think reducing stamp duty, reducing the friction in the property market

Andy Graham (11:58.594)
Definitely a good thing. I'd like to see a lot more of this, but I think anything as positive, I think keeping the wheels of the property market well greased is important. And I think this is one of the ways to do this. So actually I'm quite, I'm in favor of this, but I think it would be great to see them do more, but I don't think they are going to do more. I still don't think they're going to come along and help property investors, unfortunately. So we don't expect any changes whatsoever to stamp duty on second homes.

It does, however, sound like Labour are going to increase the stamp duty by 1 % on non -UK residents. Interestingly, they want to obviously protect more property and add transactions for UK residents, but equally quite happy to sell them so long as they make a bit more money on it. Personally, not going to affect me in terms of overseas investment. We do rely on it. It's very important, particularly in the city centres. So exactly how that will pan out, let's wait and see. It's hardly going to turn the dial, is it.

And finally, bit of a continuation of the Tory plans to scrap non -dom status and its potential impacts. I a lot of people have been taking advantage of non -dom status and different sort of methods of paying stamp duty based on that. I think they're really going to clean up house there on that. let's wait and see. Okay. Moving on to what I think is probably the biggest thing that they've come out with yet. And the one that they've been the most vocal about, it's house building ambitions. So, Labour.

As you're probably aware, proposing to make housing more affordable by implementing a number of policies. And this includes planning reforms to help build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years. Now, it's not really any different to the 300,000 new homes target per year that the Conservatives have been banging on about for years and have never been able to touch, but they want to restore these mandatory housing targets.

Now, as part of this pledge, interestingly, there's going to be a big focus on social and affordable housing. And actually, I think this is really, really good because one of the problems that we have in the private rental sector in the UK is that it's very top heavy. We don't have enough housing at the bottom tiers, at those lower tiers. And actually there's a knock on impact. So people who need housing the most don't have it and struggle to get access to it. And it creates this sort of ripple effect through the whole of the property market. I think this is really great

Andy Graham (14:12.674)
But we've heard this sort of rhetoric before. Brownfield developments. The Labour Party have emphasized a brownfield first approach. Again, I think that this is really interesting. They want to prioritise the development of previously used land. Now, again, this isn't totally new, but they have come out and been very, very vocal about this. The idea was to use more brownfield sites to meet these housing needs while trying to preserve some of the green belt.

However, there have already been conversations, quite public conversations about unlocking the green belt as well. We've heard it so many times and it still hasn't happened. So I'm not going to sort of bet my house on that at all, but I think it would be interesting to see what labour could do to unlock more brownfield sites. And I think a big part of that probably would be leaning more so into permitted development rights, taking some powers away from local authorities or granting special powers to do certain things.

That would be really interesting to see. New towns and urban extensions. Labour want to build new towns and extend urban areas as part of creating a large sort of scale new community system across the UK. And I think they're drawing some inspiration from some historical initiatives, maybe across the UK, but certainly from other countries there. Exactly how they'll do that. I have no idea. It sounds really quite expensive.

And I'm not sure that it's actually going to turn the dial, whereas actually building new homes, unlocking land, I think that has the potential to start having a positive impact. There are plans as well by Labour to reform compulsive repurchase rules and introduce a more strategic approach to the Greenbelt land and various designations there. They also want to update the national policy planning framework to facilitate these changes, they're not just talking about it and encouraging local authorities to do it. They actually want to come and change the law

by amending the national policy planning framework that would actually facilitate the unlocking and then the development of Greenbelt land. So let's wait and see, but some of this stuff is really interesting and there has been a lot of talk, a lot of conversation around planning and around planning reform. There's still a lot more detail to come out on this. We're very early on and this is headline stuff. So we've got to wait and see what the detail actually looks like.

Andy Graham (16:30.446)
But at the minute, what I would say is this is quite positive. They've already done more than the conservatives done, which was, you know, just really talk very high level about house building targets. I suppose the conservatives did make a few amendments to permitted development rights, but I've got a feeling that we are going to see a lot more here to try and facilitate the development of 1.5 million new homes, many of them being social and affordable housing sites. So let's wait and see, but I think for you and I, this could look like a great opportunity if they do force local authorities to relax the rules and conditions around planning. Let's wait and see.

House buying aspirations then. So this is another big one that Labour have come out with. And the idea is all about this freedom to buy scheme. Their manifesto includes plans to support first time buyers and keep mortgage rates as low as possible for them. So they have proposed this comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme kind of thing to help people struggling to save for large deposits.

Large deposits and the idea obviously is to help them buy with smaller deposits. So this flagship policy, they think it's a flagship policy, will help about 80,000 young people get onto the housing ladder. I think that these schemes are good. I think it is great to help people onto the housing ladder, especially if the government are going to adopt the role as the guarantor for these higher loan to value mortgages. Although there is still an element of risk there for the government, it's debts that they're essentially taking responsibility for.

If the property market was to go south and things went wrong, it wouldn't be great. But again, do I think that this is materially going to change the problem? No, I think that this is a plaster. I think it's treating the symptom, not the solution. Treating the symptom would be to build more houses so that actually there isn't as much pressure on houses and actually controls the way in which house prices have been rising. Helping more people onto the ladder are making it easier. Actually only throws more fuel to that fire because it gets easy and easy to buy and more more people are therefore bidding house prices up and so on and so forth.

So for me, it's a good policy. Now I do want to see more people be able to buy their own homes, but actually I don't think it's really doing the job that we need, which is to build more houses so that prices don't run away over the next five to 10 years. Sustainable development then. This is one that worries me. Labour have got a big push for green building practices and energy efficiently.

Andy Graham (18:54.094)
And I think it looks like an absolute shoo -in that they're going to come and reintroduce these EPC targets, you know, maybe like an EPC -C by 2028. I think there could well be more regulatory changes that could be imposed on new house building. It could be imposed on energy efficiency changes and standards for conversions, which I obviously do a lot of. They're already very, very difficult to achieve and it's very, very expensive to achieve them.

So while these things look and sound good on paper in reality and in practice, I think they're very, very concerning because these are the exact sort of things that lock the property system up and the development system up. If developers can't develop because it becomes unviable, if landlords and investors can't run their properties becomes unviable. And a quick example, I've got a property that was built in the 1800s and it is an EPC of like an E.

Maybe a D, to get it to a C would be so incredibly difficult and so incredibly expensive that I just don't think it would actually be viable. I'd probably just sell the property, but then who do you sell it to? Owner -occupier maybe? Another investor's almost definitely gonna have the same consideration in mind if they would do reintroduce these EPC targets or new standards. If they do do it, then we

have to actually go through all of our properties and force those EPC standards up and spend lots of money retrospectively to do that, what do they think is going to happen? Well, inevitably, it is going to be pushed back on tenants and rents are going to increase. It might lag having to make those changes, but inevitably that is what will happen. So for me, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. We built very good houses back in the day, but you they're not the most energy efficient houses. We can build

Energy efficient houses. we have the technology and better solutions and systems in place, but doing it retrospectively doesn't make that much sense. It's very, very expensive. I wish they would just leave this one alone and accept that this is part of the housing in the UK. It is what it is. This is how we do new housing and focus on that more. So this is one of the big ones that really does worry me. And I think we all as investors need to be keeping it out. Now, am I worried enough?

Andy Graham (21:13.058)
to think that we should all be going out, spending lots of money to get our EPCs up to a C. No, I think there are a lot of properties and types of properties that it's fairly easy and not too expensive to do this on, but there's a lot of properties where it would be incredibly expensive, very time consuming, quite difficult to actually do this. And I wouldn't rush out yet just to do this. I'd keep a very, very close eye on it, but let's see what sort of regulatory changes come up from, from labour around this sort of thing. Let's move on to taxes. Big one.

The conservatives beat us to death, didn't they? But the Labour government have already pledged not to increase income tax or corporation tax, but they've made no such promises around council tax, around VAT, don't think, capital gains tax, national insurance, inheritance tax. So they're almost definitely coming for some of this stuff, right? And they say they're not going to increase income tax and things.

But inevitably there are stealth taxes, aren't they? They just don't lift the tax ban. So I suspect that they will probably stealthily increase taxes on us as well. Cause at the end of the day, all of this stuff has to be paid for. And we do know that they have to find some money from somewhere to do this. I'm not sure there's anything in their mandate that makes me think that growth in itself and pro growth solutions are going to drive additional taxes.

Business rates system overhaul. Labour wants to replace the current business rate system in England with a new system that unsurprisingly raises revenue. And in their words, in a fairer way, designed to better incentivize investment. I suspect what that means is in a way that helps them take more money. Interestingly, one of the things they have said on this is to tackle the issue of empty properties. And I think that that would be great. I think

This is so overdue. think this is a really easy one. I don't think that anybody should just be allowed to sit on empty homes unreasonably and land bank because they can afford to. I don't think that's in anybody's interest. I think it's one thing sitting on something for a period of time while maybe sort your finances out, you find a solution. But I think sitting on things for years and years and years and years with no intention to build it out or to develop it or repurpose it whatsoever is something that we could absolutely clamp down on. And that would unlock

Andy Graham (23:34.09)
a lot of houses to the private rental sector, maybe for the rental market, but also maybe for owner occupiers as well. So it's interesting to hear that one. Let's wait and see what they do. This could be one of those opportunities that does come around. don't think this one's going to happen soon if it does happen, but definitely want to keep an eye on if they do actually make some moves to tackle it. This is one that we could really kind of take advantage of as property investors, couldn't we.

They've talked about supporting entrepreneurship and that is literally about all they've said. So I'm not really sure what that means. And I don't think without any real sort of tax incentives, reductions on VAT, reductions on corporate tax, I really don't see how they're actually supporting entrepreneurship. So unfortunately for me, it's not particularly pro -business at the minute, as far as I can see.

So there we are, a few sort of the key policies that they've come out with around tenant protection, stamp duty changes, their house building ambitions, including some planning reformation, house buying aspirations, including the freedom to buy scheme, sustainable development targets and taxes. So what do I think about this? Well, let's look, I think a lot of the policies that Labour have set out, if you were to sort of zoom out, take a bird's eye view, I think a lot of the policies are actually aimed at cooling the housing market, although

I'm not sure that in practice, many of them will actually have that impact. think the only ones that really will have that impact is the ones that unlock and allow for new homes to be added to the private rental sector. And I still don't think there's enough detail around how they're actually going to do that. think if they want to do it, they've really got to grab the planning bull by its horns and take control. Because at the minute, the local authorities simply have too much discretion.

to refuse planning applications, to slow planning applications down and to subjectify applications. And I think that that's a big part of the problem. Quite simply, it's taking too long to get stuff through. It's very, very expensive for developers. It increases the risk of schemes significantly and they've got to tackle it. I think a lot of it is around the prevention of speculative bubbles as well. What they absolutely don't want to do and assist with is in any way, shape or form.

Andy Graham (25:48.846)
A housing bubble. don't, and they want to make sure that that does not happen. So I think they would like to see slow, steady, predictable growth to the property market, making it more accessible to first time buyers. And actually, I think that would be great. I would prefer that the closer we can stick to a predictable property market, I think the better, but inevitably I think history tells us that's unlikely to happen. History tells us that actually what happens is you have booms and then we have busts.

Let's wait and see whether or not any of these policies actually start to have any sort of an impact whatsoever. A big thing there could be how they work with the Bank of England to manage the reduction in interest rates, because that has absolutely taken the heat out of the property market, hasn't it? You know, as soon as that comes down and how far it comes down, could have the exact opposite effect. Let's wait and see. It's pretty clear as well. They do want to tackle the wider role of local authorities, communities.

And of developers. I think when I say developers, I think they're going to have a real focus on the big housing developers. I'm not sure that small developers, housing developers are going to be, there's going to be much interest shown to us guys, but the big housing developers, think absolutely. And I think they're really going to encourage this professionalisation, this real commercialisation of the private rental sector. You know, we've already heard and read about Lloyd's coming into the buy to let market, about John Lewis coming into the buy to let market.

The labour are going to be very, very supportive of that to the extent of possibly even incentivising those guys to get into the private rental sector and start taking control. This I think is a threat for us. And I think it's something that we need to be mindful of, but I think we have a lot that those sorts of operators wouldn't have, not least the personal touch that actually we know how a tenant's often like. Again, just keeping with that bird's eye view, strict regulation. It's inevitable.

Enhanced tenant protections, eviction restrictions, a reduction in landlords' operational flexibility, an increase in compliance costs. All of that stuff looks like an absolute guarantee. So we need to be mindful of that. It's going to cost us more to run our businesses. It's going to be more challenging to run our businesses and we'll need to factor that in. Ultimately, I think it'll be passed onto the tenant again, but let's see how they try and counter that with some of these policies that I talked about, potential limitations to rent increases.

Andy Graham (28:15.17)
and so on and so forth. Investment uncertainty. It's difficult to know where labour stands with investment and pro -growth strategies. It really isn't their priority at the minute. That is absolutely for sure. They want to tackle these bigger issues and try and take control of the market. They want to cool things down and keep it that way before they come with any sort of real pro -growth stuff.

Liz Trust had all the right ideas, didn't she, but just at the wrong time. And it could well be that Keir Starmer is trying to do it in a better way and not spook the markets. But there's nothing in here that really gets me that excited about investment and investment opportunities and sort pro -business growth stuff. So I think what we need to understand and what we need to recognise is that nobody's coming to help us. Nobody is coming to save us. If we want to build our businesses and grow our businesses, we are going to have to go out

and find the opportunities. We are going to have to work around and adapt to these challenges that are inevitably going to come. Okay. So let's summarise the first steps that Labour have set out. Essentially, the first one has been around economic growth and stability. I think stability more so than anything else. They want to implement tough spending rules within government to maintain economic stability and keep taxes and especially inflation and mortgage rates.

as low as they possibly can. So that's going to be a real priority over the next 18 months. They've said they do want to kickstart economic growth through a partnership with business and a national wealth fund. I didn't mention this earlier. The idea is to create investment in jobs and infrastructure, but there's not much detail about that. Although they have said it's one of the early priorities. So let's wait and see. I think that this is unlikely to come to much in my opinion anyway. And they've talked about reforming the planning system to facilitate the building 1.5 new million homes. That sounds

absolutely brilliant. Like to me, this is the most exciting thing that they have said and any government in fact has said for a long while. I really do hope that they follow up on it. Number two, then business and innovation. They want to introduce a strategic approach to business tax that provides stability and allows for long -term planning. They want to overhaul the business rate system, like I said, and support the high streets and entrepreneurs. They want to also establish a regulatory innovation office to streamline regulations and foster innovation.

Andy Graham (30:32.876)
I don't think the sort of stuff that's going to happen or have any meaningful impact in the short term. So let's wait and see what that actually looks like. And then social housing policies all kind of wrapped up through the various different measures that they've talked about, but they want to launch comprehensive mortgage guarantees scheme to help first time buyers with lower mortgage deposits. They want to increase the construction of social and affordable housing, and they want to prioritise the Brownfield development, update the national policy planning framework. So in summary,

I think labour's housing policies are mostly aimed at stabilizing and cooling the market, keeping it cool. They definitely want to make property more accessible to first time buyers. They want to, do you want to involve developers and communities more in this plan? I think while a lot of these changes might enhance the market stability with this, they're to bring more regulation and more tenant protections and reduce the operational flexibility.

and increase the compliance costs. That is an inevitability here as well. think the uncertainty created by labour's regulatory and tax change, and you've probably got this from today's episode because they've said they're not going to change corp tax, but there might be change to VAT. Yet they've said that there there's this business innovation stuff. I think that this could actually deter new investments in the sector. I just can't see many foreign investors coming into the market thinking that there are exciting opportunities here at the minute. And I think that that's disappointing.

As property investors though, I think we are going to face reduced profitability and higher costs due to rent controls and some tax hikes and stricter regulations. And I think potential investors need to be really cautious about this because I think when we're stacking deals up and looking at the numbers, it's not going to look the same in 12 to 18 months time as it does do now. And I think rents and the increase in rents is starting to tail off a little bit as well. Now that's not to say that property is

still not going to be a great investment vehicle. I think it is. I think it's just going to continue to look a little bit different. We still need to wait and see exactly how different it does look. If you're an existing investor in the market, I think this is all about adapting. I think it's about being ready to pivot. It's about being ready to take advantage of any sort of opportunities that do come up. And it's about being ready to make some operational changes in your business as this stuff comes up. And some of it, like I've already outlined, could happen pretty quickly.

Andy Graham (32:52.568)
The removal of no fault evictions we talked about earlier on in today's episode is one example that could come very fast at us and we need to, if you're already thinking about doing something different with a property, you might want to just be quite mindful of that. So I think labour's policies present a mixed impact on the property market. I think there's some positive in there, especially around building new homes and potential planning reforms and certainly being quite sort of direct in saying they're not going to increase corporation tax.

but there's definitely stuff in here that doesn't look great for us. I think it's the detail that doesn't look great. And I think actually that's where both the threat and the opportunity is. I think if you ignore this and try and continue without adapting to this sort of stuff, I think you're gonna find it increasingly difficult and very expensive to run good profitable businesses. But I think if you see it and you're ahead of the curve and you can adapt to it in advance, I think you can be ahead of that curve and you could be

a landlord running a good and very profitable business and actually taking advantage of the opportunities that then come up in the market. Like I said, some examples today could be unlocking empty homes that people are sitting on. Some of it could actually come through planning reform and things like that. Let me know what you think. This was a bit of a whistle stop tour and there's no doubt more to come from labor soon. It's still very early days. Let's wait and see what they have to say, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

So coming over to the HMO community, let me know what you think about what Labour have said already in their policies and mandates towards housing. Head on over to the HMO community. That is our free Facebook group in, and that is a great place to have these conversations. So come and chat, come and share your ideas. Let us know what you think. I'd be really interested to know what you think this all means for the property market, more specifically the HMO property market. That's about it for today's episode. I'm kind of looking forward to moving on

without politics at the front of mind, if I'm quite honest, back to business. think that's kind of the bottom line for me. If you are building your HMO property business, don't forget that everything you need is waiting for you inside theHMOroadmap.co.uk. And we have done something really exciting recently. We've expanded our partnership scheme. So we've got more partners than ever providing better discounts and more exclusive discounts than ever before. Services like architecture, interior design, we've got...

Andy Graham (35:13.386)
mortgage and finance solutions. We've got fire safety solutions and a whole lot more. Just head to thehmoroadmap.co.uk, find the services tab and get all that information there. And of course, if you want to level up your knowledge through videos, downloadable resources, case studies from our community members, cheat sheets, swipe files and everything else, it's all waiting for you inside the HMO roadmap. Just join up on either a starter or a premium subscription. It'll cost you less than the price of a cup coffee every single day and I can almost guarantee you'll get a 10x return in no time whatsoever. I wish it existed when I was just getting started. That's it guys. Thanks again for tuning in and don't forget that I'll be right back here in the very same place next time. So please join me then for another installment of the HMO podcast.