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

As long as the person doing the letting is a decent person, then I can't see the issue.

People rent for varying reasons, including can't afford to buy.

Just saying people can't BTL isn't going to magically solve the housing crisis.

I have been in negative equity and ended up letting out the property I had a mortgage on, as I couldn't afford to sell it and take the £20K loss, and then renting another property in a town closer to my new job.

I was a fair landlord, and actually it was me that got screwed over by a tenant doing a moonlight flit owing a couple of months rent, and leaving the place needing a complete redecoration.

Why is property that people may use as homes wrong but it’s fine for people to profit off food, water, utilities which are equally basic needs? Why do you specifically draw the line at homes but not basic food items?

How do you know that? Plenty of people happy to rent.

I try to compensate for being an evil landlord by doing right by my tenants and keeping rents low.

Is that acceptable? 🫣

i havent read the thread but who do you think people rent from? Not everyone can afford to buy, not everyone wants to buy, it’s suits them for what ever reason to rent. Therefore they have to rent from someone who has actually bought that property

I know MN hates landlords but most are very good and provide a service for which there is a market

better focusing on giving up the cocaine ( and the damage it’s causes not just to you but youngsters caught upon county line activity etc) than moaning about a family member wanting to become a landlord, as least that legal

What about car rental companies? Are they immoral? They are depriving people of their ability to own their own cars.

Sorry, I disagree. There is a need for a rental market in houses as well as owner-occupied houses. You are not depriving people of homes. There is nothing morally wrong with being a fair landlord. You are only depriving people of homes if you own houses and leave them empty.

That’s a massive oversimplification. Not everyone can or ever would be able to afford to buy. I would agree with you more if the government hadn’t sold off all the social housing. But there aren’t enough rental properties for people to live in which is making rents really high. Those people need somewhere to live that’s affordable now. And that can only be via private landlords in the short term.

In the longer term we should stop selling off social housing and heavily invest in rebuilding our stocks. Once that’s done, I think there’s more room for your argument.

When DD was looking to buy her first flat, just over two years ago, she asked us to go with her for a second opinion. One place she looked at was a one bedroom flat and it was tiny. We soon realised that the other people interested were all looking at it as a BTL opportunity and we could see why.

You say in your post that people are looking for a permanent home. There is no way anybody would have wanted to buy this as their permanent home. It's location was good and handy for things like the University and the City Centre, but there was hardly any storage space. No room to swing a cat. It was the sort of place you would probably take if you had a 6 - 12 month placement for example but I can't believe anyone would want to buy it as their permanent home for the foreseeable future. In this sort of case I genuinely think BTL is justified.

Disclaimer: the only property we own is the one we live in.

Go and read. Then read more. Then read more 💕

Or in OP's case, a white line.

I live in a city where >10% of properties cost £100k or less and there is still plenty of competition for rentals. Some people are transient, don't aspire to home ownership because their parents didnt, don't want the unexpected costs of maintenance or whatever.

That’s not an issue with renting per se, that’s an issue with short term over long term rents.

I think a BTL managed well that gives people a nice home with a reasonable expectation of privacy, at a decent price and with a landlord who repairs things promptly fills a market gap. It’s not an evil thing. Of course slum landlords can get wrecked.

I think doing coke is far more evil considering the production chain. I’ve been to Colombia and let me tell you 38,000 people were killed by Escobar and he’s only been replaced by more numerous drug lords.

The flaw in your "landlordism is always morally objectionable" argument is that many, many people need or want to rent. I own my own home now, but in my 20s I needed to be mobile and would not have wanted to.

Because I wanted somewhere small, instant, cheap and disposable.

One room plus a bathroom. It certainly wasn't worth buying. I wanted to be able to move every 12 months for work. I wanted somewhere I didn't have to worry about.

Not everyone is like you or thinks like you, OP.

YABU. When I first started work I lived in private rentals for about 5 years. No problems with landlords, paid my rent, saved for a deposit. Win win.

Equally my choice of holiday in the uk is self catering accommodation. Totally agree that there should be controls in some areas on how many houses can be second homes (peaks/ cornwall etc), no problem with that, but my family and most families I know rely on good quality privately owned holiday accommodation.

And what’s the alternative- badly run housing schemes and butlins type communist chalet holidays?

If you’re a decent landlord in either case I don’t see an issue at all. Plus where would you prefer people invest money, do you know what banks and hedge funds invest in with people’s savings/ pensions (it would make your hair curl in most cases).

Yes, but there needs to be a balance/equilibrium where people who want to buy can afford to ALONGSIDE a rental market where people can rent if they want to. At the moment, landlords are sucking up all the lower end properties meaning people who want to buy are being priced out.

My DD has just graduated. She’s looking for a job.

she wants to rent to start with because she’s not sure she’ll like wherever the job ends up being and she expects to change jobs every 3-5 years anyway.

she’d rather live with friends as you can share the cooking and cleaning, and also her brother rented a studio in London (couldn’t afford a one bed) and got very lonely and moved into a massive house share which he much much prefers. There’s 12 of them so he only cooks twice a month!

'Landlord' is not automatically a dirty word. Not everyone wants to buy. Society needs (affordable, decent) rental housing to be available. I think you're projecting your own issues onto this thread.

There was a time where a significant number of people were told by financial advisors and wealth management companies to buy property as an investment vehicle rather than use saving schemes offered by banks and building societies as property gave better returns.

There are also quite a lot of very wealthy foreigners (particularly in China and Russia) who are using UK property (particularly in London and other cities) to bank their wealth and keep their money out of their home countries for fear of their assets been seized by their governments. They don't care they are empty, they are willing to pay whatever tax they need to to keep the property as they feel their money is safer here than in their home country.

Around 2% of land in this country is built on. So that’s the finite amount of land argument down the toilet.

Next.

There were loads of times in my life I did not want to live in my home forever. Rentals are a very important and significant part of a housing market.

I personally would have much stronger feelings towards cocaine use than btl. We all have our own red lines.

We need more social housing. I think it's pretty disgusting how some landlords have been allowed to buy up loads of BTL properties.

They are assumptions, not based on any facts. These are my assumptions:
people moving in the early part of their career may not want to buy as it makes relocating with a job more challenging and more expensive. Ime most young people share due to other costs (council tax, utilities etc) and don’t tend to live on their own at 21.