To think landlords who own multiple properties are part of the housing crisis?

What am I talking about? It’s all there in my post! Some landlords rent to people who claim housing related benefits (as is their right) and those benefits pay off any outstanding mortgage the landlord has.

Honestly it’s really not rocket science. The transfer of public money into private pockets is, as I say, morally indefensible, particularly when you think about the numbers of former council homes now rented out in the private sector.

Let’s not forget that despite their incredible hard work and terrible treatment, those poor landlords end up with properties bought for them by the taxpayer!

What are you talking about. Landlords buy a house out of their own money.

@ChallahPlaiter - I think you're quoting a figure from the 2021 census? I'm talking about the number in the last 2-3 years since then, which a friend in the know has reported to be close to 1 million. We will never know true facts as things are hidden, but I live in a random suburban northern town nowhere near a city and the sheer number to arrive in my child's school in the last 2 years is telling. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the immigration that has taken place over the last decade. Why do people refuse to accept this is one of the primary factors? A huge proportion of nurses at my local hospital are employed from outside the UK each year. Granted we need nurses, and I'm grateful for them, but each takes up yet another house.

You can't continue to allow mass immigration without creating infrastructure and services to match it. It's not rocket science.

I did presume that labour would be keen to get council housing on the agenda. They were always the party for the people. I'm guessing it's all champagne socialists these days in ivory towers. Utter naivety on my part.

A building program would provide jobs and properties should be based on the good-sized, solid built council housing from the 50s ( not the prefabs) with gardens. 1,2, and 3 bed houses, flats, and bungalows not the stupidly tiny and impractical new builds being thrown up at quarter of a million minimum each round here. .

Does saying ' we have a portfolio' make it somehow better than admitting 'we hoovered up potential own homes for people'?
It's not an art project ffs

Then why didn't Labour do anything about it?

And they're only proposing to tinker with it now

the issue stems form Thatcher selling council houses at a knock down price, this won votes and continued to win votes for 17 years.

If the council stock was still in the hand of local authority, and the building of more council homes had continued as it did without being sold, then people would have reasonable rents for reasonable homes and private renters wouldn't be paying way over the odds to live in a house

take a look at the prices of private rental in Vienna where there is a mass of stock of social housing at decent fair rental prices

Does anyone realise how many have come over just from Hong Kong alone in the last 2 years???

c 140k. This will not have had a significant effect on the housing crisis, which, in any case has been going on a lot longer than the decade you describe.
The problem is definitely not “mass migration”. Any country with a functioning housing system will plan for and manage population fluctuation. The problem, in a nutshell, is that housing has been treated as a money making enterprise with clear winners and losers, and leaving an essential need to the market was never going to be sustainable in the long term.
I doubt you’ll find many people agreeing with your view of landlords as maligned providers of a public service. The amount of money going to them in the form of housing related benefits could pay for so much social housing, a long lasting public asset and ultimately much needed source of income for cash-strapped local authorities. It’s morally obscene that such vast amounts of our money should be funnelled towards a second tier benefits system for the wealthy and better off. Let’s not forget that despite their incredible hard work and terrible treatment, those poor landlords end up with properties bought for them by the taxpayer!

No need to worry mumsnetters...there won't be any landlords left soon. And your children will be living with you until they are able to buy.

Landlords have provided a much needed service. They don't typically make 'millions' as some have remarked. Many aren't rich at all. And now the majority are exiting the market, partly because they've been absolutely vilified for years.

The figures don't stack up to continually berate landlords. The housing crisis can be blamed on mass immigration over the last decade and a government that never plans for the future, only over looking at the next 4 years. Does anyone realise how many have come over just from Hong Kong alone in the last 2 years???

This exactly.

It is also completely wild to me that two people working have to to receive hap to help them pay for a place to live?

Why are we using taxpayer money to make landlords rich and allow places to underpay staff.

I think we are at a point where we need rent controls until supply catches up with demand.

The housing crisis is due to there being too few houses for the population leading to many families living in bedsits, many homeless on the streets and overcrowding. We need a few million more of houses.

It doesn’t matter whether existing housing is owned or rented, it is still housing a family. Pressuring landlords to sell up results in ZERO more houses for families to live in.

I do agree certain landlords and sellers are taking advantage of the housing crisis by charging far too much rent or far too high a sales price. But that is a symptom of the problem of too few houses not the cause of the crisis.

Say a property is for sale at a reasonable price which a first time buyer - couple or family could get enough deposit to buy, the grabbing landlord with multiple properties will offer asking or above asking price without even blinking, taking away another affordable property away. That's the issue. No-one should have loads of houses.

We're selling next year and have determined we will not sell to a landlord.

There is a rising population but the bigger impact is the change in the size / nature of households.
Which I doubt will end soon, if ever.
If policy makers are only ( if at all ) looking at the population numbers they will never provide enough housing.

I’ve also noticed that homeless teams are increasingly trying to find ways to decide they have no duty to families. I work in a service that’s occasionally affected by this and while I completely understand the pressures homelessness services face, it doesn’t help when trying to advise people. The Welsh government massively underestimated the effects that Rent Smart and the ending of no fault evictions would have on supply and subsequently cost of renting privately.

@wastingtimeonhere, great post.

This deserves a thread of its oen though: "Tesco and others makes huge profits but doesn't pay staff properly. Vast numbers require state top up. People should be angry at big companies like tesco doing this."

Same among the teaching assistants at my school, slogging their guts out for MAT peanuts 8.30-16.00 every day, and needing to claim UC top ups. I find it absolutely gross that working full time does not necessarily pay enough to live on in the UK in 2024.

Surely if the students live in those new flats then the houses previously rented to students will become available to non students.
There are loads of flats now built in Canterbury for students which has opened up more properties for others.

The rental market needs proper regulation and capped rents. It should not be possible for landlords to make £££ from the housing benefit element of their tenants' Universal Credit, essentially opportunistically and fleecing the public purse -it's parasitic.

The "but where would people live if there weren't landlords" argument is moot: the properties would still be there, it is just a matter of access and distribution ‐management would need to be reassigned.

I 100% agree with the poster who, on a different thread, suggested that residential property ownership should be tied to occupancy: you can only own a property in which you yourself reside.
The hoarding of residential property for the purposes of profiteering from an inflated and unregulated rental market is gross and, in my eyes, represents a fundamental character flaw.

And whoever said that it is becoming 'impossible' to be a landlord ‐I think that's probably subjective. I've a few school mum acquaintances who have lettings portfolios of 3-9 residential properties who are all laughing all the way to the bank. They maintain the properties well, and pride themselves on being 'good' landlords for letting to tenants (young families) on UC, but make no bones about this meaning rents are secure and can be pushed fairly high.

Housing is a basic right and therefore should not be something individuals can turn a profit from, exploiting the need of others. Better turn property over to housing associations or local authorities for better regulation and responsible rent-capping.