I should have the right to buy from my my to let landlord after 6 years here

[chocolatekatie]

No government will ever do it as loads of them are into buy to let hence why they do all they can to prop up the bubble.

My landlord thinks he's some businessman doing me a favour by letting me live here. Actually he's the problem, he just had money so can afford to buy up property - push up the price and force people like me to rent.

Your landlord is earning his own living... It's his own property!!!...if you want to buy a property on the cheap then go on a council housing list and hope.... Most of us have to save damned hard and start from scratch or rent and put up

Becoming a landlord is partly luck or accident. (Whether you think its good luck depends on whether you are a reluctant landlord who is desperate to sell.)
Actually getting on the property ladder is often luck as well. I was lucky in that a kind aunt left me a small legacy that paid for the deposit of my first property, otherwise I would stuck in the rent trap.

Renting out property is work, but I think it would be wrong to describe it as job. There is a quite a bit of risk with buy to let. I feel its fairer to compare it to buying shares than employment. Managing a share portfolio is work, luck and a little bit of skill as well.

I find that managing two properties takes me about 5 hours a month on average. That is the time involved with organising repairs, visiting tenants (once in a blue moon) and dreaded self assessment. Some months there is hardly any work to do and other times there is quite a lot. Last month I had quite a bit to do because my poor tenant was a victim of an attempted break in.

The problem comes when landlords neither do the work of managing a property nor outsource it. Some landlords are incredibly mean about repairs. It is grim for tenants because they don't have the freedom to organise necessary repairs.

Are you sure you've thought this through?

One could be tempted to think that the fact that the OP really hasn't thought it through is not unconnected with the OP's financial situation with regard to savings for a property of his/her own ...

And here we go again with the renter bashing. Yawn.

notauniquename you could look at Belgium, and say they have a greater population density.Belgium 10 million population, 11672, 856 per square mile. to which I'd say, take out the Lochs and lakes and hills and mountains (e.g. make it comparable to Belgium)and you get:
England 53 million 50,337, square miles 1052 people per square mile.
Maybe you don't buy that well land is more expensive argument?
How about not being able to get a mortgage on a small piece of land?
That it's difficult enough to save £25k for a 10% deposit of an average priced house in the UK, and that raising £50k (or more) - where you can't have a mortgage on land like that is all but impossible, and then there is the added hassle of getting planning permission, paying architects. and of course buying the materials, and that's before a single "workman" has set foot on the site of your new house!

I don't think its as simple as that. I suspect the difference is more about the UK planning authorities and policies being set up to favour big developers (zoning) and encouraging those companies to buy up land banks and sit on them until they get pp. Then they build massive, space-wasting, relatively expensive housing estates, the population aspires to perfect looking concrete blocks that they don't have to do anything to improve, and expectations are managed accordingly.

Of course individuals can't compete with a big developer with a massive budget. And when those individuals have grown up in a new build in a development, they're hardly likely to want to self build.

Belgium is developed along arterial routes, but its farmland is at least as well protected as in the UK, so I would say that's the main difference - the more flexible planning regime. Germany hasn't got that significantly different a population density to the UK, so again the difference must be due to other factors. In both those countries, building your own home, often one in a rural area which would be classified as a second home until you can retire there, is not so unusual as here.

CactusAnnie once you've come off your tangent and stopped accusing people of things they haven't said, maybe you will admit there is something inherently wrong with wanting to deprive individuals of their own property which they lawfully own.

And here we go again with the renter bashing. Yawn.

I thought people were taking turns nicely to bash the landlords and the renters.

They had a council backed (not work to own/sweat equity) initiative near where I lived, the planning was restrictive, the land a flood plain, and the cost (for which you cannot secure a mortgage because there is no house until you've finished!) was prohibitive.

The biggest problem with suggesting self build as if it was a great answer is that it cost a lot to get started and it's all but impossible to secure funding using a house that is not yet built as collateral.

"hard work" most buy to letters work just as hard as someone thats won the lottery.

I've got a family friend that got into buy to let in east london almost 15 years ago. As the first place increased in value, he remortgaged and bought another. Repeated and now his got well over 40. This part of london has gone up stupid amounts. Its just like a pyramid scheme. With the low interest rates he's making a fortune (and living mostly abroad to avoid tax) and has wealth of probably over 10million. He happily admits it was all about luck and timing. Like any pyramid scheme the ones at the top do very well.

The value of sterling has fallen by 1/3 since 2007 mainly due to printing money, this is effectivley stealing peoples savings in order to prop up a rotten system to keep afloat the feckless that have borrowed too much.

In london it can't go on much longer like this, now highly paid professionals can't afford the home that unskilled workers in the last generation lived in.

With the tories in the can will carry on being kicked down the road for a bit longer, while bojo goes to Singapore to encourage investors to buy up london new builds to sit empty.

I agree with Honey, the bashing seems very equitable to me

I'm not backtracking CactusAnnie. I have absolutely no idea who you are, and I have absolutely no interest in backtracking from some fictitious misdemenour some random on the internet has got themselves in a rage about.

Maybe you could explain more clearly what crime it is you think I've committed, instead of random insults. Because it is you who has made this all about the Nazis and insulting people, not me.

Are you suggesting that it is banned to mention Nazis, or the war? Or that only Jews may talk about the war? Do you think Godwin's Law is a real law?

In the meantime, I make the point that people have the right not to be deprived of their own property.

More importantly, have you ever heard of the ECHR, and why do you think it came about? What does it say about property rights?

Controversial, much?

And if you don't like that, then I'm not going to pretend to get myself all worked up in an attention-seeking drama. You simply aren't worth responding to, if you think that you, and only you, can mention certain subjects. Very, very offensive and narrow minded.

When we are not allowed to mention relevant past issues then the Nazis have indeed won. I am sure every Jew in England wants everything known. Yes people in Europe picked on Jews because they were different and they were picked on for hundreds of years.

Part of that reason is that Christianity then (like Islam now) prohibited interest. So Jews handled money lending as no one else would, which as we all know is very lucrative. They were therefore experienced with money across Europe and those were very useful skills indeed and good for them that they worked hard and made something for themselves. Some of them (by no means all) tended to own businesses too and property and land. The hatred in the UK today against landlords by many is a very similar psychological issue - in recessions people who feel hard done to turn to those with more money and rebel. So I don't think it was an obnoxious comment to mention that past history.

Jews tend to hate any curtailment of free speech including holocaust denial. They don't want people to forget any of the history. The history is key to trying to ensure we try every day not to kill and hurt others simply on the grounds of their money, their religion and the like.

And the other thing about the history of the Jewish people and money is that like landlords? the rest of the [Christian] societies in which Jews lived needed the Jews to handle money & interest.

So while the Jews were vilified (and still are, anti-Semitism is still rife in this country) for being usurers (ie charging interest) they were essential for so-called Christian societies to function.

In other words, Christians were very happy for Jews to do their dirty work, and then Christians could happily hate them for it. I can see the parallels with landlords: easy to resent/hate for profiting from others' needs, but an essential part of the economy ...

Parallels, not the same btw

do stop bickering
it's boring

"hard work" most buy to letters work just as hard as someone thats won the lottery.

I've got a family friend that got into buy to let in east london almost 15 years ago. As the first place increased in value, he remortgaged and bought another. Repeated and now his got well over 40. This part of london has gone up stupid amounts. Its just like a pyramid scheme. With the low interest rates he's making a fortune (and living mostly abroad to avoid tax) and has wealth of probably over 10million. He happily admits it was all about luck and timing. Like any pyramid scheme the ones at the top do very well.

Erm, its nothing like a pyramid scheme, he is the only investor? A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model that involves promising participants (mugs) payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people (bigger mugs) into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public. Your friend has built up a property portfolio by initially using a single property as leverage to secure new capital. He has taken on all the risk, if interest rates rose dramatiicaly he would be fucked.

This has now turned into a far bigger issue than it needed to, thanks mainly to CactusAnnies completely over the top arguement that mentioning the issue are

What is incredibly fucking offensive is your exploitation of a real and traumatic historical event to try to back up your point in some argument about something else entirely.

It was mentioned in response to a comment by another poster that landlords were nothing new, to which I responded that btl mortgages were simply a form of mortgage finance and that one, repeat one, of the reasons given for the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany was that they tended to be landlords.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on Jewish history, or to offend or exploit anyone. But what you cactusAnnie are doing is trying to censor discussion of the holocaust, because it doesn't suit your viewpoint and at the mention of a certain issue, even in a perfectly acceptable historical context, you have gone absolutely ballistic. I don't care what sort of rage you are hiding behind, your views are completely unacceptable. You have absolutely no idea who the holocaust may have affected or may be relevant to, because you think your views are far more important than anyone else's.

So cactusAnnie I couldn't give a flying fuck about how much you swear and rage, I've absolutely immune to being bullied, especially by fools on the internet, so you can go and do one.

And so in general, I don't want to live in a country where the State deprives others of their property against their will. I don't think that's a proper role of the State, and I suspect the OP's post is just as much about favouring certain classes of tenant as the alleged wickedness of landlords.

This is the key key issue for societies which are democracies. Some of us work very hard (I am probably one of the hardest worker on mumsnet and that's my choice). Is that unfair on those who don't work hard? is it unfair I am never ill? Is it unfair I researched pay a lot in my teens when others don't and chose a career accordingly? Is inherited wealth or IQ or work ethic unfair?

When we have recessions ( we are coming out of one now so things are actually getting better) people resent others with more than they have. It is why you have protestors at St Paul's, on wall St, in the city etc etc all over the planet from time to time. It is why we had the 1914 Russian revolution, why the UK through the Labour party in the 1900s had massive almost confiscatory death taxes and then nationalisation of private businesses. Some cultures manage to quash dissent like North Korea but many find that harder to do.

At the moment there are a lot of Labour supporters very upset that the people of the UK were sensible enough to vote in a Tory government. I hope we Tories can treat them with compassion. "Landlord" or "Immigrant" (or in groups of men sadly often "women") "banker" (even if just a till girl at HSBC) or small shop owner (furniture business in Clapham) (even though corner shop owners where the riots were often earn not much more than the benefits claimants looting them ) can all be targetted.

They are fascinating issues. All political parties realise that it is expensive for young people to rent or buy in the cities where there are actually jobs or if you move an hour's commute away as I did transport is expensive unless you cycle.

If we could give people a right to buy for housing any state property not being used that would really help.

Pan-galactic - yes. I have friends who thought they would do the same, built up a little portfolio of 3/4 properties with the idea that they could retire early by selling one or two and use the rent, having paid off mortgages, to supplement their pensions.

Things went badly wrong after the financial crash and they are still working.

Low interest rates are great if you've got a mortgage - we were paying 15% on ours at one time - but not if you're relying on the income from savings to live on, or your pension has taken a dive. So it looks as if property gives a better return.

But 'property' is someone's home and it's unhealthy for society when it becomes just another financial 'product'. There needs to be some sort of regulation of the sector that goes beyond 5 yr terms and vote-winning promises.

LotusLight When we have recessions ( we are coming out of one now so things are actually getting better) people resent others with more than they have.

Interesting point. You could say the opposite is true - remember Harry Enfield and his Loadsamoney character? Very popular, because people saw that it could be them who could make that amount of money. And I'm not unconvinced that if people could buy their rental properties on the cheap, they are not the bad landlords of the future. Yes, you can put covenants on the purchase, but then you have the problem that some people have with government assistance to purchase schemes, which prevent you selling or renting out your share within a certain time. And then if you get made redundant, you can't relocate for work.

They are fascinating issues. All political parties realise that it is expensive for young people to rent or buy in the cities where there are actually jobs or if you move an hour's commute away as I did transport is expensive unless you cycle.

But that's the case for progressive socialist countries, such as Sweden too. Or Denmark. In Denmark, the countryside is becoming depopulated because everyone wants to live in Copenhagen. Which is of course expensive. And the public transport might be better than here, but its still quite slow and expensive. I don't think any country has cured the issue of housing being expensive in the cities that most people want to live in, has it? Is there an example? If you want to live in a cheap city, you could try Detroit, which people have left in their droves, because they no longer want to live there.