AIBU to think not enough people are aware of the proposed changes to social housing?

[StripeySherbert]

The housing and planning bill is going to the 3rd stage in the House of Lords but I don't see much about it, it is going to affect so many people!

Pay to stay will be introduced, households with a 40k income for London or 30k elsewhere will pay local market rate rent, this extra rent goes to the government, not the councils. People who start paying private rented levels of rent will maybe expect more for their money? There will be no extra money in the pot, it's going to Central Government.

The new national living wage being introduced, the sums show that most households with 2 working full time will hit the 30k.

New tenancies will have a fixed term of 2 to 5 years. Meaning social housing will only be for those who have no other way to find housing themselves, whilst they get on their feet, most would think this should be the case, I use to think that should be the case myself, but that's not how communities form, being friendly with the neighbours, instead this could promote "sink estates?"

Councils will be forced to sell high value council properties that become empty or face a levy charge if they don't. Again, this money does not go to the council, it goes to Central Government.

This is only it in part, yet it seems to be flying under the radar!

Some of the changes wouldn't be so bad if the money went back into the local area/ local housing.

Is a free house not profit enough then?

Most landlords in the uK have one property they let out. All the surveys show that. A few have more.

On the economics of one house - £250k loan, 5% interest btl mortgage = about £1k a month. 1400 rent a month. x 11 £15,400 less £12k interest - £3400,. One month empty in the year, £2k new boiler, £2500 to letting agent. So already that is at a loss in that year ( an example of my daughter recent letting). Plus a load of other costs for repairs never mind furniture etc.

Except you don't need a new boiler every year. And if you can't make money, sell the house.

Again in my experience ll that charge a fair amount of rent and provide a decent property and are prompt with repairs don't have a vacant month out of every 12.

There are insurance policies available for the boiler just like any residential property.

You don't have to use a letting agent.

And lots of 1 property ll shouldn't be ll. They don't have the knowledge or the finances if something goes wrong. They take everything the tenant does personally. They don't like the reality of what happens when the tenant won't leave.

Many would be better selling. Even at a loss.

I worked for 3 years giving advice to landlords and letting agents on how to deal with problem tenants. I even set up my.own business when I was made redundant. I am pretty sure that the problems in the industry are caused by landlords rather than tenants. My dream job would be working for shelter giving tenants advice on how to negotiate with landlords.

If I won a fuck load of money I would buy property and let it out at a rate that covered costs to decent people just trying to get by.

The selling is what might happen after the April changes for 40% tax payer landlords which might free property for lower earners to buy - which is the reason the Government has just changed the law.

The example was my daughter (although my owne experience a good few years before is similar). She only let for 2 years until she could afford to move into it herself. The boiler went immediately. If you want professional tenants in London who are in work etc then a letting agent is a pretty wise decision. Then she just recently paid £1400 for drains, sewage works by the way so I don't think £2k a year is at all unusual for total repairs to a property, ofte you have the roof to replace even and costs of painting common parts and all sorts. Tenants don't know the half of it.
Most us don't have insurance for boilers even me! It cost me £6k to get mine replaced 2 years ago.... very painful.....

Her vacant period was when she bought and she says if she did it again she'd try to make sure there wasn't one. There was no gap between tenancies as she moved in when the tenants went buy plentyu of landlords have to redecorate as tenants wrecked the place and it can take 2 - 3 months to get a court order to remove people during which you are often not paid rent so don't assume landlords never lose out. I certainly don't think it's the easiest way to try to make money unless we happen to heva a period with very high price increases in property. When I sold two buy to lets it was for a lot less than we bought them for in the 1990s! It was such a relief to be free of them and tenants'; demand - like the lifting of a huge cloud.

However things are as they are and I always recommend that people try to buy when they can even if that means moving as I did hundreds of miles away from all family if you can afford to buy before you have children with your partner.

But in your dds case the boiler would have needed doing anyway. As would any drains. And if she intended to live in it herself she did profit by 11 months of rent which was £400 more than the cost if the mortgage. Which would have paid for the boiler and redecoration.

And I did but a property before dcs. It was nearly repossessed when I lost my job due to ill health. And then I subsequently moved a couple of hundred miles away for a new job. I couldn't afford to get the property up to a lettable standard and by now my credit rating was shot to shit so couldn't borrow against it. So I sold it to a btl landlord who still has it now 20 years later. He paid 50k. It's probably worth 100k. I doubt he has lost out on it.

She definitely made losses. I did not even begin to add up al the other costs, repairs and the like and yes if you move into it yourself or if you keep letting for 30 years doing the legally required repairs might help increase teh value (although not in my case as both flats sold for a lot less than we paid for them) but I just don't think it is a certainly that most buy to let landlords (most of them have about 1 property they let out) are making a lot or even anything on the rent and yet tenants think the landlords are raking it in! There is a huge lack of understanding.

That is why threads like this are a good idea as it is only by people on all sides (and many of us have been tenants as well as let out property so know all sides of it). We can all learn from each other.

I would imagine some do lose money. In fact I know some do. But many do make money which is why the btl market caused a lot of issues with the general market. It pushed the price up of the lower end of properties which would normally attract ftbs. Effectively pricing them out of the market.

It would be interesting to look at what % of btl properties are owned by professional lls and what % are owned by 1 property ll. Personally I would never rent a property from a ll who didn't have a portfolio of properties. Many are only ever intended to be short term lets until the market picks up and they can sell, or until a fixed rate expires etc. So the tenant is given notice after 6 or 12 months which is the lls right. Then the tenant has to move again, incurring costs and it keeps the letting agents in business as they are effectively churning the same tenants from one property to the next. And not many lls are honest about why they are letting and when they expect to take possession.

Although my old property was damp and cold I knew that the ll wouldn't want it back as long as I paid the rent. Which is why I stayed as long as I did. And the rent was reasonable. Cheaper in fact than the ha property I am in now but not as cheap as a council property.

The other problem with 1 property lls is they often don't have the finances if anything goes wrong. This could be legal costs if the tenant needed to be evicted or money for repairs. Or even maintenance.

That's definitely a concern. If the boiler breaks down you need it repairing promptly not in a few months when the ll has saved up.

deo I saw upthread you reckon you would get 18k a year just for your housing if you decided not to work again.

Your a fairly high earner aren't you?

Either your understanding of the benefit system is quite bad or if as a high earner you are not managing your income to the point that you feel you would be entitled to benefits then you need some serious financial advice.

Do you seriously not have savings?

I don't understand why, instead of building new estates, the councils don't buy properties at auction. You wouldn't have the planning issues, or all the social housing grouped together, or such a massive outlay at once as it could be done one at a tiem instead of an estate at a time. Yes, the houses may need work done, but I don't see why that matters. Social rents are increasing year on year, but security is the most important thing to many people who are unable to get mortgages. We need more social housing, and more secure tenancies.
For those who keep on and on about advantages that people in social housing have, remember that when those lucky enough to be able to get a mortgage are pensioners the renters will still be paying rent every month long after the mortgage is paid off.
Where we live, few local families can afford to buy houses as each generation comes through it is getting harder and harder. Families that have been in the area for hundreds of years are being forced out. Farming and agriculture can't bring enough money in. The only ones staying are the ones inheriting the houses / farms. Everyone else has to try the few HA / council properties or move out of the area.

I imagine the reason why councils don't go to auctions is because it would be incredibly expensive. The time required to send representative to auctions would be huge. Not to mention, I imagine it would be expensive because it will drive up prices (people bidding with someone else's money, in this case the council's, will be less price sensitive).

again, however, can somebody explain to me why the only option we have to make more secure housing is to build more social housing? We can literally make millions of tenancies more secure tomorrow.

According to a letter i received from my HA this morning newer tenants have been paying an affordable rent instead of a social rent since November 2011.

Exactly Lostinmysoul And after they have moved out of the area they get moaned at for not being available to care for elderly relatives as they have moved away so are not able to. So they then get moaned at for "not doing their share and the state having to pick up the tab"

They cant win!

Why has this thread become about boilers?!

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/22/new-social-housing-tenants-will-need-to-live-in-an-area-four-years?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Just seen a trailer for next weeks Dispatches......Council House Millionaires about Right to Buy.

Lostinmysoul auction properties aren't usually worthwhile. They wouldn't generally pass HAs investment criteria and I suspect LAs have similar

( " NeedsAsockamnesty Sat 27-Feb-16 10:16:16

deo I saw upthread you reckon you would get 18k a year just for your housing if you decided not to work again.
[ Yes I put it into a benefits checker last year. It said our housing benefit would be £18k]

Your a fairly high earner aren't you?

Either your understanding of the benefit system is quite bad or if as a high earner you are not managing your income to the point that you feel you would be entitled to benefits then you need some serious financial advice.

[I wasn't planning to go on benefits. I just wanted to see how overly generous the state is and I found they pay a king's ransom!]

Do you seriously not have savings?
[No, that is the trouble when you marry someone who earns a lot less. In fact I Had a good few years with £1.3m of debt, over drawn and no savings whilst the ex husband was given an unmortgaged house and had £500k...... Stil I would rather be paying out to a husband on divorce than having nothing because I gave up work to serve male needs]

[However I do hope to acquire some savings in the next few years]

My understanding is that the earnings threshold will affect everyone, becuase there's already plenty of legislation that your income is the government's business. The insecure tenancies would only affect those with new tenancies or existing insecure tenancies. So, if you have a secure tenancy then you can keep it, but if you earn too much then you'll have to pay more for it. If you don't have a secure tenancy then you will not be offered one, AND you will have to pay top-up rents.

I think it's always been insanity that there's a dual (perhaps triple) thread of housing market and costs depending on how you came by your home. Why should there be any disparity at all in actual RENT? Housing Benefit is already there to make up the amount of a rent that a person cannot pay (badly, I realise!!) so there should be a single unit of rent, irrespective.of where your house comes from. The main problem, of course, being that most of the government themselves make their money from property rental, so they're not about to do anything which will decrease the rent in the private sector.

For years housing costs have had nothing at all to do with house values and building costs, it's simply demand pricing. All the work is in London and all the housing is elsewhere.

Insecure tenancies let the housing stock go to rack and ruin and then it needs demolishing - anyone been to (parts of) Teesside? Row after row of boarded up housing because there's so little work that they just get used as "emergency housing" (places to dump people) and people are moved on and moved on. The landlord doesn't want to spend money making the place nice when there are constant gaps between tenants and they are sent drug users and prison leavers for a week here, a week there. The tenant invests nothing as they have no connection to the place, it's just somewhere to wait it out until something else happens.

I agree with some that the 30k should not be fixed per household and fail to take into account numbers of children, numbers of other occupants and the cost of those occupants (a teenager with a baby and her fiancé? An elderly parent with dementia?), but the idea that 30k isn't a lot of money is laughable to people who really don't have a lot of money. People with more than 9k per household are the rich ones round here.

Looks like where theres a will theres a way

www.times-series.co.uk/news/14329044._Shocking____Gas_will_be_switched_back_on___but_it_could_take_12_weeks_to_do/

The Estate we"re in. BBC1

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hundreds-families-could-forced-out-7547484?ICID=FB_mirror_main