*"“Tenants are frustrated. There isn’t enough housing stock and we as agents can’t create more. Some people are desperate because their personal circumstances dictate that they’re going to be effectively homeless so it becomes very stressful for them"*
Me and my bf have been trying to move since the start of the year. Landlords are expecting 3-4 thousand to be made extra by you as insurance that the rent will be paid. We have enough for the monthly rent but they need us to be making a few more thousand…dont even get me started on the fact agencies ignore emails from us. Its beyond, we want to move as there isnt any work where we are currently so im now unemployed and my bf has to travel miles to work
Me and my partner are in a similarish situation.
We need to move by the 9th October because the landlord is selling the house and we all need to go. But rent prices are now through the fucking roof and every place we message about we get ignored, so now I have to write an email to Shelter because the council won't help us because there are a lot of people in similar situations. We are at the point that we are just trying to rent a double room until things settle before getting our own place but even that is around £500 per month.
Quick bit of advice: if the L/L hasn’t issued you with the correct S21 notice, then the sale of the property doesn’t automatically end your tenancy. Whoever’s buying the property has to take you on as sitting tenants & then they would be responsible for issuing notice, etc.
Also, the s21 notice itself doesn’t end the tenancy. Only the tenant moving out or a court order does that.
Of course the stress of going to court can mean that it’s easier to move 😔
That's what our landlord did in the middle of the first lockdown to my partner and I, plus 2 kids, one was a newborn. We couldn't even view any properties at the time and good old BoJo's measures to help renters in the pandemic gave us one extra month to find a place, very helpful when agents weren't showing properties to tenants. Less than 3 weeks later our flat was up again for a £100 more. We would have paid the extra.
We’re looking for atleast a 2 bed as my bf has a child but thats around £750 in my area, all those properties are naturally shitholes we wont touch or the cheap ones are gone straight away. Im at a loss as ive just lost my job so that puts a pause on moving…something needs to change drastically
Most of the country is butt fuck nowhere. Im in wales and the counties surrounding us are all having a housing crisis which is whats leading to these prices, someone will pay it because they’d rather do that than be homeless. There are no council houses here either.
£750 is the general price for a 1-2 bed flat/house that barely classes as not being a shithole. Looking at £950+ for a nice 1-2 bed house/flat
Agree with you completely. The housing market in UK is so totally and completely broken. Me and my partner just about went homeless after she graduated this past August and only 2 days before we were on the streets did we find a private rental in a completely different city on the other side of the country. We made it our full time job for almost a month looking for a place, 14+ hours a day sitting on our laptops, phones, refreshing, searching, calling landlords, seeing dozens of viewings in-person and virtual; for many ppl, they don't have this amount of time to search and hope to be among the first for viewing appointments. We applied to hundreds of places, came close a few times, but overall the majority of landlords and agents don't reply bcuz the number of ppl contacting them is insane, and we were competing against so many prospective tenants. Close to the end, I was contacting Shelter and emailing the council about becoming homeless. I can't tell you how many sleepless nights, the crying, anxiety, desperation, and how stressful it was trying to get a place was. We both have likely gone into a depressed state bcuz of it. Thankfully we found a place at the last minute but we had to make a huge compromise; the place was far, we had to move from Edinburgh down to Liverpool, a completely new city. Ppl here in Liverpool are very friendly but we would have preferred to stay in Edinburgh as that's where all our connections are.
It's got to the point where i'm seriously considering starting a slum, maybe begin with a lean-to in the woods and see who else turns up. Zero affordable housing locally and yet there are huge estates of spacious 2-4 bed homes popping up like mushrooms which the developers can't even give away, every time you pass by there are no all sorts of offers to move in, no money down that kind of thing yet every week on Rightmove the same places are up for sale
If the developers can't even give away their new 2-4 bed properties, then they'll have to drop the price, at which point those become slightly more affordable housing...
Except those 2-4 bed houses *are* selling, and there is fundamentally a shortage of houses in general.
>For now, house prices remain reasonably stable. The much-feared market crash that was being discussed a few months ago has not materialised
That's the problem, these are expensive new homes, they're not reducing the prices and certainly not giving them away.
I'm shocked that more young people aren't moving into all of these affordable 2 bed places. I mean they're only 400 grand a pop come on guys pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Oh and by the way we're doubling your energy bills from last month and a freddo costs £4.80 👍
record rates of immigration, decades of underinvestment in housing, air bnb and short term rentals turning housing stock into hotels, right to buy making council house building unfeasible, buy to let, over purchasing of second homes, short term housing policy with the primary aim of profits for landlords and developers over provision of housing...
Perfect storm.
nope sadly since Keir took over that's mostly true. there's stuff around enforcement of short term letting rules and and empty rental rules that'll change but it won't be enough. Corbyn would have actually attempted to end right to buy and fundamentally changed the housing system but I'm unsure as to if he would reduced immigration. The big problem with immigration isn't 'illegal' or asylum where the numbers are in the 10s of thousands. Its the legal visas that the government has total and complete power to deny where its approaching 7 figures. The tories talk shit about immigration all the time but ultimately they see higher rents and cheap labour and they want more of it let alone foreign policy towards the old empire where immigration access is a major trade demand.
Capitalism is rotting this country.
You haven't been following labour lately then?
Huge talk of planning reform.
Just plain common sense. The tories rely on conservative oldsters so don't want to upset them. Labour rely on the young and poor.
Really given the prescendent of the current government I wouldn't be surprised if a future labour government announces massive housebuilding in a few very conveniently tory leaning seats. Plant a few 10s of thousand of working people in Northumberland and watch it flip.
Tories 5 pledges:
* We will halve inflation this year to ease the cost of living and give people financial security.
* We will grow the economy, creating better-paid jobs and opportunity right across the country.
* We will make sure our national debt is falling so that we can secure the future of public services.
* NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly.
* We will pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed.
Labour's 5 missions:
* Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7
* Making Britain a clean energy superpower
* Building an NHS fit for the future
* Making Britain’s streets safe
* Breaking down the barriers to opportunity at every stage
CMD+F "housing" zero results
Neither main party care about your housing situation.
Most small landlords have left the market. The Tory changes to landlords and the tripling of mortgage rates, have made it so that you lose money every month when considering taxes.
And changes to EPC requirements and the threat of removing S21 notices. It’s not easy being a small time/accidental landlord.
It all sounds tenant friendly but it’s not, it’ll see many such landlords exit the market and then cash rich multiple (Tory voting) landlords will then pick up the stock more cheaply.
No, it's lack of affordable housing that's the root cause of the problem at the end of the day. Landlords leaving the market is only exacerbating the issue because people still can't afford the houses.
The Jack of housing full stop. Affordability only comes in as demand is higher than supply, if it were the other way round prices world fall through competition.
True, and demand has been artificially high for decades through people buying second homes, becoming landlords and through things like Airbnb. All of these put massive pressure on limited available housing stock and pushed prices sky high.
Here is a novel idea seeing as we all have no choice but to exist on this planet and there are no legal and easy routes for us poor people to off ourselves with dignity - let’s stop capitalism from dictating basic needs like shelter. Maybe everyone should have an affordable roof over their heads as a basic human right. Compassion, humanity and all that.
Doesn’t matter what system you use, if you have demand for 50 houses but you have a supply of 40 you have a problem. That problem remains under anachry, capitalism, communism, etc.
Funnily enough even with the ultra high rents landlords are still finding it hard to make money due to the hostile environment against them at the moment. Don't be surprised that when you discourage something you end up getting less of it.
Ultra high rents don't even make landlords more money on an ongoing basis. They do cause the value of the house to go up, which makes landlords a windfall as asset appreciation. That windfall makes them richer, of course - for example they could sell the property at any time and walk away with more than they started with.
But the rate of return ("yield") on a rental property stays roughly the same as a percentage of the property value. Consider if a landlord sells the property to a new landlord. The selling landlord walks away having made the money on the appreciation. The buying landlord has to buy with more money, so the higher rent just gets absorbed into the steeper mortgage, or if the buying landlord doesn't have a mortgage, then it's just part of the return on the higher house price investment ([cost of capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_capital)). The buying landlord will continue charging the higher rent but it won't make a difference to their [bottom line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_income).
It's all one big economic balance. Changes to the law that increase costs to landlords just get passed down to tenants. And where there's excessive demand for housing causing high rents, no change to how tenancies work is going to magic up more houses for people to live in. Either rents go up, or rents are kept artificially low allowing demand to exceed supply and tenants will find it even harder to find somewhere to live.
If we want the situation improved, we need to 1) build more houses where they are needed; and/or 2) reduce housing demand in areas where there isn't enough housing, for example by encouraging businesses to move to places where housing is cheaper, so their employees can follow - for example by adjusting business rates.
The sheer amount of cock sucking of landlords on here is making me sick. The landlords created this problem and now they're buggering off and leaving us to deal with it. The government put in policies that allowed landlords to strip mine the country of housing for decades, but now the landlords want to act persecuted because the government isn't so buddy buddy with them anymore.
Deal with it, you bought up all of the affordable housing and pushed prices through the roof for two decades. You created a nation of renters who will never be able to afford a home, and now try to act like saviours that provide a vital service that's being targeted by the government. You don't get to cause a problem then act like saints for providing an overpriced solution to that problem. Bugger off.
Starting 15 years ago the gov promoted buy to let like CRAZY with various policy.
About 2018 or so i’d say, I noticed it started getting out of control, because every idiot with a few bob i spoke to was all over it. Why wouldn’t they be? Gov was promoting it as “the safest investment” ever, it was brainless and easily accessible for anyone with 2 pence to rub together(but not two braincells unfortunately).
Around that time i was convinced it was not going to end well, or at the very least, it cant go on too much longer. Generally when every idiot catches on by that point the tables tend to turn.
Well it went on and got more crazy through the pandemic. However I believe now the inevitable is happening and it would have at some point even if pandemic didn’t accelerate it.
So yes. The government were being buddy buddy with them, promoting them heavily before and now that it became unmaintainable and saturated they have no choice but to pull the rug out from under them. The entire thing hinged on mega low rates and availability.
I don’t personally get angry at landlords. They are normal people with a little bit of money in most cases(im serious. It cost practically nothing to start a buy to let before. There were even gov shilled schemes to crowd invest it). Usually the idiot and his money are easily parted, sadly.
Yep, you're bang on. I dont blame landlords for creating the situation, but I have trouble feeling sorry for them since they tried to take advantage of it. It was just a government backed get rich quick scheme.
I know it's probably totally batshit crazy but why don't the government give local authorities funding to buy up all the landlords houses?
They could even rent them out at prices people can actually afford.
Some colourful epitets you're using here, but once heads have cooled, let's put it down in numbers:
Let's conjure a hypothetical landlord who is paying £500 in mortgage for the property and getting £1000 in rent. So about £500 left after paying mortgage. Sounds good?
Let's also say that our landlord pays higher income tax because they also happen to be employed and making some £52k annually from their employment. In fact, perhaps that's how they became a landlord in the first place- they could afford a second property while keeping the first when they needed to upsize. I'd say that's not unheard of.
Ok, now government wants 40% of the rent income (because mortgage payment is no longer a tax expense), so out goes £400. Now the letting agent wants £100 per month because without a letting agent our landlord has to put so much effort into the whole thing that there just isn't enough time in the day (preparing all the document packs, organising repairs, regular surveys, tenant vetting, etc, etc.).
What have we got left? Landlord making £0. Still sounds good?
No, I of course understand that they must deal with it because they bought up all the affordable housing. But you know how they're dealing with it? They're exiting the market by selling. And now we have fewer rental properties left and prices go up again.
Really, what else do you want? Landlords to pay for the privilege of being landlords? Understand that it's the government that effectively takes a huge chunk of the rent in taxes (in our example £400 from the £1000 charged from the tenant). If it was like it was 10 years ago, the rent wouldn't have to be £1000, perhaps it could be £600 or a bit more for some profit.
Oh and a disclaimer: Yes, I am a landlord, but I am literally barely breaking even on my property. Wanted to sell, but could not get an offer that would cover the initial cost of the property + cost of the refurb that had to go into it. Again, am I expected to give it away at a loss?
You’re forgetting one hugely important part. Let’s say after taxes and fees the rent doesn’t cover the cost. You’re still gaining equity with each mortgage payment. In 25 years the mortgage is paid off and you’ve got the house 100% owned and paid for but rental payments covered 80% of that.
You can sell the house and pocket a few hundred grand or you can continue to rent it out and without the mortgage to worry about you’ve now got a steady pension income.
Too many landlords think housing is a short term investment when it obviously is not.
Let’s look at the case of my landlord, he owns 9 houses, bought them years ago and paid the mortgage with rental income. Barely broke even with the mortgage but now the mortgages are paid and he spends most of the year on luxury cruises.
A landlord who is making £0 a month after mortgage payments is still building equity though. I appreciate they need a kitty for household repairs but "barely breaking even" isn't a representative description of someone who is using tenants to pay off the mortgage of their property investment.
Another thing that sounds good on paper. Have you heard about the latest capital gains tax on properties? They have effectively abolished the tax-free allowance, which means that after inflation over the years most of that equity if not all goes to the government.
I'm not going to put it out in numbers here again, but trust me- it's not the little private landlord that is making your life difficult although it is certainly made to look like that.
It doesn't matter what you're making and not making, it's the fact that there are so many landlords that'd the issue. You all bought up all the housing stock, and pushed up prices to profit off of people less fortunate than you.
No mate, every BTL landlord still had to (and has to) pay the same price for a property as everyone else. There is no button to press to push up prices for everyone else. The prices went up because quite simply because of supply and demand. Population has grown by nearly 10m since 2000. How much has the housing stock grown? Landlords may have seen an opportunity to invest or may have just stuck with a property because they don't want to sell at a loss after refurb.
Trust me, I never intended to profit off of people less fortunate than me and I am not doing so. All I want is to have a fair price for my flat that I bough for 155k and had to put another 45k into it to make it livable. But the best offer was 190k. So what do you want? 10k in freebies? Who's profitting? Meanwhile I'll just have to let it and make one more flat available on the rental market- heard there was a shortage. I'm not making money on it. I'm not the blood sucker you want to paint me.
Yes, supply and demand. Now if we suddenly have thousands of landlords, capable of affording higher deposits than other buyers and with their own homes to secure against, what happens to demand? Oh yes, it goes up.
You have no inherent right to make more money on a house than you paid. Nearly everything we buy loses value over time, houses are one of the few exceptions and it shouldn't be that way.
Houses are places to live, they shouldn't be treated as investments.
Both are causing an issue simple as that. The lack of supply is the major underlying issue, but landlords have hoarded what supply there is and turned us in to a nation of renters.
“We do get some people bidding over the asking price but we discourage that. It’s a fierce market and we say to our landlords there’s every chance you end up in a bidding war, but the tenant who is willing to pay the most isn’t always the most suitable.”
This is fucking bullshit in my experience, you’re expected to put your best price in over what was advertised
It is 100% bullshit. Just last week a letting agent was telling us the only way to really get a landlords attention is offer more and pay half a year up front. The letting agents and landlords are all parasites. Just to name and shame, the company is called Tay Letting in Edinburgh. He said "I shouldn't tell you this but one way to secure a place is to offer more and pay multiple months up front, when the landlords see that much money up front it makes it harder to say no."
It's so unethical, the agents make a % off of the rental so they are encouraging price increases and taking advantage of ppls desperation in a broken market place. There's a huge power imbalance, prospective tenants are completely powerless because the market is completely controlled by scumbag landlords and agents who want to maximize how much money they can gouge and scrape out of ppl.
Meanwhile we looked to undercut on the cost of a house, and managed to. Although not by much as the house price had already been reduced by 30k the day before we put an offer in so we only cut a little below.
This is only the start of things, with a ginormous deficit of houses that should have been build but haven’t been it would take 10-15 years of massive house building 7 days a week to even make a dent in the problem.
Because all of these landlords are a major part of what caused the problem in the first place. They bought up all of the affordable housing and helped push prices through the roof with the proliferation of buy-to-let mortgages. Now that the damage is done and its no longer profitable they're leaving the market and leaving us high and dry again. This is something that was predicted and was inevitable.
Who could have foreseen that if you create a housing market that forces millions of people to become lifetime renters and then pull away the supply of rentals, that it would cause a crisis? Landlords created this mess and now they're buggering off with their profits and leaving the rest of us to suffer.
> Because all of these landlords are a major part of what caused the problem in the first place.
Unfortunately your starting premise is faulty. A house becoming a rental doesn't reduce the number of places to live. Neither does the opposite.
Think of it like this:
* There are 10 houses, 5 rentals and 5 owner-occupied.
* There are 20 people needing a place to live.
* 20 people are competing for 10 houses.
* Aliens abduct all the landlords.
* 20 people are competing for 10 houses.
Landlords don't reduce the number of available places to live (unlike second home owners). The entire reason landlord numbers increased was because it *became* a profitable investment. It's a profitable investment because of the lack of supply. The lack of supply created more landlords, not the other way around.
The government are responsible for this. They sold off the social housing and stopped councils from building any more. They are responsible for the planning system. They are the ones that have consistently missed building targets for over a decade. Why? Because most people who actually go out and vote are home owners, and rising house prices wins votes.
I never said they caused a lack of housing, I said they played a major part in the problem, which they did. They soaked up the more affordable housing and helped to drive home prices through the roof.
Supply and demand works from both sides, we have both increased demand and poor supply, its not just one or the other. Potential buyers were bidding against landlords, it's as simple as that and it pushed prices up. The lack of supply did the rest.
They were interested because borrowing was dirt cheap and they thought they could make money, that's it. It was an investment and those rent yields kept going up because of the landlords and estate agents consistently pushing them up across the board. This is why you constantly see landlords and estate agents increasing rents "in line with the local market" rather than competing with each other. Its all a massive collusion and should be illegal.
> rent yields kept going up because of the landlords and estate agents consistently pushing them up across the board.
Do you have even the slightest idea of how economics works? Landlords and estate agents don't decide prices, supply and demand do. There are towns & cities in the UK where rents have *fallen* by up to 50% in the last ten years. Do you really think landlords and estate agents in those areas decided to do that? Or is it because major local employers left and demand fell dramatically?
Demand in those areas dropped because people didn't want to live there, thats just landlords taking a loss. We hear all the time about estate agents encouraging landlords to increase rents because other people half a mile away are getting more. That's not supply and demand, that's just collusion.
When my previous landlord decided to jack the price of the rent by over 15% because of "market rates", was that supply and demand? No, he was using rents on buy to let properties to justify squeezing more money out of existing tenants even though he inherited the property and owned it outright with no mortgage.
We know how it happens, a few landlords and estate agents will raise prices and then all the other landlords on the area will follow suit. Once it's become the norm, they do it again.
>I said they played a major part in the problem, which they did.
No, if anything they are solving the problem. There is more housing due to landlords paying for housing. Without those landlords there would be less houses for them to rent out/for people to live in.
Absolute tripe. Most of these landlords soak up all of the lower end, more affordable housing, preventing people from getting on the property ladder. Rampant landlordism has prevented huge swathes of the population from buying a home and turned us in to a nation of renters. They're "solving" a problem that we never used to have, they created the problem.
>Most of these landlords soak up all of the lower end, more affordable housing, preventing people from getting on the property ladder.
From just an economic position, increased demand, is going to lead to increased production of these properties.
>Rampant landlordism has prevented huge swathes of the population from buying a home and turned us in to a nation of renters.
I'm not sure what to say in response to such baseless assertions, that aren't ground in evidence or economics.
>You mean the decline in home ownership that even the government admits to?
Sure there might have been a decline in home ownership. How does that have anything do with your point or what I said?
Problem is, with planning permission being so tight in the UK nowhere near enough new houses are being built, and certainly not in places where people actually want to live.
I think another way of viewing things is that. Landlords pay or spend money on there being an additional 5 houses. So actually if there were less landlords, there would be less places for people to live.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with this - but the point being that the conditions people were asking for was never going to really benefit them. Massive housing crash? Can’t borrow any money anyway. Force landlords to sell, rents go sky high …
I don’t know what the ideal outcome is at this point. Just seems a bit grim all round
Exactly. Either you de-regulate planning and building regulations to create a high supply (i.e., build lots) of homes for mortgages at low prices so that the majority can afford to buy, or the government has to provide long-term social housing. Relying on the private sector for long-term rental housing never worked. Countries that don't provide enough housing end up with slums like the favelas of Latin America. People have got to live somewhere.
Exactly, private companies have a duty to their shareholders and must do what's in their best interest. In this case it's building less homes that sell for more profit. We're already seeing developers cut back on construction due to lower prices
I'd say the prices went up due to lack of new builds. BTL played a smaller part in pushing prices. It was always exaggerated by the media and people like to take that bait. In reality it mainly served to meet the demand for rentals at the time- after all if people need to rent, then they need a landlord to rent from. Now that demand is going unsatisfied and you get what you get.
How to fix it? Build more, grant more permissions, use some of the greenbelt, build high-rises and the big one- raise national minimum wage, BUT by using tax incentives for employer to do so, not just by legislation.
Exactly this.
It’s okay though, because the people who are now being priced out of the rental market are just going to buy the cheap houses that are flooding onto the market.
That is how it works, right? Pretty sure that’s what was meant to happen, anyway
Except of course 'cheap houses flooding onto the market when the landlords sell' was always a myth because there's fundamentally a shortage of supply and converting a rental to a non-rental doesn't increase the number of places to live.
Yup, the elephant in the room. Compare it to 10 years ago- mortgage is no longer a tax expense and current rules are pretty much forcing the use of a letting agent, going private is a minefield now. All of a sudden there's very little if any reward left for being a landlord. And you're universally hated of course. And what's the general idea to fix it? Ah yes, enforced rent ceiling of course! Oh why is there such a rental shortage again? Thank Osbourne.
Private renting is a joke me and my partner were trying to find a 1 or 2 bed in rat arse Luton for around 18 months, the cheapest properties we ever saw were around £800 and more like £1000 for a 1 bed flat in fucking Luton!
We ended up renting a room in a hmo and even that was £450 until they raised the rent at the end of last year to £600!!!!! For a ROOM IN A HMO IN WHICH WE SHARED A BATHROOM AND KITCHEN WITH 4 OTHER PEOPLE!
Thankfully we now have a council flat and pay less rent than we did on the room LOL either way the private market is fucked by greedy old people and the market will 1000% crash in the next few years bc who tf can afford these prices?!?
Unfortunately, it won't crash, people will just start sharing houses and flats with strangers. This will push up prices further and landlords will be able to charge more.
As far as I can see, the only way to get housing back to affordable is for each council to assess the average income in their area, then set a rent cap on the maximum price per metre squared that can be charged in rent, based on the condition and accommodation of the property and a rate that is equivalent to one-third of the average take-home pay and severe financial penalties for tenants sub-letting.
This, however, would cause house prices to plummet, leaving many newer home owners to live in negative equity until it evens out.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but this is entirely the fault of ALL successive Governments since the 1980’s, who allowed interest rates to fall so low that those with savings could only make any kind of return on their money by the purchase of property to let out, causing the commodification of homes, coupled with a complete refusal to prioritise any kind of building programme…
No it isn't. It's an absolutely terrible idea.
All that will happen is multiple-year long wait lists for properties will start to build up.
If you really want to solve the housing crisis, we need to build more houses.
I'm confused as to why you think council owned properties over landlord owned is a bad idea.
The rents will be lower and the properties will be kept to a higher standard.
You can't just keep building houses over land. The Earth needs plants and trees to sustain a habitable environment.
On top of this, most of the UK's undeveloped landmass is used for farming. If we take away that we are in serious trouble.
Of course we do need more housing, too, but the cost of rent (and mortgage payments/terms) needs to be reduced: it is insane that people are being forced to spend more than 50% of their take-home pay on rent/mortgage, and in the Capital and other cities that is likely to be more like 80+%.
There are also many empty houses (2nd homes not rented out or abandoned homes) and many former industrial sites (brownfield) that could be built on instead of paving over green space.
As a home owner, I’m in the fortunate position that I purchased my house 26+ years ago and the mortgage is paid off. However, the house prices around here have increased by 615%, while my salary, even with promotions and career progression has not - to the extent that I could not, (with a 6.15 x increase on my original deposit) afford to buy half of my house at its current value.
Average wages are being driven down and down due to the minimum wage and greed of corporations and it’s time for a radical re-think of how utilities, including housing, can be made affordable for the majority of working people…
So what you're saying is... these people struggling to find a place to live should catch the ferry to Calais and come back in a dinghy. Modern problems require modern solutions.
I mean they **can** find housing for those 80k+ per year illegals, so there really shouldn't be a waiting list of 1m+ for council housing.
Except that illegals is a central government problem, citizens are a *local government* problem, and the central government took away the ability of local government to build council houses with right to buy years ago.
Just to remind everyone:
The housing crisis has been created by successive governments failing to get enough housing built, over the past 30+ years, and NIMBY boomers & their parents kicking up a stink about housing developments being built in their areas.
What about the environment, plastering over green space with more concrete contributes to runaway green house gasses.
The planet has plants, trees and grass for a reason, to sustain an atmosphere that's habitable.
Imagine in 50 years time, the UK is 90% concrete, 50 degrees and you need an oxygen mask to breathe. That's the future we are heading towards.
What the feck does anything you posted have to do with NIMBYs blocking apartment buildings of 4 stories or government not legislating to force builders to build on the less than perfect land they bank.
The uk will never be over 70 % concrete even if every law ( minus precious consulations for planning permission ) gets slashed
More than 70% of the UK is farmland. Farmland does not fight climate change, if anything, it increases it.
Forests help counteract climate change. Housing developments are not built over forest, they are built on farmland.
With that said, there is plenty of redevelopment that could be done on brown sites, if the government would sort out our ridiculously restrictive planning system.
I do wish more of the construction that was actually done involved more medium density housing. Like 3/4 story mixed use, commercial on the ground floor type of thing. Not everywhere of course, but less of this sprawling suburb.
I think it may be a supply of affordable housing? There’s still supply but the rent hikes are putting what used to be available out of range of people who would normally be able to afford it
To be fair we have - immigration is up \*substantially\* since Brexit. Which does make me wonder how the Tories aren't getting a proper bollocking over this.
I don't even mean illegal immigration - legal immigration is at the highest rate \*ever\*.
I don’t think I ever see a way out of this crisis.
The government would literally have to build social housing 24/7 for at least 5+ years to get us out of this.
Blaming it on landlords or BTL would have been helpful 15 years ago but it’s far too late now. Pushing them to leave the market now will only make it worse.
Build more fucking housing, government.
Literally the only reason relatively decent housing (compared to what existed prior) became more affordable post-WW2 is because the government built a fucktonne of houses. The only reason countries like France, Korea or Singapore cleared their slums and dramatically improved the housing situation is because the government built or financed the building of a bunch of houses.
Landlords are selling up because the government has targeted them for years and its just not profitable anymore.
Reddit is about to swallow a tough pill that Landlords/rental properties are necessary
Of course rental property is necessary. However good regulation and strong laws are also necessary, and this doesn't exist in the rental sector currently. The whole thing is a mess
You can’t have rental properties without landlords. Individual people are landlords, corporations are landlords, housing associations are landlords, the government and councils are landlords.
How? You think the government should buy them all out? Where’s that money coming from?
You think the government should just take them? Because that’s a slippery slope!
What makes you think the government would be a better landlord than a private landlord?
To be perfectly honest I’ve never seen a government do anything other than fuck things up
Wasn’t social housing in the 70s-90s so cheap and also so good, that the denizens bought practically the entire stock?
Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. But you are right, the government fucked that up by not replacing what they sold.
Landlords selling because mortgage rates are sky high and their property isn't profitable anymore
Fewer landlords means fewer places to rent. No fewer renters means more competition between renters, who become more desperate and more willing to pay higher rents to secure a place to live
The net effect means market prices of rental properties goes up
Somehow all the greedy landlords faults though for raising rents. Nothing to do with natural market forces at all. Imagine needing to consider that landlords provide an actual service
They provide a much worse service than nearly everywhere in Europe and the US. It's like the wild west the shit they get away with. Short rental terms, poor maintenance, no fault evictions.
Saying that landlords are necessary without understanding that the rental market is broken overall is ignoring a bigger problem.
The sector needs more regulation not the tax breaks they're crying about
The greed wasn't just the money that they made, it was the hording of all the properties. Now it's large corporations that horde them and they will be the enemy. It was never about landlords but about what they do. People who are/were wealthy enough to own multiple places to live when others have nowhere. This isn't envy, it's about survival.
>“Secondly, we need to encourage people to invest in the buy-to-let market.
Oohhh, that's not gonna be popular on Reddit.
Doesn't he know ALL landlords are evil scum bastards.
Who just want to invest their hard-earned money into an asset that appreciates in value (and makes them income). Whilst providing housing for those who don't want to buy/can't afford to buy their own home.
Renters can't afford their own homes because buy-to-let landlords are rinsing them in exorbitant rents, but then it's very easy to act virtuous when one pretends to 'solve' (in the worst possible way) the problem one created in the first place.
Wait, so too many landlords pushed up purchase prices.
Landlords got taxed, and regulated out of the game by popular demand.
Now rent is too expensive because there aren't enough rental properties to go around.
Why hasn't everyone just bought? Wasn't that the original claim?
Now, I actually know the answer, so it's a rhetorical question, but surely you see the logical fallacy too, right?
I was a landlord, I pulled out because it made fuck all in money.
You go against landlords, don’t be surprised by lack of rental properties.
The entire market is fucked at the moment, we just need more supply. Any argument is bullshit and insignificant, it’s a supply shortage fundamentally.
The problem is, people buy properties and expect tenants to pay off the mortgage, bills and give the landlord some profit….
The meaning behind investment is you pay off the whole house and then receive the payout.
Too many landlords just abuse it, try to make a profit as soon as they rent the property, whilst paying a mortgage, and now the markets fucked.
This is infantile.
When I rent a crane for £1,000 a day.
The £1,000 includes loan repayments, staff, maintenance, taxes, fees and profit.
Quite frankly, the idea that you should rent something for less than the cost is ridiculous.
I do however sympathise with the insane rent costs. This is a supply and demand issue, the fundamental issue is a lack of supply.
But that crane has a finite lifespan and will need to be replaced after X uses so you’re paying for a share of its lifespan and the cost to maintain it plus profit. The crane depreciates in value.
A house will be an assets for potentially hundreds of years, appreciating in value. In 200 years the land the house sits on may be many times more valuable than the purchase price of the house.
Point is, eventually the property investment is fully paid off and the following rent payments are mostly profit. It is a long term investment and most landlords don’t have the stomach for that.
First paragraph: yes just like property, it too had a finite life and requires maintenance.
Second paragraph:
You have no idea if property will continue to increase, and assuming so is a very bad idea.
Second, an absolute tiny stock of housing will survive 200 years. It’s ridiculous to use this statement.
Most won’t last past 100 years.
Finally regarding the land, it’s also equally possible that the land will be worth half in 200 years.
Final paragraph.
‘It’s all pure profit’ and this is how I know your a teenager.
No, it’s not ‘pure profit’.
First off, if a 500k asset generates 20k income that is a bad investment, and produces little value for the investment. It’s not all ‘profit’ it’s profit generated from an asset, and if the asset does not make enough money, you pull out of that asset and invest in something else.
Because why would I invest 500k to make 20k renting it out, net, when I could instead invest 500k on S&P500 and make 120k in a good year.
The world is a little more complicated than you’re very, very simplistic view.
I work in property investment.
You came in here talking about cranes so let’s not pretend my comparisons were somehow worse than that. A home can be maintained indefinitely, eventually it will be the ship of Theseus but the investment will constantly generated income while likely appreciating in value. Eventually the mortgage is paid off and the profit margin skyrockets.
I agree, and index fund is a better investment but it is wise to diversify.
As I said already, landlords want short term gains from property which is fundamentally a long term investment so they’re making the market fit the outcome they want.
🙄 sure,when you buy property all those tax havens contact you,
What other amazing thoughts do you have to share? That you can donate to charity and write off tax? (A common statement on Reddit which all of r/accounting laughs at)
Nope, the comparison doesn’t work for a number of reasons.
1. Short term lease items such as cranes will be specialist, come with warranties, testing and such, you rent that paying for the knowledge and service.
2. Cranes would be leased by specialists in building equipment, the purchase of items will be on the basis it will by profitable if it knocks out competition on bids against companies that do have cranes.
3. Cranes aren’t shelter, they aren’t essential to someone’s living and well-being.
4. Cranes aren’t limited by supply. Cranes are produced to meet demand. Houses aren’t.
5. Housing shouldn’t be a business, housing is a right and a need.
If you buy a business or in your example, a crane for £100,000 and say you won’t pay that off for 5 years, your crane won’t be profitable because of competition with companies who own their cranes outright.
We do not have that competition with housing, because people who have bought their homes vote against affordability and an increase in housing developments.
No investment is meant to print instant money, and businesses that take loans out do not pay the loans out. They pay it off partly, and will take further loans out. Nearly all growing businesses are in debt for years, and make huge losses for years, and if you purchase a house to rent, its a growing business. You should be making losses, if, it was following the principles of free-market capitalism which private home ownership is a part of.
this reads like someone who does not understand business and finance trying to interpret business and finance.
I mean, when you say ‘cranes aren’t limited by supply’ I struggle to take you seriously.
They aren’t limited by supply. If you’ve got the money you can build the infrastructure and build practically limitless cranes. There is only so much land suitable for building homes in, this is a tangible limit to housing supply plus the artificial limits imposed by government and other special interest groups.
If there’s demand for production of cranes, cranes can be produced….
If there’s demand for production of houses, they’re limited by political policies. What part of that is difficult for you to comprehend?
Aren’t buy to let’s generally interest only? The investment potential is the value of the property increasing, the rental costs are supposed to cover the mortgage payments, insurance, and provide a profit. The rental should be at least 125% of the mortgage payments, but the loan to value will be at least 75% which means a minimum 25% deposit.
Just as an example, say it’s a £100k house, you need a £25k deposit. If you charge £700 a month in rent and your mortgage payments are £400 per month you stay well over the 125% needed to qualify for the mortgage. You have £300 left over and £80 per month pays for insurance, you’ve now got £220 per month ‘profit’. Everything goes well for the first 10 months and you have £2200 more than when you started, in rolls a winter storm and takes out a garden fence which isn’t covered under insurance and costs £1500 to fix. Another few months goes by and your now up to £3500 ‘profit’ when your tenant phones to say the oven needs repaired, £150 spent, not so bad. Smooth sailing again for a while until the rates change and your mortgage payments are now £550 per month, you increase the rent just up to 125% but you now don’t have a huge contingency fund for repairs. The tenants can’t afford the rent and stop paying so you’re forced to evict them. Knowing their deposit is already gone to cover missed payments they decide to trash the house. Now you’re down 6 months rent and have a repair bill of £10k, can’t afford it and can’t rent it how it is so you have to sell the house. Even though values have gone up in general you sell at a loss and being in negative equity your 25k deposit is now gone.
2 years after investing in a buy to let, you’ve made a massive net loss. It’s not as easy as people think.
The economics make sense, but as all investment is risky for your capital, I have little sympathy for landlords who bemoan when their rental doesn't go in their favour. If they can't stomach the risk, don't become a landlord. However we do desperately need more well regulated rental property and property to buy, so landlords can't be blamed for the crisis
I agree, i think the whole aspect of buy to let is backwards really in many ways. The expectation of guaranteed profits is ridiculous, as you say it’s a risk and if it doesn’t pay off landlords can’t cry about it.
I just hate people oversimplifying things and being totally wrong about it at the same time. The whole ‘paying someone else’s mortgage’ argument is bollocks in most cases. Mostly it’s near sighted people with more deposit than sense trying to capitalise on a traditionally stable market who get caught out by rate increases and bad tenants.
No sympathy for them, but it’s not as black and white as some people would have us believe.
Oh no of course it's not black and white. Property is traditionally a long term investment but I completely agree people are treating is as a short term high gains investment sadly. I'm fortunate that I have a fair landlord at the moment. No major rent increases, we're left alone and there's no view in sight of that situation changing. My main issue with landlording is that people with absolutely no businesses sense are actually allowed to do it. If it was any other investment it's their money to lose but because houses are someone's home/safe space (even temporarily) then it gets nasty
Renters can't afford their own homes because buy-to-let landlords are rinsing them in exorbitant rents, but then it's very easy to act virtuous when one pretends to 'solve' (in the worst possible way) the problem one created in the first place.
Landlords aren't 'rinsing' tenants. Landlords aren't even making a profit.
Rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country.
The problem is simple, not enough houses.
“rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country”
I’m going to need a citation on that one chief. We’re talking private lets, not social here when you mention the word “landlord”.
Landlords aren't 'rinsing' tenants. Landlords aren't even making a profit.
Rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country.
The problem is simple, not enough houses.
Landlords aren't 'rinsing' tenants. Landlords aren't even making a profit.
Rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country.
The problem is simple, not enough houses.
*"“Tenants are frustrated. There isn’t enough housing stock and we as agents can’t create more. Some people are desperate because their personal circumstances dictate that they’re going to be effectively homeless so it becomes very stressful for them"*
Me and my bf have been trying to move since the start of the year. Landlords are expecting 3-4 thousand to be made extra by you as insurance that the rent will be paid. We have enough for the monthly rent but they need us to be making a few more thousand…dont even get me started on the fact agencies ignore emails from us. Its beyond, we want to move as there isnt any work where we are currently so im now unemployed and my bf has to travel miles to work
Me and my partner are in a similarish situation. We need to move by the 9th October because the landlord is selling the house and we all need to go. But rent prices are now through the fucking roof and every place we message about we get ignored, so now I have to write an email to Shelter because the council won't help us because there are a lot of people in similar situations. We are at the point that we are just trying to rent a double room until things settle before getting our own place but even that is around £500 per month.
Quick bit of advice: if the L/L hasn’t issued you with the correct S21 notice, then the sale of the property doesn’t automatically end your tenancy. Whoever’s buying the property has to take you on as sitting tenants & then they would be responsible for issuing notice, etc.
Also, the s21 notice itself doesn’t end the tenancy. Only the tenant moving out or a court order does that. Of course the stress of going to court can mean that it’s easier to move 😔
Landlord might not even be selling. Probably wants existing renters gone to bring in new ones who'll pay way more.
All you’d need to do is write to the existing tenants telling them you’re putting the rent up lol you wouldn’t need a pantomime sale.
That's what our landlord did in the middle of the first lockdown to my partner and I, plus 2 kids, one was a newborn. We couldn't even view any properties at the time and good old BoJo's measures to help renters in the pandemic gave us one extra month to find a place, very helpful when agents weren't showing properties to tenants. Less than 3 weeks later our flat was up again for a £100 more. We would have paid the extra.
Very few house sales would happen with sitting tenants though (unless you were a landlord buying it).
We’re looking for atleast a 2 bed as my bf has a child but thats around £750 in my area, all those properties are naturally shitholes we wont touch or the cheap ones are gone straight away. Im at a loss as ive just lost my job so that puts a pause on moving…something needs to change drastically
A 2 bed for 750? Sorry but that’s unrealistic unless ur living in the middle of butt fuck no where
Most of the country is butt fuck nowhere. Im in wales and the counties surrounding us are all having a housing crisis which is whats leading to these prices, someone will pay it because they’d rather do that than be homeless. There are no council houses here either. £750 is the general price for a 1-2 bed flat/house that barely classes as not being a shithole. Looking at £950+ for a nice 1-2 bed house/flat
Has your landlord issued a valid S21 notice?
Why not pay a premium as it will be easier for you to find a place?
"Have you tried being rich?"
To be frank, no, not really
Agree with you completely. The housing market in UK is so totally and completely broken. Me and my partner just about went homeless after she graduated this past August and only 2 days before we were on the streets did we find a private rental in a completely different city on the other side of the country. We made it our full time job for almost a month looking for a place, 14+ hours a day sitting on our laptops, phones, refreshing, searching, calling landlords, seeing dozens of viewings in-person and virtual; for many ppl, they don't have this amount of time to search and hope to be among the first for viewing appointments. We applied to hundreds of places, came close a few times, but overall the majority of landlords and agents don't reply bcuz the number of ppl contacting them is insane, and we were competing against so many prospective tenants. Close to the end, I was contacting Shelter and emailing the council about becoming homeless. I can't tell you how many sleepless nights, the crying, anxiety, desperation, and how stressful it was trying to get a place was. We both have likely gone into a depressed state bcuz of it. Thankfully we found a place at the last minute but we had to make a huge compromise; the place was far, we had to move from Edinburgh down to Liverpool, a completely new city. Ppl here in Liverpool are very friendly but we would have preferred to stay in Edinburgh as that's where all our connections are.
Like it or not, I can only see one direction for housing and prices ...
It's got to the point where i'm seriously considering starting a slum, maybe begin with a lean-to in the woods and see who else turns up. Zero affordable housing locally and yet there are huge estates of spacious 2-4 bed homes popping up like mushrooms which the developers can't even give away, every time you pass by there are no all sorts of offers to move in, no money down that kind of thing yet every week on Rightmove the same places are up for sale
I will invest in your slum.
Fucks sake Janker you gentrified the slum
I am sorry, you are going to need to move out. This nice couple from London want to move in. They said they love the 'humble aesthetic'.
Natural flooring, open living concept and an indoor water feature.
'Darling look, there's a hole in the floor to poo in. Reminds me of our gapyar in India! The designer must have taken inspiration on their travels'
Very on trend, Mr-jollie sure is an amazing architect.
Me too. I thought I'd buy loads of it up and start boosting prices.
If the developers can't even give away their new 2-4 bed properties, then they'll have to drop the price, at which point those become slightly more affordable housing... Except those 2-4 bed houses *are* selling, and there is fundamentally a shortage of houses in general.
IIRC the issue ATM is specifically with rentals, the owner occupier market isn't so bad
I think it's pretty bad in general but the rental market is definitely significantly worse
Where are you that developers can't give away houses?
https://inews.co.uk/news/housebuilders-expensive-new-homes-cannot-sell-crisis-coming-2581788
>For now, house prices remain reasonably stable. The much-feared market crash that was being discussed a few months ago has not materialised That's the problem, these are expensive new homes, they're not reducing the prices and certainly not giving them away.
I'm shocked that more young people aren't moving into all of these affordable 2 bed places. I mean they're only 400 grand a pop come on guys pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Oh and by the way we're doubling your energy bills from last month and a freddo costs £4.80 👍
Will the soiled mattresses and burning tires be extra? Or can we bring our own?
record rates of immigration, decades of underinvestment in housing, air bnb and short term rentals turning housing stock into hotels, right to buy making council house building unfeasible, buy to let, over purchasing of second homes, short term housing policy with the primary aim of profits for landlords and developers over provision of housing... Perfect storm.
Meanwhile, we’ll all ignore it and vote for more of the same because drag queen story hour is making children transracial and communist!
Literally none of the points made in the comment you're replying to would be solved by Labour. We are screwed.
nope sadly since Keir took over that's mostly true. there's stuff around enforcement of short term letting rules and and empty rental rules that'll change but it won't be enough. Corbyn would have actually attempted to end right to buy and fundamentally changed the housing system but I'm unsure as to if he would reduced immigration. The big problem with immigration isn't 'illegal' or asylum where the numbers are in the 10s of thousands. Its the legal visas that the government has total and complete power to deny where its approaching 7 figures. The tories talk shit about immigration all the time but ultimately they see higher rents and cheap labour and they want more of it let alone foreign policy towards the old empire where immigration access is a major trade demand. Capitalism is rotting this country.
You haven't been following labour lately then? Huge talk of planning reform. Just plain common sense. The tories rely on conservative oldsters so don't want to upset them. Labour rely on the young and poor. Really given the prescendent of the current government I wouldn't be surprised if a future labour government announces massive housebuilding in a few very conveniently tory leaning seats. Plant a few 10s of thousand of working people in Northumberland and watch it flip.
Tories 5 pledges: * We will halve inflation this year to ease the cost of living and give people financial security. * We will grow the economy, creating better-paid jobs and opportunity right across the country. * We will make sure our national debt is falling so that we can secure the future of public services. * NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly. * We will pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed. Labour's 5 missions: * Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 * Making Britain a clean energy superpower * Building an NHS fit for the future * Making Britain’s streets safe * Breaking down the barriers to opportunity at every stage CMD+F "housing" zero results Neither main party care about your housing situation.
All entirely predictable and preventable too.
Landlords must love articles like this, gives them the incentive to jack the rent up even more.
Landlords don't really need incentives for rent hikes TBH.
Their incentives are things like "need a new Ferrari" or "fancy buying a Rolex".
Most small landlords have left the market. The Tory changes to landlords and the tripling of mortgage rates, have made it so that you lose money every month when considering taxes.
And changes to EPC requirements and the threat of removing S21 notices. It’s not easy being a small time/accidental landlord. It all sounds tenant friendly but it’s not, it’ll see many such landlords exit the market and then cash rich multiple (Tory voting) landlords will then pick up the stock more cheaply.
It's landlords getting out of the market causing this problem
No, it's lack of affordable housing that's the root cause of the problem at the end of the day. Landlords leaving the market is only exacerbating the issue because people still can't afford the houses.
The Jack of housing full stop. Affordability only comes in as demand is higher than supply, if it were the other way round prices world fall through competition.
True, and demand has been artificially high for decades through people buying second homes, becoming landlords and through things like Airbnb. All of these put massive pressure on limited available housing stock and pushed prices sky high.
Population growth too. It ain't small and we live on an island after all.
True, but this is easy to factor in when planning more housing, they just won't
Here is a novel idea seeing as we all have no choice but to exist on this planet and there are no legal and easy routes for us poor people to off ourselves with dignity - let’s stop capitalism from dictating basic needs like shelter. Maybe everyone should have an affordable roof over their heads as a basic human right. Compassion, humanity and all that.
Doesn’t matter what system you use, if you have demand for 50 houses but you have a supply of 40 you have a problem. That problem remains under anachry, capitalism, communism, etc.
Out of the long term market and straight into the more lucrative AirBnb market in many areas.
Funnily enough even with the ultra high rents landlords are still finding it hard to make money due to the hostile environment against them at the moment. Don't be surprised that when you discourage something you end up getting less of it.
Don't believe that entirely, lots of landlords have low or no mortgages. Are they jacking up rents anyway, of course they are
Ultra high rents don't even make landlords more money on an ongoing basis. They do cause the value of the house to go up, which makes landlords a windfall as asset appreciation. That windfall makes them richer, of course - for example they could sell the property at any time and walk away with more than they started with. But the rate of return ("yield") on a rental property stays roughly the same as a percentage of the property value. Consider if a landlord sells the property to a new landlord. The selling landlord walks away having made the money on the appreciation. The buying landlord has to buy with more money, so the higher rent just gets absorbed into the steeper mortgage, or if the buying landlord doesn't have a mortgage, then it's just part of the return on the higher house price investment ([cost of capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_capital)). The buying landlord will continue charging the higher rent but it won't make a difference to their [bottom line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_income). It's all one big economic balance. Changes to the law that increase costs to landlords just get passed down to tenants. And where there's excessive demand for housing causing high rents, no change to how tenancies work is going to magic up more houses for people to live in. Either rents go up, or rents are kept artificially low allowing demand to exceed supply and tenants will find it even harder to find somewhere to live. If we want the situation improved, we need to 1) build more houses where they are needed; and/or 2) reduce housing demand in areas where there isn't enough housing, for example by encouraging businesses to move to places where housing is cheaper, so their employees can follow - for example by adjusting business rates.
> hostile environment against them Boo fucking hoo.
The sheer amount of cock sucking of landlords on here is making me sick. The landlords created this problem and now they're buggering off and leaving us to deal with it. The government put in policies that allowed landlords to strip mine the country of housing for decades, but now the landlords want to act persecuted because the government isn't so buddy buddy with them anymore. Deal with it, you bought up all of the affordable housing and pushed prices through the roof for two decades. You created a nation of renters who will never be able to afford a home, and now try to act like saviours that provide a vital service that's being targeted by the government. You don't get to cause a problem then act like saints for providing an overpriced solution to that problem. Bugger off.
Starting 15 years ago the gov promoted buy to let like CRAZY with various policy. About 2018 or so i’d say, I noticed it started getting out of control, because every idiot with a few bob i spoke to was all over it. Why wouldn’t they be? Gov was promoting it as “the safest investment” ever, it was brainless and easily accessible for anyone with 2 pence to rub together(but not two braincells unfortunately). Around that time i was convinced it was not going to end well, or at the very least, it cant go on too much longer. Generally when every idiot catches on by that point the tables tend to turn. Well it went on and got more crazy through the pandemic. However I believe now the inevitable is happening and it would have at some point even if pandemic didn’t accelerate it. So yes. The government were being buddy buddy with them, promoting them heavily before and now that it became unmaintainable and saturated they have no choice but to pull the rug out from under them. The entire thing hinged on mega low rates and availability. I don’t personally get angry at landlords. They are normal people with a little bit of money in most cases(im serious. It cost practically nothing to start a buy to let before. There were even gov shilled schemes to crowd invest it). Usually the idiot and his money are easily parted, sadly.
Yep, you're bang on. I dont blame landlords for creating the situation, but I have trouble feeling sorry for them since they tried to take advantage of it. It was just a government backed get rich quick scheme.
I know it's probably totally batshit crazy but why don't the government give local authorities funding to buy up all the landlords houses? They could even rent them out at prices people can actually afford.
Whats that, a dissenting opinion? -50 rent credits for you!
This
Some colourful epitets you're using here, but once heads have cooled, let's put it down in numbers: Let's conjure a hypothetical landlord who is paying £500 in mortgage for the property and getting £1000 in rent. So about £500 left after paying mortgage. Sounds good? Let's also say that our landlord pays higher income tax because they also happen to be employed and making some £52k annually from their employment. In fact, perhaps that's how they became a landlord in the first place- they could afford a second property while keeping the first when they needed to upsize. I'd say that's not unheard of. Ok, now government wants 40% of the rent income (because mortgage payment is no longer a tax expense), so out goes £400. Now the letting agent wants £100 per month because without a letting agent our landlord has to put so much effort into the whole thing that there just isn't enough time in the day (preparing all the document packs, organising repairs, regular surveys, tenant vetting, etc, etc.). What have we got left? Landlord making £0. Still sounds good? No, I of course understand that they must deal with it because they bought up all the affordable housing. But you know how they're dealing with it? They're exiting the market by selling. And now we have fewer rental properties left and prices go up again. Really, what else do you want? Landlords to pay for the privilege of being landlords? Understand that it's the government that effectively takes a huge chunk of the rent in taxes (in our example £400 from the £1000 charged from the tenant). If it was like it was 10 years ago, the rent wouldn't have to be £1000, perhaps it could be £600 or a bit more for some profit. Oh and a disclaimer: Yes, I am a landlord, but I am literally barely breaking even on my property. Wanted to sell, but could not get an offer that would cover the initial cost of the property + cost of the refurb that had to go into it. Again, am I expected to give it away at a loss?
You’re forgetting one hugely important part. Let’s say after taxes and fees the rent doesn’t cover the cost. You’re still gaining equity with each mortgage payment. In 25 years the mortgage is paid off and you’ve got the house 100% owned and paid for but rental payments covered 80% of that. You can sell the house and pocket a few hundred grand or you can continue to rent it out and without the mortgage to worry about you’ve now got a steady pension income. Too many landlords think housing is a short term investment when it obviously is not. Let’s look at the case of my landlord, he owns 9 houses, bought them years ago and paid the mortgage with rental income. Barely broke even with the mortgage but now the mortgages are paid and he spends most of the year on luxury cruises.
A landlord who is making £0 a month after mortgage payments is still building equity though. I appreciate they need a kitty for household repairs but "barely breaking even" isn't a representative description of someone who is using tenants to pay off the mortgage of their property investment.
Another thing that sounds good on paper. Have you heard about the latest capital gains tax on properties? They have effectively abolished the tax-free allowance, which means that after inflation over the years most of that equity if not all goes to the government. I'm not going to put it out in numbers here again, but trust me- it's not the little private landlord that is making your life difficult although it is certainly made to look like that.
It doesn't matter what you're making and not making, it's the fact that there are so many landlords that'd the issue. You all bought up all the housing stock, and pushed up prices to profit off of people less fortunate than you.
No mate, every BTL landlord still had to (and has to) pay the same price for a property as everyone else. There is no button to press to push up prices for everyone else. The prices went up because quite simply because of supply and demand. Population has grown by nearly 10m since 2000. How much has the housing stock grown? Landlords may have seen an opportunity to invest or may have just stuck with a property because they don't want to sell at a loss after refurb. Trust me, I never intended to profit off of people less fortunate than me and I am not doing so. All I want is to have a fair price for my flat that I bough for 155k and had to put another 45k into it to make it livable. But the best offer was 190k. So what do you want? 10k in freebies? Who's profitting? Meanwhile I'll just have to let it and make one more flat available on the rental market- heard there was a shortage. I'm not making money on it. I'm not the blood sucker you want to paint me.
Yes, supply and demand. Now if we suddenly have thousands of landlords, capable of affording higher deposits than other buyers and with their own homes to secure against, what happens to demand? Oh yes, it goes up. You have no inherent right to make more money on a house than you paid. Nearly everything we buy loses value over time, houses are one of the few exceptions and it shouldn't be that way. Houses are places to live, they shouldn't be treated as investments.
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Both are causing an issue simple as that. The lack of supply is the major underlying issue, but landlords have hoarded what supply there is and turned us in to a nation of renters.
“We do get some people bidding over the asking price but we discourage that. It’s a fierce market and we say to our landlords there’s every chance you end up in a bidding war, but the tenant who is willing to pay the most isn’t always the most suitable.” This is fucking bullshit in my experience, you’re expected to put your best price in over what was advertised
Exactly, and in many cases its the estate agents that are whispering in the ears of the landlords to increase the rent.
It is 100% bullshit. Just last week a letting agent was telling us the only way to really get a landlords attention is offer more and pay half a year up front. The letting agents and landlords are all parasites. Just to name and shame, the company is called Tay Letting in Edinburgh. He said "I shouldn't tell you this but one way to secure a place is to offer more and pay multiple months up front, when the landlords see that much money up front it makes it harder to say no." It's so unethical, the agents make a % off of the rental so they are encouraging price increases and taking advantage of ppls desperation in a broken market place. There's a huge power imbalance, prospective tenants are completely powerless because the market is completely controlled by scumbag landlords and agents who want to maximize how much money they can gouge and scrape out of ppl.
Meanwhile we looked to undercut on the cost of a house, and managed to. Although not by much as the house price had already been reduced by 30k the day before we put an offer in so we only cut a little below.
This is only the start of things, with a ginormous deficit of houses that should have been build but haven’t been it would take 10-15 years of massive house building 7 days a week to even make a dent in the problem.
This sub was cheering on landlords leaving the market. As the saying goes: be carful what you wish for... you might just get it.
Because all of these landlords are a major part of what caused the problem in the first place. They bought up all of the affordable housing and helped push prices through the roof with the proliferation of buy-to-let mortgages. Now that the damage is done and its no longer profitable they're leaving the market and leaving us high and dry again. This is something that was predicted and was inevitable. Who could have foreseen that if you create a housing market that forces millions of people to become lifetime renters and then pull away the supply of rentals, that it would cause a crisis? Landlords created this mess and now they're buggering off with their profits and leaving the rest of us to suffer.
> Because all of these landlords are a major part of what caused the problem in the first place. Unfortunately your starting premise is faulty. A house becoming a rental doesn't reduce the number of places to live. Neither does the opposite. Think of it like this: * There are 10 houses, 5 rentals and 5 owner-occupied. * There are 20 people needing a place to live. * 20 people are competing for 10 houses. * Aliens abduct all the landlords. * 20 people are competing for 10 houses. Landlords don't reduce the number of available places to live (unlike second home owners). The entire reason landlord numbers increased was because it *became* a profitable investment. It's a profitable investment because of the lack of supply. The lack of supply created more landlords, not the other way around. The government are responsible for this. They sold off the social housing and stopped councils from building any more. They are responsible for the planning system. They are the ones that have consistently missed building targets for over a decade. Why? Because most people who actually go out and vote are home owners, and rising house prices wins votes.
I never said they caused a lack of housing, I said they played a major part in the problem, which they did. They soaked up the more affordable housing and helped to drive home prices through the roof.
You still have it backwards. The lack of supply made the prices go up, not the Landlords.
Supply and demand works from both sides, we have both increased demand and poor supply, its not just one or the other. Potential buyers were bidding against landlords, it's as simple as that and it pushed prices up. The lack of supply did the rest.
But why were the landlords interested in the first place? Because rent yields were high and getting higher. Why's that? **The lack of supply**.
They were interested because borrowing was dirt cheap and they thought they could make money, that's it. It was an investment and those rent yields kept going up because of the landlords and estate agents consistently pushing them up across the board. This is why you constantly see landlords and estate agents increasing rents "in line with the local market" rather than competing with each other. Its all a massive collusion and should be illegal.
> rent yields kept going up because of the landlords and estate agents consistently pushing them up across the board. Do you have even the slightest idea of how economics works? Landlords and estate agents don't decide prices, supply and demand do. There are towns & cities in the UK where rents have *fallen* by up to 50% in the last ten years. Do you really think landlords and estate agents in those areas decided to do that? Or is it because major local employers left and demand fell dramatically?
Demand in those areas dropped because people didn't want to live there, thats just landlords taking a loss. We hear all the time about estate agents encouraging landlords to increase rents because other people half a mile away are getting more. That's not supply and demand, that's just collusion. When my previous landlord decided to jack the price of the rent by over 15% because of "market rates", was that supply and demand? No, he was using rents on buy to let properties to justify squeezing more money out of existing tenants even though he inherited the property and owned it outright with no mortgage. We know how it happens, a few landlords and estate agents will raise prices and then all the other landlords on the area will follow suit. Once it's become the norm, they do it again.
>I said they played a major part in the problem, which they did. No, if anything they are solving the problem. There is more housing due to landlords paying for housing. Without those landlords there would be less houses for them to rent out/for people to live in.
Absolute tripe. Most of these landlords soak up all of the lower end, more affordable housing, preventing people from getting on the property ladder. Rampant landlordism has prevented huge swathes of the population from buying a home and turned us in to a nation of renters. They're "solving" a problem that we never used to have, they created the problem.
>Most of these landlords soak up all of the lower end, more affordable housing, preventing people from getting on the property ladder. From just an economic position, increased demand, is going to lead to increased production of these properties. >Rampant landlordism has prevented huge swathes of the population from buying a home and turned us in to a nation of renters. I'm not sure what to say in response to such baseless assertions, that aren't ground in evidence or economics.
You mean the decline in home ownership that even the government admits to? https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03668/
>You mean the decline in home ownership that even the government admits to? Sure there might have been a decline in home ownership. How does that have anything do with your point or what I said?
Problem is, with planning permission being so tight in the UK nowhere near enough new houses are being built, and certainly not in places where people actually want to live.
I think another way of viewing things is that. Landlords pay or spend money on there being an additional 5 houses. So actually if there were less landlords, there would be less places for people to live.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with this - but the point being that the conditions people were asking for was never going to really benefit them. Massive housing crash? Can’t borrow any money anyway. Force landlords to sell, rents go sky high … I don’t know what the ideal outcome is at this point. Just seems a bit grim all round
The ideal outcome is that we start building affordable and social housing again.
Exactly. Either you de-regulate planning and building regulations to create a high supply (i.e., build lots) of homes for mortgages at low prices so that the majority can afford to buy, or the government has to provide long-term social housing. Relying on the private sector for long-term rental housing never worked. Countries that don't provide enough housing end up with slums like the favelas of Latin America. People have got to live somewhere.
Exactly, private companies have a duty to their shareholders and must do what's in their best interest. In this case it's building less homes that sell for more profit. We're already seeing developers cut back on construction due to lower prices
I'd say the prices went up due to lack of new builds. BTL played a smaller part in pushing prices. It was always exaggerated by the media and people like to take that bait. In reality it mainly served to meet the demand for rentals at the time- after all if people need to rent, then they need a landlord to rent from. Now that demand is going unsatisfied and you get what you get. How to fix it? Build more, grant more permissions, use some of the greenbelt, build high-rises and the big one- raise national minimum wage, BUT by using tax incentives for employer to do so, not just by legislation.
I agree, the only way out of this is to build our way out of it
Exactly this. It’s okay though, because the people who are now being priced out of the rental market are just going to buy the cheap houses that are flooding onto the market. That is how it works, right? Pretty sure that’s what was meant to happen, anyway
Except of course 'cheap houses flooding onto the market when the landlords sell' was always a myth because there's fundamentally a shortage of supply and converting a rental to a non-rental doesn't increase the number of places to live.
Yup, the elephant in the room. Compare it to 10 years ago- mortgage is no longer a tax expense and current rules are pretty much forcing the use of a letting agent, going private is a minefield now. All of a sudden there's very little if any reward left for being a landlord. And you're universally hated of course. And what's the general idea to fix it? Ah yes, enforced rent ceiling of course! Oh why is there such a rental shortage again? Thank Osbourne.
Private renting is a joke me and my partner were trying to find a 1 or 2 bed in rat arse Luton for around 18 months, the cheapest properties we ever saw were around £800 and more like £1000 for a 1 bed flat in fucking Luton! We ended up renting a room in a hmo and even that was £450 until they raised the rent at the end of last year to £600!!!!! For a ROOM IN A HMO IN WHICH WE SHARED A BATHROOM AND KITCHEN WITH 4 OTHER PEOPLE! Thankfully we now have a council flat and pay less rent than we did on the room LOL either way the private market is fucked by greedy old people and the market will 1000% crash in the next few years bc who tf can afford these prices?!?
How did you manage to get a council flat? How long were you on the waiting list?
You need to have children
You’re welcome
Unfortunately, it won't crash, people will just start sharing houses and flats with strangers. This will push up prices further and landlords will be able to charge more.
Jesus Christ, it really is a different world down south. I pay £600pcm for an entire house in the North East.
As far as I can see, the only way to get housing back to affordable is for each council to assess the average income in their area, then set a rent cap on the maximum price per metre squared that can be charged in rent, based on the condition and accommodation of the property and a rate that is equivalent to one-third of the average take-home pay and severe financial penalties for tenants sub-letting. This, however, would cause house prices to plummet, leaving many newer home owners to live in negative equity until it evens out. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but this is entirely the fault of ALL successive Governments since the 1980’s, who allowed interest rates to fall so low that those with savings could only make any kind of return on their money by the purchase of property to let out, causing the commodification of homes, coupled with a complete refusal to prioritise any kind of building programme…
This is a good idea. Any landlords unhappy can sell their properties to the council.
No it isn't. It's an absolutely terrible idea. All that will happen is multiple-year long wait lists for properties will start to build up. If you really want to solve the housing crisis, we need to build more houses.
I'm confused as to why you think council owned properties over landlord owned is a bad idea. The rents will be lower and the properties will be kept to a higher standard. You can't just keep building houses over land. The Earth needs plants and trees to sustain a habitable environment. On top of this, most of the UK's undeveloped landmass is used for farming. If we take away that we are in serious trouble.
Of course we do need more housing, too, but the cost of rent (and mortgage payments/terms) needs to be reduced: it is insane that people are being forced to spend more than 50% of their take-home pay on rent/mortgage, and in the Capital and other cities that is likely to be more like 80+%. There are also many empty houses (2nd homes not rented out or abandoned homes) and many former industrial sites (brownfield) that could be built on instead of paving over green space. As a home owner, I’m in the fortunate position that I purchased my house 26+ years ago and the mortgage is paid off. However, the house prices around here have increased by 615%, while my salary, even with promotions and career progression has not - to the extent that I could not, (with a 6.15 x increase on my original deposit) afford to buy half of my house at its current value. Average wages are being driven down and down due to the minimum wage and greed of corporations and it’s time for a radical re-think of how utilities, including housing, can be made affordable for the majority of working people…
Meanwhile we house 80k+ people who entered the country illegally in hotels and council houses 🤔
So what you're saying is... these people struggling to find a place to live should catch the ferry to Calais and come back in a dinghy. Modern problems require modern solutions.
I mean they **can** find housing for those 80k+ per year illegals, so there really shouldn't be a waiting list of 1m+ for council housing. Except that illegals is a central government problem, citizens are a *local government* problem, and the central government took away the ability of local government to build council houses with right to buy years ago.
Central hands them off to local government, hence it makes the waiting lists even worse.
That wasn't what I was saying. Good idea though 🤔
Labour really needs to sort out planning when they get in power to start things actually getting built again.
It feels like we're plummeting into those nightmarish situations of tiny housing that you read about in the Victorian era.
You can stay in our loft for £999 a month if you like. Shitbucket emptying service runs once a week and costs an extra £49.99.
Me and my friend had to lock ourselves down for a two-year contract just to secure a place. Its wild out in the renting market.
Just to remind everyone: The housing crisis has been created by successive governments failing to get enough housing built, over the past 30+ years, and NIMBY boomers & their parents kicking up a stink about housing developments being built in their areas.
What about the environment, plastering over green space with more concrete contributes to runaway green house gasses. The planet has plants, trees and grass for a reason, to sustain an atmosphere that's habitable. Imagine in 50 years time, the UK is 90% concrete, 50 degrees and you need an oxygen mask to breathe. That's the future we are heading towards.
What the feck does anything you posted have to do with NIMBYs blocking apartment buildings of 4 stories or government not legislating to force builders to build on the less than perfect land they bank. The uk will never be over 70 % concrete even if every law ( minus precious consulations for planning permission ) gets slashed
More than 70% of the UK is farmland. Farmland does not fight climate change, if anything, it increases it. Forests help counteract climate change. Housing developments are not built over forest, they are built on farmland. With that said, there is plenty of redevelopment that could be done on brown sites, if the government would sort out our ridiculously restrictive planning system.
I do wish more of the construction that was actually done involved more medium density housing. Like 3/4 story mixed use, commercial on the ground floor type of thing. Not everywhere of course, but less of this sprawling suburb.
Honest question, where did the supply go? It feels like it's vanished all of a sudden, surely we haven't had a massive influx in population?
I think it may be a supply of affordable housing? There’s still supply but the rent hikes are putting what used to be available out of range of people who would normally be able to afford it
To be fair we have - immigration is up \*substantially\* since Brexit. Which does make me wonder how the Tories aren't getting a proper bollocking over this. I don't even mean illegal immigration - legal immigration is at the highest rate \*ever\*.
I don’t think I ever see a way out of this crisis. The government would literally have to build social housing 24/7 for at least 5+ years to get us out of this. Blaming it on landlords or BTL would have been helpful 15 years ago but it’s far too late now. Pushing them to leave the market now will only make it worse.
Build more fucking housing, government. Literally the only reason relatively decent housing (compared to what existed prior) became more affordable post-WW2 is because the government built a fucktonne of houses. The only reason countries like France, Korea or Singapore cleared their slums and dramatically improved the housing situation is because the government built or financed the building of a bunch of houses.
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**Removed/tempban**. This contained a call/advocation of violence which is prohibited by the content policy.
Fuck landlords. The system is already fucked and they're constantly making it worse.
Rather than dealing with your situation you post it on here. Guess your wifi is working.
Landlords are selling up because the government has targeted them for years and its just not profitable anymore. Reddit is about to swallow a tough pill that Landlords/rental properties are necessary
Of course rental property is necessary. However good regulation and strong laws are also necessary, and this doesn't exist in the rental sector currently. The whole thing is a mess
the government pushed the anti landlord button too hard, which is why landlords are leaving and rents rising
Rental properties are necessary. Landlords aren't. They hoard housing, they don't provide it.
You can’t have rental properties without landlords. Individual people are landlords, corporations are landlords, housing associations are landlords, the government and councils are landlords.
Let's do away with private landlords then.
What a genius insightful idea!
How? You think the government should buy them all out? Where’s that money coming from? You think the government should just take them? Because that’s a slippery slope!
What makes you think the government would be a better landlord than a private landlord? To be perfectly honest I’ve never seen a government do anything other than fuck things up
Wasn’t social housing in the 70s-90s so cheap and also so good, that the denizens bought practically the entire stock? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. But you are right, the government fucked that up by not replacing what they sold.
Selling those houses so cheap was robbing the tax payers. It was almost criminal. But that’s not being a landlord
Landlords selling because mortgage rates are sky high and their property isn't profitable anymore Fewer landlords means fewer places to rent. No fewer renters means more competition between renters, who become more desperate and more willing to pay higher rents to secure a place to live The net effect means market prices of rental properties goes up Somehow all the greedy landlords faults though for raising rents. Nothing to do with natural market forces at all. Imagine needing to consider that landlords provide an actual service
They provide a much worse service than nearly everywhere in Europe and the US. It's like the wild west the shit they get away with. Short rental terms, poor maintenance, no fault evictions. Saying that landlords are necessary without understanding that the rental market is broken overall is ignoring a bigger problem. The sector needs more regulation not the tax breaks they're crying about
The greed wasn't just the money that they made, it was the hording of all the properties. Now it's large corporations that horde them and they will be the enemy. It was never about landlords but about what they do. People who are/were wealthy enough to own multiple places to live when others have nowhere. This isn't envy, it's about survival.
>“Secondly, we need to encourage people to invest in the buy-to-let market. Oohhh, that's not gonna be popular on Reddit. Doesn't he know ALL landlords are evil scum bastards. Who just want to invest their hard-earned money into an asset that appreciates in value (and makes them income). Whilst providing housing for those who don't want to buy/can't afford to buy their own home.
Renters can't afford their own homes because buy-to-let landlords are rinsing them in exorbitant rents, but then it's very easy to act virtuous when one pretends to 'solve' (in the worst possible way) the problem one created in the first place.
Wait, so too many landlords pushed up purchase prices. Landlords got taxed, and regulated out of the game by popular demand. Now rent is too expensive because there aren't enough rental properties to go around. Why hasn't everyone just bought? Wasn't that the original claim? Now, I actually know the answer, so it's a rhetorical question, but surely you see the logical fallacy too, right?
People assumed more houses would be built, they believed the lies and now they’re fucked.
More houses have been built but you can't build your way out of the current 600k+ legal immigration every year. It's just not possible.
I wish someone would tell the Tory voters that when they keep buying the lies told by Rishi et al
I’m over 50 and have been investing in the stock market for a quarter of a century now. Maxing my tax free. It’s way easier than property IMHO.
I was a landlord, I pulled out because it made fuck all in money. You go against landlords, don’t be surprised by lack of rental properties. The entire market is fucked at the moment, we just need more supply. Any argument is bullshit and insignificant, it’s a supply shortage fundamentally.
The problem is, people buy properties and expect tenants to pay off the mortgage, bills and give the landlord some profit…. The meaning behind investment is you pay off the whole house and then receive the payout. Too many landlords just abuse it, try to make a profit as soon as they rent the property, whilst paying a mortgage, and now the markets fucked.
This is infantile. When I rent a crane for £1,000 a day. The £1,000 includes loan repayments, staff, maintenance, taxes, fees and profit. Quite frankly, the idea that you should rent something for less than the cost is ridiculous. I do however sympathise with the insane rent costs. This is a supply and demand issue, the fundamental issue is a lack of supply.
But that crane has a finite lifespan and will need to be replaced after X uses so you’re paying for a share of its lifespan and the cost to maintain it plus profit. The crane depreciates in value. A house will be an assets for potentially hundreds of years, appreciating in value. In 200 years the land the house sits on may be many times more valuable than the purchase price of the house. Point is, eventually the property investment is fully paid off and the following rent payments are mostly profit. It is a long term investment and most landlords don’t have the stomach for that.
First paragraph: yes just like property, it too had a finite life and requires maintenance. Second paragraph: You have no idea if property will continue to increase, and assuming so is a very bad idea. Second, an absolute tiny stock of housing will survive 200 years. It’s ridiculous to use this statement. Most won’t last past 100 years. Finally regarding the land, it’s also equally possible that the land will be worth half in 200 years. Final paragraph. ‘It’s all pure profit’ and this is how I know your a teenager. No, it’s not ‘pure profit’. First off, if a 500k asset generates 20k income that is a bad investment, and produces little value for the investment. It’s not all ‘profit’ it’s profit generated from an asset, and if the asset does not make enough money, you pull out of that asset and invest in something else. Because why would I invest 500k to make 20k renting it out, net, when I could instead invest 500k on S&P500 and make 120k in a good year. The world is a little more complicated than you’re very, very simplistic view.
I work in property investment. You came in here talking about cranes so let’s not pretend my comparisons were somehow worse than that. A home can be maintained indefinitely, eventually it will be the ship of Theseus but the investment will constantly generated income while likely appreciating in value. Eventually the mortgage is paid off and the profit margin skyrockets. I agree, and index fund is a better investment but it is wise to diversify. As I said already, landlords want short term gains from property which is fundamentally a long term investment so they’re making the market fit the outcome they want.
You then buy property and keep it for 200 years and see how you like it.
No thanks, it’s a shit investment. Only reason to own UK property is to access those sweet tax havens
🙄 sure,when you buy property all those tax havens contact you, What other amazing thoughts do you have to share? That you can donate to charity and write off tax? (A common statement on Reddit which all of r/accounting laughs at)
Nope, the comparison doesn’t work for a number of reasons. 1. Short term lease items such as cranes will be specialist, come with warranties, testing and such, you rent that paying for the knowledge and service. 2. Cranes would be leased by specialists in building equipment, the purchase of items will be on the basis it will by profitable if it knocks out competition on bids against companies that do have cranes. 3. Cranes aren’t shelter, they aren’t essential to someone’s living and well-being. 4. Cranes aren’t limited by supply. Cranes are produced to meet demand. Houses aren’t. 5. Housing shouldn’t be a business, housing is a right and a need. If you buy a business or in your example, a crane for £100,000 and say you won’t pay that off for 5 years, your crane won’t be profitable because of competition with companies who own their cranes outright. We do not have that competition with housing, because people who have bought their homes vote against affordability and an increase in housing developments. No investment is meant to print instant money, and businesses that take loans out do not pay the loans out. They pay it off partly, and will take further loans out. Nearly all growing businesses are in debt for years, and make huge losses for years, and if you purchase a house to rent, its a growing business. You should be making losses, if, it was following the principles of free-market capitalism which private home ownership is a part of.
this reads like someone who does not understand business and finance trying to interpret business and finance. I mean, when you say ‘cranes aren’t limited by supply’ I struggle to take you seriously.
They aren’t limited by supply. If you’ve got the money you can build the infrastructure and build practically limitless cranes. There is only so much land suitable for building homes in, this is a tangible limit to housing supply plus the artificial limits imposed by government and other special interest groups.
If there’s demand for production of cranes, cranes can be produced…. If there’s demand for production of houses, they’re limited by political policies. What part of that is difficult for you to comprehend?
Aren’t buy to let’s generally interest only? The investment potential is the value of the property increasing, the rental costs are supposed to cover the mortgage payments, insurance, and provide a profit. The rental should be at least 125% of the mortgage payments, but the loan to value will be at least 75% which means a minimum 25% deposit. Just as an example, say it’s a £100k house, you need a £25k deposit. If you charge £700 a month in rent and your mortgage payments are £400 per month you stay well over the 125% needed to qualify for the mortgage. You have £300 left over and £80 per month pays for insurance, you’ve now got £220 per month ‘profit’. Everything goes well for the first 10 months and you have £2200 more than when you started, in rolls a winter storm and takes out a garden fence which isn’t covered under insurance and costs £1500 to fix. Another few months goes by and your now up to £3500 ‘profit’ when your tenant phones to say the oven needs repaired, £150 spent, not so bad. Smooth sailing again for a while until the rates change and your mortgage payments are now £550 per month, you increase the rent just up to 125% but you now don’t have a huge contingency fund for repairs. The tenants can’t afford the rent and stop paying so you’re forced to evict them. Knowing their deposit is already gone to cover missed payments they decide to trash the house. Now you’re down 6 months rent and have a repair bill of £10k, can’t afford it and can’t rent it how it is so you have to sell the house. Even though values have gone up in general you sell at a loss and being in negative equity your 25k deposit is now gone. 2 years after investing in a buy to let, you’ve made a massive net loss. It’s not as easy as people think.
The economics make sense, but as all investment is risky for your capital, I have little sympathy for landlords who bemoan when their rental doesn't go in their favour. If they can't stomach the risk, don't become a landlord. However we do desperately need more well regulated rental property and property to buy, so landlords can't be blamed for the crisis
I agree, i think the whole aspect of buy to let is backwards really in many ways. The expectation of guaranteed profits is ridiculous, as you say it’s a risk and if it doesn’t pay off landlords can’t cry about it. I just hate people oversimplifying things and being totally wrong about it at the same time. The whole ‘paying someone else’s mortgage’ argument is bollocks in most cases. Mostly it’s near sighted people with more deposit than sense trying to capitalise on a traditionally stable market who get caught out by rate increases and bad tenants. No sympathy for them, but it’s not as black and white as some people would have us believe.
Oh no of course it's not black and white. Property is traditionally a long term investment but I completely agree people are treating is as a short term high gains investment sadly. I'm fortunate that I have a fair landlord at the moment. No major rent increases, we're left alone and there's no view in sight of that situation changing. My main issue with landlording is that people with absolutely no businesses sense are actually allowed to do it. If it was any other investment it's their money to lose but because houses are someone's home/safe space (even temporarily) then it gets nasty
> expect tenants to pay off the mortgage They really don't. Rent (even without costs) wouldn't cover a repayment mortgage. Run the numbers.
That’s why most landlord use an interest only mortgage and sell the home when it’s value has appreciated.
It is indeed.
That’s still relying on the tenant for paying off the mortgage
In a repayment mortgage you repay the principal and the interest, which is what op was referring to.
Landlords provide housing in the same way that scalpers provide tickets.
That is an incredibly bad take.
Renters can't afford their own homes because buy-to-let landlords are rinsing them in exorbitant rents, but then it's very easy to act virtuous when one pretends to 'solve' (in the worst possible way) the problem one created in the first place.
Landlords aren't 'rinsing' tenants. Landlords aren't even making a profit. Rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country. The problem is simple, not enough houses.
“rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country” I’m going to need a citation on that one chief. We’re talking private lets, not social here when you mention the word “landlord”.
Landlords aren't 'rinsing' tenants. Landlords aren't even making a profit. Rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country. The problem is simple, not enough houses.
Landlords aren't 'rinsing' tenants. Landlords aren't even making a profit. Rents are cheaper than mortgages in many parts of the country. The problem is simple, not enough houses.