The property is now on the market for £200,000. “I offered the house to her at a £20,000 discount, but she can’t get a mortgage,” said Mrs Taylor. Her tenant works part-time and her salary is not large enough to take out the necessary loan.
“If I had the money I would just give her the house, but I can’t afford to drop the price any more. I need to be able to get back the money I put in,” she added.
Mrs Taylor’s situation illustrates the central contradiction of the Government’s crackdown on buy-to-let. According to the housing charity Shelter, a third of private renters are on housing benefits, meaning 1.8 million households rely on landlords in lieu of social housing.
“The Government relies on landlords but doesn’t support or help us,” said Mrs Taylor. “They come down very heavily on landlords, who are helping ease the pressure on social housing waiting lists.”
Britain suffers from an extreme shortage of rental properties as landlords have sold up in the wake of the Government’s buy-to-let crackdown, which has included huge reductions in tax relief on buy-to-let mortgages. The supply of properties has fallen by 26pc year-on-year, according to property website Rightmove.
The South West has been hit by the worst property shortage in the wake of lockdowns as buyers raced to coastal areas and investors bought properties to cash in on the “staycation” boom. House prices in the region rose by 16.9pc in the year to May, the highest rate in the country, according to the Office for National Statistics.
“It has become massively worse since the pandemic. It’s people buying holiday homes and properties they can turn into Airbnbs, and people who have realised that they can work from home and move from London to the seaside,” said Mrs Taylor.
“My tenant worked all through the pandemic, with three children. She deserves a home. Why is she not able to have one?”