to think people are being deliberately perverse about Council/HA..

[fideline]

....housing?

1. Social (council or HA) rents are not subsidized.

2)Social (council or HA) tenancies are not a form of welfare benefit.

It's not that hard to grasp is it?

someone just asked what profit LL make. For personal reasons that have nothing to do with running a business or wanting to be LL, DH and I rented out his flat for a couple of years and may soon be renting out our current house when we rent elsewhere. We charge the rent that covers the mortgage because we can't afford to do it otherwise and in both cases that rent is slap bang in the middle of the typical rent range for that type of property. We make zero profit and actually lost out over the years we rented the flat due to maintainance and agency costs. Obviously its different if you are a professional landlord but then they are running a business and therefore need to make a profit just like any other business owner.

Not read whole thread as got to get on...
However, having paid ludicrous rent for crappy, poorly maintained houses in the private sector it is hard not to feel jealous of those who have the well maintained HA houses in our area who pay far less rent for a much better deal.
Human nature...

fair enough Sapphire I might feel the same in your shoes, but the (working full rent paying) HA tenants are 'lucky' rather than subsidized.

fairy your profit is having the mortgage paid by someone else.....the property and ownership of it is profit.

Ah so we've moved on... feeling around for any evidence of a subsidy.

So we agree that the rents aren't subsidised then.

Splendid.

So the one thing everyone (?) agrees on is that drastically more social housing would be a good thing?

In fact.. don't or didn't the government take a large slice of the surplus rent from council tenants themselves?

Gamer I'm still reeling from the ahem 'argument' that social rents may not be subsidized, but they are 'considered subsidized'.

Riiiight. Game over then

Yep I totally agree with that OP. Although there isn't really a shortage where I'm from.. It seems to be condensed the most down south.

They certainly did until recently. Not sure I've fully understood what the change was.

Everything is condensed down here! Good and bad.

Yep it is a head meet desk moment.. at least you tried

Fairy You are benefiting from the capital appreciation. I accept you're not making profit. A lot of BTL landlords, who bought slightly earlier are making bucket loads of both, however. Often subsidized by HB.

I think half the problem is that people have been thoroughly brainwashed into believing the 'market' is wise/correct/infallible etc

fideline apparently they are ten a penny around our way. Which is strange because there is a mahoosive office building round the former from us. Empty 3 yrs and yet to be turned into any form of housing. Private or Social.

But even if BTL landlords don't make a profit on the way.. what's the property when the mortgage is paid off?
Thing is.. doesn't the mortgage set the cost of private rents? Don't you need a certain type of mortgage if you're doing buy to let? If that's true.. wouldn't that mean the rent issues come from a lot higher up?

(Not entirely sure how btl works fully)

In any which way.. many things in life seem to be the rich and powerful making their way in the world riding backs and those backs are squabbling over the scraps.

Quite sad really.

Corner. Not former.

Council housing stock should never ever have been sold off. Good social housing should be a right, IMO.

I can't believe where we now are - house prices unaffordable for anyone but a few , private rents sky high and unsecure and council housing a precious commodity and often in run down estates because the best stuff has been sold.

How did we ever get here?

I agree OP. People do sometimes tar all council/HA tenants with same brush.

I grew up in a HA flat (where my parents still live). It a nice estate in a leafy suburb of London. However I remember a couple of self styled 'posh' girls at school were convinced I lived in a drug den of crime and violence

DH and I own an ex council flat and live in a block where most people rent from the council. I must say the neighbours are friendlier here than in the other places we have lived where all the flats have been privately owned/rented. There is more of a community feel and I love it.

People judge council estates by those few notorious sink high rise estates which are not representative of the majority.

I did teach in a school where a couple of girls would come to me after the lesson and show me pictures on their phones of the regular fights and police raids on their estate. I wouldn't have liked to live there. But that doesn not mean all council places are like that!!

sleep what are your memories of growing up there? I may get offered a HA flat and am unsure about it due to always having had a garden

MissP It is very odd. I read an article a while back about a northern (yorkshire?) HA redesignating a lot of their 3 bed stock as 2 bed, because if the bedroom tax bit, the properties would have been left empty.

Gamer I think you understand it better than you think you do

All feels a bit dystopian doesn't it whine?

Sleep that's another reason why more social housing would be good- increased supply = increased uptake = decreased unfounded stigma

Oh Bumpy you haven't had an allocation yet? I misunderstood. Sorry for congratulating you upthread. I am crossing several fingers and groping my wooden table to put irt right

Re flat. I think the amount of access you have to other green space makes a difference...

fideline its ok I am confident its ours....we were number 1 when bids closed last night.....the flat has garden all round it and is in a rural area....tonnes of green...woods and everything.

It does fideline and it makes me uneasy. Society is not menat to work that way.

Council housing was homes for for heroes after the war. My parents grew up in big, beautifully designed council homes with gardens big enough to grow veg and out houses. They were warm, secure and afforadble homes for life for the working ( hard) classes.
Now, they are few and far between and often not a reward for hardwork but quite the opposite.
I cannot belive they are still being sold off. If Labour shoudl have done anything in their 13 years of power to support the working people, it was to put an end to the selling off of housing stock.