To think we should ban private renting?

Some friends of ours are currently privately renting a luxury property for about £8k a month. They don’t want to buy. Should that be banned?

Well you might as well argue that all supermarkets should be banned and food purchased form state owned outlets.

In essence this is de facto communism.

As it is the issue is that no one other than finance houses / large asset buyers are investing in property and properties are not being built due tn the various increases in taxes and legislation. You

Also if the State was the only supplier of housing it would most likely be poorly run, run down etc. Most of the fires took place in mainly state owned accommodation. Much state owned accomdarion has damp issues. Do you really think that the state makes a better landlord?

YABVVU - or rather, naive. You are describing the Swedish model, which I've experienced first hand, and which has led to 18-year waitlists for public housing in the more fashionable parts of Stockholm. Unless your parents signed you up as a child, no chance of public housing, so just forget about regional mobility unless you're wealthy enough to buy.

Should the state take a more active role in providing housing? Absolutely. Should renting be much more heavily regulated in favour of tenants? Absolutely. But the state as a landlord is unable to provide the flexibility needed in a modern economy.

Yes, how will they afford them?

Nothing was stopping housing associations from buying the currently privately owned places for rent at the time they were for sale but for some reason they didn’t.

And the council even more so. I have often wondered why on earth the city councils don’t just buy as many houses as there is a need for. They could get very, very long term mortgages for them and the council rents would eventually pay those off. ( You could not have Right to Buy though.) Ot must be because they feel it would be unaffordable.

Sheltered housing?

nursing homes and care homes all have residents paying fees that include rent.

there are models of support for elderly people that involve buying a flat (McCarty and stone) but they have a very bad reputation

So you’d sell from one profit making entity (private landlord) to another profit making entity (HA)….. maybe think that through.

So if I move to a new area and want to rent for a bit before buying to see what it's like, will there be a HA house available for me? Or if I move for work for a few months? Will I be able to choose the size, the layout (I need enough room to accommodate the grand piano, and it must not be open plan for the animals). Can I have 3 spare rooms like I have now, so everyone who wants to wfh can have their own space? If not, why not?

I think there should be more social housing for those who need it, or better still, enough building that supply matches demand and house prices are reasonable. I don't think this requires an end to private renting, though. If you build enough houses, house prices and rents will go down as a matter of course, and being a landlord will not be the money spinner/safe investment it has been at times.

I’m anti landlord but I appreciate there is some need for rental properties. The rents shouldn’t be so stupidly high though. They should be reasonable and proportionate.

A far better idea in my book is to ban second home owners. If you want to live in a nice part of the country, fine, move there. Don’t live in London AND Cornwall/Devon/Lake District.

I agree too it would solve my problems anyway. It’s a long story but I have a family home and I don’t have a family. I’ve rented it out to my friend for about 10 years at a really low rent that in turn pays for me to rent a flat. I know I know this is bad and makes no financial sense at all. There was a lot of trauma involved for me and I just needed to get out of there. She had no money for a deposit on a house (she still doesn’t as far as I’m aware) and needed a family home in a nice area. It’s created a problem now in that if I did ask her to leave she wouldn’t be able to find anything the same for less than double. However if I am asked to leave I’m in the same boat because again rent has doubled. Anyway if this did become a law then hopefully it would solve the problem. She could get a house at an affordable rent and I could just buy somewhere some place else to live in without the guilt. The housing issue is terrible I don’t even know how young people are ever going to be able to leave home ! It’s not just a British thing either all these anti tourism protests in Spain etc are all because there is nowhere reasonably priced for anyone local to rent they have all been turned into air bnb.

Many problems with this. Firstly, none of the landlords will sell to the social housing associations because they can only afford to buy houses way below market price. So all the houses will be sold to owner occupiers and disappear from the rented sector. Great for the buyers, but terrible for anybody who wants to rent a house. There will still be long waiting lists for social housing. Where will those people go? At the moment the council subsidises private rents for people who can’t access social housing, but are in no position to buy. Under your proposals those people will be on the streets. (Because remember, no landlords will sell their houses to housing associations at discounts to market price, so there will be no increase in social housing supply).

Secondly, what about people who want/need to rent but aren’t vulnerable enough to qualify for social housing? Eg young professionals who have moved to a big city. They might not want to buy, especially if they only plan to stay for a few years. They probably don’t have a deposit yet. If they’re still students they won’t be eligible for a mortgage at all. Under your proposals they won’t be able to go to university, and won’t be able to move for that first/second job. So they’ll be stuck in their home towns forever.

So total residential housing in the U.K. is worth 9 trillion.

https://www.savills.co.uk/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/373329/value-of-uk-housing-stock-hits-%C2%A39-trillion-for-the-first-time

Private rented is about 20% of that.

so if the government bought all the private rented sector it would need to spend about the equivalent of uk gdp per year.

it’s debt is currently about 120% of gdp so this would cost about three times as much as Covid did and that’s caused massive massive problems with government funding.

I firmly agree with this.

There’s loads of homes rented by the council from private landlords for astronomical amounts, I don’t think many people are aware of this, it makes far more sense for the council to own them outright .
thatcher’s government allowed this private landlord monopoly , prior to this it was far more common for regular citizens to rent from the council than it is now. Privatisation allowed the councils to sell off all their stock to enable
more homeowners but nothing substantial has ever replaced that stock. Housing associations charge way more than councils, almost as much as private rental.

They should get given what they paid for them - what about inflation / time and money put into renovations and maintenance/ interest paid on their mortgages

I think there needs to be more social housing but I wouldn’t completely ban private rental.

i think there should be secure long-term lets available to anyone who wants them - whether that is private or social rental - but there’s always going to be a need for some short-term lets (students, people moving to a new area and don’t want to commit to a property yet, people in-between moves etc). Private sector is probably best placed for that.

Not just the money to but then but to maintain them and keep the rent low.

The problem comes when you want to move. Social housing is allocated based on you having a connection to an area, what if you don’t but have a job, or just like the area? What if you have a house but your stbexh lives in it? Social housing isn’t flexible, we need a private short to medium term sector for a mobile workforce

Who will subsidise the rents on HA homes?

Where is the government getting all this money to buy all these houses off the landlords from?