To not believe people who claim to think housing is an uncontroversial investment

Your argument applies to second home ownership but not BTL. Not everyone wants or needs or is able to buy their own home. The rental market is really important to society as well as the economy. If it weren’t rents would be too low to make it worth anyone’s while.

Oh I know. My parents are such people. I don't think there's much they could move to if they wanted though. I guess all we can do is try to move earlier ourselves.

Each to their own. There are worse things to do in life than to buy and rent out a home.🤷‍♀️

It's not a lack of properties that is the reason why older people still live in large family homes. It's the cost of moving, the stress of downsizing and de-cluttering, etc., and so many of them being "past it" and not physically/mentally capable of moving themselves, especially if there are no local family to help them through the process. We live in a similar road where most houses are occupied by elderly couples/widows/widowers but are large 4/5 bedroom family homes. Some simply don't want to move as they've lived there for decades and brought up their families there, etc., so massive emotional attachment. Others just don't want to live in a complex with other "old" people! You can't fit a 4/5 bedroom house contents in a one bed retirement flat, and the thoughts of getting rid of decades of possessions, furniture, etc is just too big a leap for them to undertake! So many old people plan to move "when the time is right" whether to smaller homes or a retirement home, but they never realise "it's the time" until it's too late!

Interesting - suggests a role for government or LA regulation. Planning could be refused if supply of 55+ flats is already more than sufficient for numbers in that demographic. Where I live there are some "McCarthy and Stone" type developments, but also a lot of well off older people living in unsuitably large properties.

Are you very young OP? You seem to have an incredibly naive outlook!

Many thousands of LL have and are selling up due to the imbalance of responsibilities between LL'S and tenants. House prices have not plummeted as a result.

At the moment there are more applicants for rental than properties - landlords cam be choosy who they let their property to.

There will ALWAYS be plenty of people who prefer to rent or cannot buy, for various reasons.

If all rentals stopped overnight there would be countless numbers absolutely homeless. There aren't enough properties to house everyone here.

Is that what you want? A massive increase in homelessness?

Where are all the students going to go if there are no rentals?

Maybe if everyone stopped doing the occasional line of cocaine they’d have the money to put down a deposit on a house.

My DD is living in her 3rd place in 4 years, as she moves up the career ladder and moves round the country. Should she have to buy somewhere each time? That would be ridiculous. Plus, apart from the estate agents' fees, think of the time involved buying and selling a flat that you were only going to stay in for a year or so.

Op not everyone wants a permanent home either

Yabu

There is a rental crisis

The more people that rent out flats and home, the cheaper the rents will go down and that's better for renters

Not everyone wants to or can buy so they have to be able to rent

Only in the sense of them being unaffordable for some people. As are cars.
Admittedly it was far from a perfect analogy, but it was making the point that there can be a useful role for a rental market as we well as an ownership market.

Moreover, preventing buy to let would not create more homes. It would just shift the balance completely away from renting towards ownership. Owned houses would become cheaper, but renting would become infinitely expensive. It's not clear that that is an improvement! If anything, it would probably reduce the supply of homes, because one important market would have been removed.

If anything, I'd prefer to see restrictions on holiday home ownership in places where house prices (for buy or for rent) are extremely high relative to local incomes. But more important is to reduce restrictions on building. Increasing supply is ultimately what brings prices down.

In the areas where I've been looking, there's no shortage of "retirement" homes, i.e. with a requirement of being over 50 or over 55. In a particularly city, if you search rightmove for flats under £250k, there are several dozen. When you filter out the retirement flats there are less than 5! Same in my current city, virtually no affordable small flats for "normal" people, but if you filter for retirement complexes there are dozens of them. If anything, I think councils should temporarily halt planning permissions for retirement complexes as there are clearly too many already and not enough homes for younger people to buy.

There is no shortage of cars. There IS a shortage of homes.

The OP mentioned "house prices falling to £100k" so I had a quick look to see where the average is around £150k, because that would make them significantly more affordable without tanking the local economy.

It's hard to see anything changing much without a major uplift in real incomes and/or a large housebuilding programme of houses for social rent, although more purposebuilt retirement housing would help I suppose: it would help the ageing population manage at home for longer and free up houses that are hard to retrofit for older people.

The lack of construction workers is another major issue, whether that be for building or maintenance.

I think both things can be true - BTL can price people out of the housing market and a certain amount of rental properties are needed.

Off the top of my head -
-students (undergrad and post grad)

• junior doctors
• recently separated couples
• people on temporary contracts
• people new to an area
• people who's house may be uninhabitable due to refurb/flood/damage etc

All types of people (I'm sure there are other circumstances) that need to rent. How would you otherwise house those people? When I was an apprentice I moved out of home age 22. I didn't even earn minimum wage, but (this was 1990s) I could afford a house share.

We need btl’s because there’s times in your life you need to temporarily rent! As long as you are a good landlord I don’t see the issue

There are good and bad landlords. I rented for 11 years

Agreed, although how would it help the first set of areas you highlight when many are areas that have house prices of that level anyway? Or do you mean areas within those areas where the prices are higher perhaps if they're tourist destinations?

For the sake of argument, house prices falling to £100k or so would only really be of assistance in economically depressed areas of the NE, Wales and Scotland. Those are areas where people can, and do, buy already on public sector salaries.

The median house price in greater London is around half a million quid and for it to fall by 80% would suggest something so apocalyptic had happened to the economy that buying houses would be the last thing on people's minds!

I know people who rent properties they could never afford to buy.

I would lay off the nose candy and read up on some basic economics on supply and demand.

Were I your family member, I would be quite comfortable defending my ownership of a buy to let against your use of cocaine.

A friend has lived in the buy to let for 5 years now, paying between 50-60% of market and with an extra bedroom she absolutely couldn't afford in the market. This allows her to teach music as a sideline. She can also have a cat. I like cats. A lot of landlords don't.

When I bought it the only other bidder was an investment trust who own multiple buy to lets (I agree there's a discussion to be had, however, re "hobby" landlord versus professional; there are quite a few accidental landlords out there who aren't as well informed as they should be; there are also unpleasant multiple landlords, and unpleasant tenants).

The cocaine however...only losers.

I have never and would never take drugs. I thinks it’s a vile business, which encourages exploitation of others at all levels. I do however own a second home, which I bought with my own, earned money, which I paid tax on. And I have paid and continue to pay, a fuck ton of tax on that second home. You have precisely zero right to judge me.

Ok thought experiment. Landlords sell up and property prices drop. Why do you think the property that becomes available will be equitably shared amongst those currently renting?

In reality those with higher incomes and good credit ratings will use the reduced prices to get more space for themselves. The graduate living with their parents who has saved a sizable deposit will get a one bed. The couple in a one bed will upgrade to a two bed to have a study. The well off family of four in a three bed will grab a larger house with a bigger garden that used to be an HMO rented to seven.

Yes some of the people renting will be able to buy. Others would become homeless. Owner occupied housing is less densely inhabited than rental property.

No real comparison to cocaine where people are being shot and teenagers stabbed tbh.