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.

[BombadierFritz]

I heard there was this cool thing once called social housing but then most voters decided they couldnt be bothered with it.

[poshme]

My sister has a BTL. She and her husband live rent & mortgage free in another house provided for them. It's a requirement of his job that they live there. He works full time 6 days a week, and most evenings with his job. He will get a tiny tiny pension, and his current pay is about £8,000 a year .
He is a church minister.

Are they horrible greedy landlords? They want to have somewhere to live when he stops working. She inherited a small amount of money which they used to buy the BTL. They do all the maintenance, and are very generous to their tenants when the rent is paid late.
Not all landlords are the same.
YABU

[ClopySow]

I agree with the OP

[NerrSnerr]

What do you suggest then OP? I rented different properties for 10 years on and off. 3 years of that we're student lets and then different properties with my now husband before we settled. We chose to rent as we lived in 4 different towns before we settled. We could have bought together much earlier but renting suited us. If the wasn't BTL landlords who would we have rented from?

[Xmasbaby11]

Yes of course it is. The tenants are living in the property so obviously they pay to live there, and that money goes towards the mortgage.

My Dh rented out his house because he couldn't sell it. After 5 years of renting it out, we've finally sold it and it's such a relief. Yes, the rent covered the mortgage he paid but he did pay hundreds a year for a lot of repairs and upkeep, and agent's fees and a month's missed rent every time the tenants changed.

I bought a house when I was 35 and until then I rented. It suited me fine and I don't think of it as wasted money. I moved around a lot and enjoyed living in different places without the responsibility and commitment of buying somewhere.

[NNChangeAgain]

Love that the people would have nowhere to live without btl. Because all these houses would jusylt disappear if people weren't speculating on it. Maybe they would be more affordable and there could be social and professional landlords.

Ah, so you're not against the rental market, you just want to restrict who can make a living from it.

Social landlords make a "profit" from their tenants in order to pay for the staffing and overheads required to run their Housing Association. It costs a lot more for a social landlord to replace a broken tap washer than it does a BTL landlord - and those costs are passed on to the tenant.

What is a "professional landlord"? Presumably, someone who makes a living out of it - you know, makes a profit out of their tenants? Why do you think professional landlords buy property? To let..... Making them buy to let landlords?

I'm happy to consider alternatives to a capitalist economy - but your argument doesn't seem fully thought through yet.

[ImYourMama]

madhurjazz I'm a mortgage adviser - the amount of entitled yuppies like you that I see questioning why they can't have a mortgage with no deposit/bad credit rating is ridiculous.

Property investment is the same as any other investment.

If you took properties off private landlords, most would stand empty as the people living in them would not qualify for a mortgage!

The majority of private landlords own 1-2 houses and have to subsidise the mortgage if the tenants aren't paying market value. There is also costs of repairs and upkeep. It's not some great con, it's those who have money to invest, doing so safely and responsibly.

If you can't get on the property ladder that's your bloody sour grapes.

[ImogenTubbs]

I'm definitely in favour of more regulation for the rental system. Yes, I profit from owning property but am very aware that these are people's homes and lives and that I have a duty to treat that with respect. They pay me good rents and in return they have a right to expect a comfortable, fully functional home without sudden and unexpected costs / rent hikes. I realise that several posters on this thread will think I am lying and am really entirely selfish and money-grabbing, and don't give a shit about the poor arseholes.

[Nataleejah]

If those with extra wealth to own more properties than they need to live in, would BUILD, instead of scooping up what used to be affordable, that would be ideal.

[Baeb]

This is a bit of a generalisation, but I think LLs on MN are more likely to be accidental LLs or "shit I need help with a pension" LLs, than "I will buy twenty rows of houses and twiddle my thumbs with glee as some estate agent screws tenants over". Doubtless the latter exist in some places, but I don't think they're posting on MN on a Saturday morning.

The world IS unfair, and absolutely everything we take for granted is morally questionable OP - it's such a big complex, unstable and precarious system we've created for ourselves in society today, and everything assumes inequality deep down.

I don't know what an official economic forecast would say, but thinking about it, surely banning BTLs would polarise society further still, not equalise it? Sure, some "poor" people might get a house, but the financial shockwave of many "middles" being bankrupted might interrupt that. Meanwhile a few rich, unethical people would buy up all the desperately cheap properties, but without mortgages, and still charge insane rent. No way would it would all just equalise and end happily ever after.

(Not a LL myself by the way, but certainly don't think they're all demons. That's so naive.)

[BalloonSlayer]

YANBU but it's pretty obvious and not sure why you posted.

Its getting harder to get a mortgage for some people and they have no choice but to rent.

[JudyCoolibar]

Are landlords supposed to operate as charitable enterprises then? Shouldn't the same apply to every other commercial activity? Just think, if those evil people at Sainsbury's, Amazon and Marks & Spencer weren't trying to make a profit, then their customers would have more money to enable them to get on the housing ladder.

[NNChangeAgain]

Are landlords supposed to operate as charitable enterprises then? Shouldn't the same apply to every other commercial activity?

To be fair, that is the basic principle of socialism - support for which is currently enjoying a revival in the uk

[ChocolateWombat]

Housing is a product/service that you pay for. Like most products / services, those supplying them incur costs to supply them and supply them with the purpose of making an income. So, yes, people who buy to let do it do it to make money over time. They do provide a product /service in return and no-one is forced to live in their property, but enters into a voluntary rental contract.
The fact that some people can afford to buy a buy to let property and others cannot afford a property to buy for themselves and so have to rent from some kind of landlord is simply a feature of a society with varying levels of income and wealth. For those who rent because they cannot afford to buy, it might be annoying and yes, inequality has some unfairness in it (because people's levels of effort and work don't always equate to their income level. Individual buy to let landlords however are as much subject to the system we live in as anyone else and individually are not responsible for any individual not being able to afford to buy or inequality itself. They act with self interest, which is ultimately human nature. If you want to blame someone, blame a government system which has reduced the amount of social housing, by selling off the housing stock and putting a greater proportion into the free market.

[ThisIsStartingToBoreMe]

You are right of course OP. Buy-to-let parasites are the scourge of modern society. The sooner it is outlawed the better.

[scaryteacher]

Dh was posted abroad with HM Forces. After 2 years with him abroad and ds and I in our home in the UK, ds and I moved abroad, and the house was let out, whilst we rented from the MOD. After 7 years I moved back for a short while to sort out the house post tenants, as dh had retired, but got a civian but defence related job in the same place. The house was rented out again after I moved abroad again, and we rent abroad.

I want to return to my house when the contract here is finished. It is my slice of heaven. I could leave it empty, but it is an old house that needs to be lived in. Why not rent it out?

[LyraMortalia]

Despite saving and paying into a pension without our rental property we would be very poor in our retirement. We choose to live in a small house(mine) and rent out my dh's house. Both of which were lived in and mortgages paid off by us separately are we allowed to keep our houses in your communist utopia? Or should we donate one of our hard earned houses for free to someone? We have saved and are now buying a third almost derelict property which we will do up and return to the the housing market as a rental or should we spend the next six months doing it and give that one away as well?

[ChocolateWombat]

If the government is the owner of housing, they CAN act to reduce inequality, by making housing more affordable for those who need it (only works if on a rented basis, rather than selling....because this just then leads to a new group of home owners who benefit from the ownership). When housing is owned privately, there is no reason at all to expect the owners to rent it out at less than market rates - they act for themselves, not the good of society.
If you want housing managed for the purposes of equality and a socialist agenda, much more of the housing stock needs to be owned by government. This isn't down to landlords to sort out.

[Iamtheresurrection]

I can't sell my house because help to buy means people who bought small 1/2 bed properties are going straight to 3 bed new builds.

So I rent it out and will make a loss now the tax relief has been removed. Of course, if people prefer, I could leave it empty and there would be one less home available.

[engineersthumb]

I think that the real problem with BTL is that it turns housing into a comodity where it is actually a necessity. I know buying and selling homes also creates this false market but if your buying and selling somewhere to live not trading cash cows it has less effec. Of course what we need is a huge expansion in publicly owned housing for rent. I beggars belief that any government can say it has huge cost when there are endless lines of potential BTLs fighting for property. If we constructed large council stocks then these would have a growing value whilst in the stock, not to mention employing a lot of people and removing many from housing insecurity. I'm really not a communist! But I do think that the base necessity of life should not be bartered for profit.

[Applesandpears86]

I let my house because after I bought it I got a new job and moved cities. I couldn't afford to sell it.

Obviously my tenants are paying my mortgage; that's because I have to pay rent on another property.

I'm a good and fair landlord, having rented some dire properties in my time.

There are so many reasons that people have buy-to-let mortgages. I doubt many of the main motivators are to screw over their tenants.

[NNChangeAgain]

I do think that the base necessity of life should not be bartered for profit.

You mean like food?

[NNChangeAgain]

I doubt many of the main motivators are to screw over their tenants.

OP didn't say that BTL landlords screw over their tenants. She said they pay off their mortgage by letting to their tenants. Of course they do.

The OP does imply that is a "bad thing" though, which is a political, rather then ethical, debate.

[user1471439240]

Buy to let for the masses is over.
Housing is sucking productive wealth from the real economy.
The government has signalled enough is enough. Taxation has increased substantially on Landlords and will continue to do so.
When big Tony in the chippy is piling into Btl is the time to get out.
Housing is a highly illiquid asset, it's currently in the chancellors crosshairs, a sitting duck.
Public sentiment has changed, high house prices impoverish everyone.
The government is clearing the decks for large corporations to provide decent, affordable, and crucially long term secure tenure for generation rent. Insurance and pension funds eg L&G will become the landlords of choice.
This is not advice.