To think hording something essential for life is despicable

[sandrabedminster]

www.telegraph.co.uk/money/special-reports/i-have-three-properties-at-age-33-and-3000-a-month-to-save-do-i/

Its not jealousy before someone says it, I own my own home but I doubt my children will ever be able to. But shelter is something essential and all this speculation is causing lots of damage as prices are pushed ever higher. I know a friend that spends 70% of net income just on renting something that is too small for her.

there needs to be lots of people in low-earning jobs to prop up the higher paying ones

What do you mean by 'prop up'?
It is very well documented that the system is 'propped up' by the higher earners, who put more into the system than they take out. The top 25% of earners contribute 75% of income tax.

They do now yes, because the poorest have nothi g to spend. You will also note that as the proportion paid for by the rich has gone up, the overall tax take has gone down.

that is also "well documented".

Bungo i agree with you but i dont think 1 person buying 3 houses is a london billionaire who was family funded to be a billionare he isnt the problem personally I am not a London billionaire we will sell our property at some point and be able to live a bit comfortable i dont see what is right wing about that i rent under market to a person who is happy to rent im not exploiting anybody and they dont have to worry about getting a boiler fixed or a leaky tap

What do you mean by 'they put more into the system than they take out'. Look at the wider social picture not just tax figures and you can see the reverse happening, housing being a very good example. Private landlords are currently sucking up public funds in the form of housing benefit - the only solution suggested by those in power is not, of course, to restrict the greed of the rich for the benefit of all, but to kick the poorest a bit harder. Back when we had social housing those funds were recycled back into the public system. As inequality is rising and the top few percentages are increasing the proportion of assets they control, clearly they are not putting sufficient back in.

Don't be a dick whois. "More children than you can support" does not equal "more children than you can buy starter homes for

Oh but you are so wrong Just5.

Haveing 1 child instead of 2 would save far more than £5k over 18 years. Give child £5k and they can use it as a deposit for a small property in a cheap area of the county if they are working earning £15k a year.

If owning a house is the most important thing, why wouldn't you do this??

I did also say that three was not too extortionate by British standards. Somewhere there has to be a balance. This is not it. If it was we would not be in the economic shit.

You're v wrong about my politics!
Go back 200 years, and I'm sure many more rented their whole lives (not saying that's an ideal, just pointing out its hardly a new thing!)
Land is a finite resource in an island nation.
It has always been in the hands of the wealthy, whether that's the ones with the biggest bank account, or the biggest army.
You can only change that by forcibly seizing land.

And even if you're on a nmw job, if you work 70 hours a week instead of 40 you will earn more. You will also spend less running your household (my gas bill was £8 a quarter, 10 years ago admittedly, as I was never home except to sleep, so needed no heating).

Go back 200 years and you had a much smaller economy than you do now, with much less choice. With extremes of inequality. Those two observations are linked. Is that really what you want?

Bungo you are right but what are people meant to do a family on housing benefit or low wage cant afford to buy a house so they rent if they didnt rent they would be homeless a single divorced person supporting their children maybe cant afford to buy another house so they rent. There is now a huge stigma about social housing it has been deamonised we need to work to take down that stigma before change can happen

I thought this was going to be about stockpiling medication or leaving properties empty for years or something!

This exactly.
He's not hoarding something essential for life: the flats/houses will be let, therefore used to shelter people. Provided he is a decent landlord there should not be an issue with this. I have had 4 excellent landlords in my life (and an awful one which was a large corporation, not an individual - the awfulness was related to this and computer-says-no-itis and cost cutting).

Using this logic a baker or chip-shop owner 'hoards' food, a garage owner 'hoards' petrol, AVIS 'hoard' their cars...surely?

We own some rental properties on buy to let mortgages. One bed flats mainly. Once they are rented out we don't put the rent up whilst our tenants are in place. We do repairs immediately and have just done upgrades on Windows and doors. Next year we are replacing the kitchens. We have good tenants who pay on time and keep the places in good nick. Our tenants tend to be long term. Are we morally wrong would yo say OP? Where would you prefer us to invest?

I thought the op was talking about insulin or something else which is indeed essential to life. But no, it's houses?

Well the government promoted buy to let investment and deprived many young people a first step on the housing ladder by financial favouring of BTL.

We now have a lot of rental properties with ridiculous rents and no security of tenure. Shit all round for a whole generation forced to rent.

We need more affordable houses built with government (taxpayers) money, affordable council houses for people who really need them and tax penalties to favour buyers no property investment.

Oh and the crap situation where London property is used to launder foreign money and left empty.

I think the rental market needs regulated so would be like a national body but that is never going to happen I dont think.

He should invest in something productive rather than speculating on this and invest in a pension.

Why don't you call him and charge him for your fantastic investment advice?
His money, his decision.
And I am as far away from a right winger as you can get.

I wouldn't put it the way you have op, but essentially I agree with you. I live in London where the housing situation is an absolute mess. No one needs a string of btl properties.

I read it and think good for him!

I myself owned 3 houses by 21, one of which I lived in with dh the other two I rented out.

ShoveTheHolly How would you do it?

Confiscation? See you in Strasbourg!

Make people sell to Big State when they choose to sell, presumably at valuation? Expensive. And will you let people leave their homes to their children?

Will you make people downsize when their children move out or will you let them turn a bedroom into a guest room or a study or a library?

In fact why do you want to penalise thrift at all ?

The housing situation in the UK is a mess, but blaming this chap for seeing an opportunity to invest money and better himself is no more logical than blaming families for taking up the benefits the government deems them to be entitled to - in each case, if you don't agree with the situation, your beef should be with the elected politicians.

I'm 30, with my own home and one BTL (both in London and surrounds, both bought when I was on a £40,000 salary - it's not a particular achievement). Frankly, having now been in BTL for a few years, I don't have a desire to build a property empire. It is a lot of work sometimes. You are dealing with tenant's homes and you need to act promptly when things go wrong. There is also the (constant) risk of non-payment, not helped by councils refusing the re-house tenants until the bailiffs are on their doorstep. But, when I look at other investment options, I don't see anything nearly as profitable - though I'd much prefer an investment that didn't ring me at 2am because the proverbial boiler had gone.

I do think the subject of that article needs to check what his income from these properties will be like after the tax changes next year - he is "just" a higher earner at £50k, so he may get hammered and find it makes more sense to sell on BTL and pay down the second BTL.

OP's viewpoint is debatable but far from Unreasonable.

andrew - I'm sending the squatters I have on speed dial round to your house right now to occupy your 10 spare bedrooms.

"what are people meant to do" good question. At least we do now have a real left-leaning alternative to vote for at long last. There are too many people not thinking, not reading, not seeing the wider picture (not having the time to think, for too many). Too many blindly accepting the neoliberalists 'it has to be this way' dogma, too many blindly accepting the ethic that greed is always right, too many accepting the bribes, too many blindly accepting the distractions of immigration and 'blame the EU'. The power of right wing media is a major obstacle. All we can do is keep challenging it, bring back other voices and ideas and options. Somehow we have to get off this road, before we head right back to a socioeconomy built purely on family connections and land ownership. Not really good for anyone and there will be one hell of a lot of fallout. Not what I want to see.

Britain did this once before, by building the public sector. Support that for a start.

I don't blame him, but I think landlords do have a moral responsibility that comes with renting something "essential to life" and that there should be better legal protection for tenants that gives them secure housing for a longer period and stops estate agents in particular from ripping them off with management fees / lease renewal fees etc. I am pleased that the entitlement of BTL landlords to set mortgage payments off against tax has been abolished - I don't blame landlords for running a business but it gave them a hugely unfair advantage over people trying to buy a home to live in. I understand all the arguments about provision of rental property, but ultimately most people in this country want a secure home of their own rather than the insecurity of renting for their entire lives.

Ultimately, I am uncomfortable with the fact that the average property in this country "earns" more per year than many people could earn in full time jobs. But the only solution is more house building and/or more radical intervention from the government (though even then I am very sceptical that cracking down on empty homes or foreign investors will actually produce any additional housing stock!). There are good landlords and bad landlords - but they haven't created the problem of lack of affordable housing.