To not feel sorry for buy to let landlords

[feellikeahugefailure]

now the tax rules have changed and their borrow to let becomes a huge liability. Isn't that just part of speculating / investing? Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. Signing up to many decades of debt its hardly unlikely that there are policy changes in that time.

Landlords in 5 star hotel moaning

My landlords are good eggs, I don't think they're bastards I just don't have much sympathy.
My rent is low-ish for what we have and for the area, we are professionals with a decent income and have a deposit saved so I honestly don't have an axe to grind.

But it would be easier and cheaper for those trying to buy a first home if those who already have one weren't snapping them up to make a profit.

But it would be easier and cheaper for those trying to buy a first home if those who already have one weren't snapping them up to make a profit.

Agreed.

Sorry if you took my response as targeted. It was more of a 'raise general awareness' thing as I've seen these threads degenerate into heated landlord bashing on a few occasions.

Sorry, I know I'm axe grinding now but this:

Sure Lupo I'm with you on that

I am happy to bash those who buy up housing to !one their own nests. No sympathy from me.

I am sitting on the fence a bit here. I would like my kids to be able to buy property when they are older, chances are they won't be able to, but I am not entirely sure this is all down to BTL. If property prices decreased and more people bought homes, wouldn't this just send the prices back up again, plus wouldn't more people be able to afford a BTL property if the prices decreased? TBH I think if you can afford to be a landlord good on you - would like to see more help for first time buyers though

I currently live in a house thats a buy to let. Im very grateful that people buy houses to let out otherwise would the hell would i live????

The housing market worked fine before the mid-80s, you know.

Do you imagine that great tracts of the UK population lived in tent colonies before BTLLLs came riding the rescue?

It's a bit naive to think this will have any impact at all on the balance of housing. All it will do is push the smaller BTL landlords out of the market. But the Councils won't buy up the surplus and the people who can't get mortgages just now, still won't be able to get them. So, it's much more likely that the outcome of this is that bigger companies/corporations will buy up the housing. (hardly surprising that a policy introduced under the Conservatives actually benefits bigger businesses/organisations/corporations).

It's easy to blame BTL landlords (and it suits the government to direct focus that way) but their impact on the housing market is negligible. To transform the housing market, the government needs to build much more social housing (instead of encouraging RTB sell-offs); take steps to correct the economic climate so cost of living and salaries are closer in line; and then encourage the banks to give mortgages.

Without systematic structural changes, this policy will hardly cause a ripple.

The population is higher now though than in the 80s.

Plus houses are getting smaller

Didnt a decent proportion of the population live in council housing before the mid-80's?

Same situation, different landlord (i.e. the State)

Genuinely asking. I wasn't old enough in the mid-80's to be aware of this stuff.

What a strange post! Rented accommodation existed before the 1980s you know? In fact it's existed for centuries.

Council housing is a relatively new idea. Post war, anyway.

If you look at the office for national statistics the population in the uk is almost 19% highter now than in the 60s with most of that growth being from 2001 upwards.

There are different reasons why people become landlords; like when a family buys a house to rent to older family member to make sure they can remain in the area they've always lived in, where they feel safe and happy, and where houses are being bought up at a crazy rate as holiday lets by wealthy city dwellers. Buy to let isn't always about making money.

YY there was a larger proportion of council housing in the 1980s.

Then came right to buy; and the push to transfer housing stock to HAs.

There also wasn't the stigma attached to renting in the 1980s. Mrs Thatcher pushed the RTB scheme and there was a concerted effort across politics and the media to say that house 'owning' was preferable to renting.

Lots of countries in Europe have a bouyant rental market. The stigma the Conservatives wove round renting in the 1980s, makes the UK quite different from Germany for example.

I've said it before but that quote by J Kennedy just before the crash in the early 1900's is apt here. He was on his way to the office and stopped to get his shoes shined. The boy gave him a stock tip. He said 'when the shoeshine boy starts giving you stock tips you know its time to sell'. I'd say the same thing here. When every man and his dog owns a 'little BTL' you would hope they would realise something is about to go very very wrong. I don't mean a crash, I mean the government taxing the fuckers to the hilt.

I am beyond sick of them, using housing, basic SHELTER as a fucking commodity, as a hobby for fun, bragging about their portfolios. We wouldn't allow anybody to hoard anything else essential to life, to make a profit off it and actually encourage it.

We went to an open house and there was two older ladies 70s/80s. They were so proud of their 'little' btl empire. They had 9 houses and were looking for their 10th. It was a hobby to them. They were bored and had nothing else to do, one of them openly told me it gave them a little something to do. They didn't seem to get that was 10 HOMES that people could own. It was just a little hobby.

Went to a show home to look around, in the sales office was a BTL consortium putting deposits on a five two bedroom homes and five three bedrooms. It was their family business. They came from London to buy the houses up before the foundations were even put down. The first day the sales office opened. Utterly disgusting.

And the 'on the side' property developers are just as bad. Buying up run down houses because they have liquid funds and then doing them up and selling for a profit. Not thinking for one second that that run down house was in the price range for a family who could've done it themselves and actually lived in as a home.

I cannot abide these people. I have a very very low tolerance for anyone bragging about their BTLs.

It's completely naïve to say that taxing BTLs more heavily will suddenly flood the market with cheaper homes. It might get rid of the bottom end LLs (e.g. accidental LLs, people with only one or two properties). This could be a good thing (some of these LLs are real amateurs and get LLs a bad name) BUT they also tend to be the 'normal' end of the LL market ie. just normal people doing alright, rather than mega wealthy folk - which also means that many of them maintain their properties and care for their tenants well.

Larger LLs with multiple properties will barely be touched by this because most of them will own their properties through companies and will raise commercial finance on them, not BTL mortgages. Do you really think the Tories would piss off their own wealthy mates and backers by taking more tax from them? No, this move will penalise 'the little people' trying to make some money from the housing market and will not touch the largescale owners. In other words it's about smacking down chippy little oiks trying to make a few pounds, while renters cheer and shout 'Stick it to the man.' Meanwhile the large investors move in quietly from stage right and snap up all the properties without anyone even noticing...

I know rented housing existed pre 1980. I'm not quite that much of a berk! I wondered if the Right To Buy stuff changed the proportions of housing stock. :D

Thanks to other posters for the deets :)

What a strange post! Rented accommodation existed before the 1980s you know? In fact it's existed for centuries.

It's not strange if you know the history of UK housing.

BTL speculation was impossible until the rental market was deregulated and BTL mortgages were introduced.

LLs had to have capital. They couldn't use housing as an alternative to a pension or flit in and out. Once LLs as well as owner occupiers could get high street mortgages (not real money) to speculate on the housing market, house prices started to climb sharply. It was a goldrush based on debt.

Place we cross posted but I see we have the same cynical minds...

I am beyond sick of them, using housing, basic SHELTER as a fucking commodity, as a hobby for fun, bragging about their portfolios. We wouldn't allow anybody to hoard anything else essential to life, to make a profit off it and actually encourage it.

Exactly.

It's getting harder and harder to avoid people talking about their 'investments' too. DH and I are almost the only people we don't know who don't have at least one BTL.

It's a wonderful aspiration to own your own home and for your children to do so too, but let's not forget that it's not that long ago that very few people except those in higher employments or with inheritances could afford to do so.

I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, but historically in the UK home ownership has not been the norm, and everybody just got on with it. Now everybody seems to see it as a right, which can be setting unrealistic aims really.

Not everybody wants to own, and something should be done to address high rents in areas where this is prohibitive (we moved to the north west where both house prices and rentals are far more reasonable in a lot of areas), but I'm not sure that penalising good landlords who look after their properties and tenants is the way to go.

Social housing is a wonderful idea, but if we converted all the BTL properties to social housing it would create a double burden on the state, both in terms of maintaining these homes (the capped rents rarely cover proper maintenance and running of social housing) and the burden of providing additional pensions to those who are no longer saving for retirement via BTL properties and investments (this is a large financial factor in pension planning, as many investment companies use property vehicles).

It's one of those impossible arguments, really. Yes, I do feel sorry for hardworking people who invest in properties as a means of retirement savings, but I don't really feel for those (probably fewer) money grabbing bad landlords who don't look after their properties or treat their tenants well.

TradGirl

you've hit the nail on the head IMO.

It wont affect the larger players one jot. Which probably tells you that separate measures targeting those players is necessary, if you agree with the thrust of this legislation.

PS I'm not a landlord!!