to think all buy to let people are just in it to get someone else to work to pay off their mortgage?

[madhurjazz]

I wish people would say it as it is. Buy to let in my mind is just about getting someone else that can't afford a deposit / without a stable job to do all the hard work to pay off the mortgage of someone else. It does feel like a massive step backwards in equality.

Very few actually want to rent, the vast majority are stuck doing so as speculation keeps pushing ownership out of reach.

"In addition, it fascinates me the opprobrium benefits claimants get for daring to seek the help they are entitled to. Surely, we should start questioning how taxpayer's money is being use to subsidise buy to letters etc. No other business gets that kind of government assistance no?"

Oh, I suppose Tasco, Sainsbury and Asda just refuse to accept all that money from people on benefits!

Sauvignon that's interesting, thank you.

It wouldn't have been rocket science to work out how that was going to effect rents, and society in general. It's all such a bloody shame.

Surely the anger should be directed at the government for selling off the council houses thus meaning renters have less security. Because that's the problem, is it not? It's not having long term security rather than struggling to buy.
Both myself and DH grew up in council houses. I don't recall any of our parents ever considering it unfair that some people owned their home whilst they never would. But then they knew they had stability.

mortgage companies insist that the rental income be at least 125% of the mortgage

That's perfectly true, but I doubt the facts will be allowed to get in the way

And I hate to bring up a thorny issue, but goodness knows what all those who "can't afford to buy" will say when rates start to increase again; after all, surely folk buying with base rate at 0.25% don't imagine that will last for ever?

Gaining wealth from letting out a property is a business as old as the hills. By your logic, people supplying us with food are taking advantage of people who do not have the resources (such as land, time, agriculture and farming knowledge) to produce their own food for themselves.

Property is a business that caters to a demand, like any other. If there were no rented properties, do you think that somehow those people who cannot afford a deposit would magically be able to and have their own home? No. They would not. Instead they would have no where to live, be put up in social housing or be forced to buy some run down shack because that was all they could afford.

What is taking advantage are the fees letting agents take. THAT'S taking advantage. Landlords who make up all kinds of reasons to rob tennants of their deposit or just flat out run off with them are thieves taking advantage. But people who buy to let are not (unless they do things such as what I stated above).

Besides renting a property is not all fun - some tenants wreck the place, plus you're liable for any repairs that are not the tenants fault, plus you have to shell out for landlords insurance and regular tests that MUST by law be performed. Buy to let is not some get rich quick scheme. If you don't know what you're doing, you can go bankrupt very quickly.

I rent and no doubt my rent more than pays the mortgage on this place what is worse is the increase in rent.

Surely the cost of being a landlord increases each year, though? Insurance premiums go up, rental agency fees increase, the cost repairs go up each year. It's unlikely that your LL is making more out of you each month, if anything at all.

If your LL was restricted on recouping the costs of letting to you, he may well sell the flat, your home, to someone else. If it's not a BTL buyer, then you'd have to move out.

Agree, it is another way of the rich getting richer and it contributes to the housing crisis.

We make no money and actually still need to pay some on top of the rental we get in towards the mortgage. So we're actually not making any money each month. But of course, our mortgage will not increase with the value of the house so it still makes financial sense to keep it.

When I rented, for 5 years, during redundancy/self-employment, it was because we couldn't get a mortgage.

We rented far nicer places than we could ever have afforded to buy. Both houses cost £400-500k; the monthly rent was £1k.

The council would not have housed us (didn't fulfil criteria) so private renting was a good option for us. In Scotland though, where things are better for renters, due to numerous factors such as compulsory LL registration, no tenant fees, repairing standard ( properties must be repaired/kept at a decent standard).

Well yes, as has been pointed out repeatedly on this thread, and repeatedly ignored, lots of rental properties are filling a need for many people who wouldn't qualify for social housing.

Just a thought, but since council housing's been mentioned I wonder what the most-landlords-are-bastards folk think of those who've taken advantage of the councils offloading their housing stock - often at a colossal discount - and then later rented it out?

I still have no idea what people would suggest if btl is banned or made financially non viable.

What's the plan?

You sound jealous. I worked really hard all my life ( In a low salary ) I'm a nanny, and In the past did cleaning jobs. Saved all I could and got money for a deposit, now I own my house. It wasn't easy to say no to nice clothes, or nice holidays, but you have to put your mind In what you think is priority and just do it. I'm very happy to have this house, and yes I will rent it to help me out, nothing wrong with that

I wouldn't suggest banning BTL. I would suggest a better approach to housing in general from the government, where renting is more secure and housing is more affordable. I suspect that would make BTL a less attractive proposition to a lot of small-time landlords, but it wouldn't make it impossible.

Yes maintenance does go up etc yearly not every 6 months by £25 and as I said my LL has got an investment I have no quarms that he is making money off the place if we all could do it and make an investment then we would. Investment = making money and the rent more than covers the mortage on this place an maintenance for apartments in here 1 bed mortgagr under £400 plus maintenance £68 anf my rent soon to be £710pcm is still bringing in profit. As an ex home owner I know mortages etc go up but not by the amount that some of these agencies charge every 6 months and they dont even do the regular quarterly checks which I am sure my LL is paying them for.

thecatsclinkers Thanks. Same here in that I had my one and only child at 38.

I'm a landlord, but can also understand the negative attitude towards buy-to-let.
We let out our house when we needed to move and couldn't sell. So we ourselves rented for five years at the same time as being landlords.
We've had two sets of tenants in that time and neither wanted to buy. One had too much debt and poor credit history and needed a guarantor. The other have moved back from abroad temporarily.
And it's a big commitment, we keep accounts and submit tax returns, get phone calls on a Sunday morning asking us to come immediately because a wall feels damp, emergency calls because the house has been flooded, or a faulty carbon monoxide alarm is going off etc. Definitely not just a case of getting mortgage paid every month.
We're now building another house but hope to keep rental property as an investment.

Betty4321 I don't quite know where to begin with your sweeping generalisation.

Did you miss the bit where I (for one) said we haven't put the rent up since our tenants moved in? It's actually below market rate.

And I pay the correct taxes thanks very much

I also think there are times, during housing price crash or when you will be relocating for less than two years, where you are better off renting than buying.

Most mortgaged landlords who are also 40 percent taxpayers are screwed with the new taxation regime announced in April.
It has become quite complicated, sadly many have their head in the sand.
May be wise to seek ifa advice if you are a just breaking even landlord in the middle or higher rate income tax bands.
It would be a shame if your tenants ended up homeless through io mortgage margin calls.

Yes, it's going to cost us more. But the flip side of that is that the value increased by 80k last year so we'll keep hold of it as long as it's viable to do so.

The problem with these kinds of threads is that they tend to descend into personal anecdote rather than looking at the issue in the round (though not helped here by the rather provocative and poorly written OP).

Whatever the virtues of the LL on this thread, there are clearly problems that come from having a large number of amateurs who primarily see themselves as investors rather than as being in the business of providing people with homes. That leads to a level of amateurism and ignorance in the sector, which can be downright dangerous and a blight on the lives of tenants. There are often threads from tenants on here with problems such as landlords just letting themselves in without asking or failing to do repairs. These complaints are backed up by wider scale reports for example citizens advice. This Shelter report is also very helpful, it is summarised here and draws the conclusion that "The large number of amateur and accidental landlords has led to a lack of professionalism and expertise on conditions and standards across the sector." and "While poor standards can in part be attributed to rogue landlords who deliberately exploit renters, there are
far more ill-informed amateur and accidental landlords whose actions, while less malicious, are equally as dangerous for renters.
It seems fairly clear that there are significant problems and that this is in part caused by (some) small time BTL or accidental landlords.

A lot of people are keen point out that we are a capitalist country and that is true but we don't have unregulated capitalism. Pretty much every area of economic activity in this country is regulated to protect its users and wider society. That regulation is going to be particularly important in an area in which you are providing a scarce and necessary resource that people don’t have any choice in using like providing homes. The problem with the rental market is that whilst there is regulation it is clearly not working very well. It seems self-evident that we need much higher standards in the sector and that that probably requires more regulation. I like the Shelter report's recommendation of a national register but I'm no expert.

I think it all depends what area you live in. The property I own and let out is in a city with lots of transient professionals (and families) - academia, health etc who don't want to buy as they don't want or can't necessarily get a mortgage with a temporary contract.
In 3 years, the rent has never gone up. After the first year, the family who rent it were offered a more secure tenancy - offered to sign for at least 3 more years with rent remaining the same / guarantee of no increases because I was aware it was a family renting and wanted to offer security (mainly because that's what I would want if I was renting with children). they declined because they were not sure where their jobs might take them. As it is, they are still there.
The market rent is less than it would cost for a mortgage to buy the property as housing prices have always been high here.

I have a plan.

Everyone is allowed to rent out one home. Any rent they want

Any more than one can in,y be rented out at the same price as HA properties ( 80% market value).

Any more than 3 properties you need to take people off the housing register.

Yabu. I've been a landlord for a few months (accidental). In that time I've had the boiler serviced, replaced the washing machine that the tenants reported had broken, paid for a new basin when that got broken.

By the time tax is also paid on any profit, I doubt I'll have much or any income. But I am a very good landlord and the tenants are very happy with the service I provide. They are young and happy renting, they said they don't want the hassle of owning and maintaining a property.