Britain has a new Prime Minister.
His name is Andy Burnham, he’s the seventh person to hold the job in a decade. And, unlike most of his predecessors, he’s a landlord himself.
That should be good news. Except Burnham has spent the last eight years as Mayor of Manchester saying things about property that would make most investors spit out their tea.
He’s called for a rent freeze. He’s called land “undertaxed”. And he raised fines on landlords by 43%. But he’s also said a lot of the right things - especially on subjects like devolution, infrastructure, and stamp duty.
So as he begins to make himself at home in Downing Street, we thought we’d look at what Andy Burnham’s premiership might mean for landlords.
Rent control
Let’s start with the dreaded “R word”.
Burnham has previously shown support for rent controls. In 2015, he proposed controls to stop rents “spiralling”. In 2023, he co-signed a letter urging the government to introduce a Scotland-style freeze on private rents.
But what gets said on the campaign trail and what actually happens when you reach Downing Street are rarely the same thing. And when it comes to rent control, you only need to look north of the border to see why.
Scotland has already run the experiment. In 2022, it froze rents and prevented evictions. The result? Rents went up faster than anywhere else in the country, hitting 14.3% annual inflation. At the same time, an estimated £3.2 billion of investment froze. Existing landlords started selling. Tenants stopped moving.
Less supply, less investment, less mobility, and some of the fastest-rising rents in the country. The legislation achieved the exact opposite of its intended outcome.
Even if he believes in rent control, it’s hard to see Burnham expending political capital to implement it here in England and Wales, especially as he’s pledged to follow Labour’s manifesto for the remainder of this parliament.
Legislation
If you’re a landlord, the past decade has felt like death by a thousand regulatory cuts.
Stamp duty surcharges, tax changes, the Renters’ Rights Act - the red tape has snowballed. And into this walks Andy Burnham, a man who as Mayor of Manchester, increased fines on non-compliant landlords by 43%. He also backed compulsory purchase powers for properties that fail decent homes standards.
At the same time, he’s supported grants to help landlords improve energy efficiency and championed the city’s Good Landlord Charter.
His critics would paint him as anti-landlord, while supporters would say he’s just pro-standards and enforcement. Either way, he’s seemingly willing to use both carrot and stick to achieve his goals.
In principle, anyone running their portfolio properly has nothing to worry about. And if stricter enforcement pushes out the cowboys, that benefits the whole sector. But the track record of recent years suggests the burden doesn’t always land where it should - and more rules often mean more cost and more admin for landlords who are already doing the right thing.
Stamp duty
Burnham has previously shown interest in scrapping stamp duty. When he first made a run for the Labour leadership in 2010 he described it as “a tax on the aspirations of young people to put down roots and get on in life.” And when he launched his campaign to return to Parliament in May, Burnham once again indicated he wanted to change how property and land is taxed.
He’s not the first politician to float the idea of abolishing stamp duty, but he is the first incoming Prime Minister for some time to seemingly have it near the top of his to-do list.
One of the ideas that Burnham has proposed in the past is to replace stamp duty with a land value tax (LVT) - an annual levy on the value of the land your property sits on, not the building itself. He’s described land as undertaxed, despite it actually being taxed higher than any other developed country.
Would it be good for landlords? Scrapping stamp duty would certainly be popular. But the impact would depend a lot on what gets brought in to replace it. Or if it happens at all. Labour actually floated a similar idea back in 2017, only to roll back within days after it was branded a “garden tax” by the opposition.
Devolution and development
This is Burnham’s signature issue, and one on which his track record speaks for itself. On his watch, Greater Manchester’s economy grew by 18% - the fastest-growing city region in the UK. Property prices grew even faster, up 63% over the past decade.
That didn’t happen by accident. It came from local decision-making, targeted regeneration funding and a clear long-term vision. Recreate that across the Midlands, Yorkshire and the North East and you could see more homes built faster, in the right places, with the right infrastructure around them.
But don’t expect overnight results. The work behind Manchester’s boom started in the 1990s, and it took time for those efforts to bear fruit. Whatever your political persuasion, landlords benefit from growing economies, and the Manchester case study shows what’s possible.
What should landlords do?
Landlords will have heard things on the campaign trail that make them nervous. But what gets said on the hustings and what happens in office are rarely the same thing.
Burnham understands housing better than most politicians, and in Manchester, he’s seen firsthand what happens when you attract investment rather than scare it off.
But the story here isn’t really what Burnham will do (the structural forces driving the market are bigger than any single politician), it’s the uncertainty.
For now, the best thing landlords can do is stay informed and not overreact. We’ll be tracking every policy announcement, every u-turn, and every piece of legislation as it develops.
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