To think this isn't good for my soul

[Mummyyummy2012]

We rent in an expensive part of the south east. We can't afford to buy if we stay here but my kids are happy in school, I have a great career and a great social life.
However, I opened some post by mistake that was for landlord- we've never had post of theirs sent here before so genuine mistake. It was a mortgage letter- their mortgage is £149 a month and our rent is £1100. I feel really sick - we are trapped not being able to save for our own home despite most of our life being good.
I feel a bit sickened by it all- the years are ticking by- I am in my early 40s now- I just want a place to call my own. Aibu to think it's all not very good for my soul to know that the landlord is making so much money out of us and to move somewhere new/ cheaper (would mean a total relocation) ? Most of my life is great but this housing issue is having a big impact on me!

You could buy somewhere you can afford but don't live there, rent it out, meaning you are at least on the ladder.

You don't know that the landlord is making "so much money" out of you. By the time you factor in any capital sum he put into the property plus what he is spending on maintenance, insurance, repairs, replacements etc, you will probably find it evens out a lot.

Do you feel sick whenever you buy something in the shops and think about the difference between what it costs to produce and what you spend?

SilverDragonfly1 thank you! Susan is a problem 😊

To add a o what I said before - I don't think that individual landlords are inherently awful, they're making the best of what they have like anyone else, but it is still shitty for the people who can't get ahead because if the crap rental system we have in the UK. Clearly heavy handed rent control isn't helping in other countries either - but the OP is not being unreasonable to feel shit about the situation.

YABU - and I say this as a tenant. Your ll's mortgage payments have nothing to do with your rent. If the rent is fair for the house and the area, and you are getting decent service from your ll, you have nothing to feel bitter about. The ll isn't obliged to minimise his profit (if the rent is otherwise fair etc, see above) as penancefor being a ll.
That said, the housing situation in the UK is fucked up. If people would stop fetishising property owning, treating it as some kind of moral marker (a few of the posts on this thread have this unpleasant subtext - the ones going on about hard work and sacrifice), there might be political will to introduce non-bonkers tenancy laws. One thing I just can't get over is the concept of fixed-term tenancies as standard - for 6 months! How can that be good for either tenant or ll? Over here (Germany) tenancies are non-time-limited as standard, minimum notice 3 months on the part of the tenant, 3 months + a good reason (breach of contract, non-payment of rent, genuine and demonstrable own need for the property) for the ll. It works. There aren't agencies making a killing and people have the security of tenure they need.

I like how you have put this OP, not very good for the soul as it seems a such a simple unfairness no matter how much you try to explain/rationalise it. I don't think anyone can say you are being unreasonable when put like this.

However I think I have always lived in rented properties where the landlord has had little to no mortgage as they have owned the property for so long/inherited it - so I would have sort of expected this to be the case. Try not to let it get to you. You could own your own home but in an entirely different set of circumstances, so not have the happy life you have now, which is worth so much more.

You can't defend the indefensible Aye? How is this indefensible?

I had to move to a cheaper town to be able to afford to buy ... that's life I'm afraid. Especially given the current housing market. OP - can't you buy somewhere outside of where you are now, and rent that out to claw some money back? If you really are dead set against moving away

Andrew Just because rent control wasn't a success before doesn't mean its a ridiculous idea. It won't happen anyway but would it be so bad to try and stop people charging a fortune for a box room for example? Or saying if the average rent in a street is 1000 pcm you cant charge double? If we can legislate against poor housing conditions why not against overpriced rates? Emphasis on overpriced of course, not people charging market rates.

All these people saying the landlord will spend the difference on maintenance. I don't think so - the odd year yes if there were something big like a new bathroom or having to sort out some damage but not in the normal run of things. I've spent around £1000 on maintenance this year so a bit less than £100 a month (broken tap, broken shower and new fences) - and my insurance which also includes contents is around £40 a month. Oh and a bit of paint for the kitchen.

I think the LL is doing very nicely, assuming the mortgage is not interest-only and I can understand why people feel sad and frustrated when they see what mortgages cost and what their rental is. However, it's true that interest rates used to be much higher and the mortgage might have been accordingly higher some years ago.

I only have a small mortgage but that's because my husband was killed in a car crash by a drunk driver and the insurance paid out and I used it to pay most of it off. If you rented my house from me would you think the same about me as you do your Landlord? I know it must be frustrating to have seen the difference in outgoings but I'm just saying you have no idea what the owner of the house may have been through to only have a small mortgage.

I also rent, and find the 'I made all the sacrifices' talk really annoying.

Like we didn't!

However, no-one could have known that in a recession, interest rates wouldn't soar to 12% but would actually drop so much people would be paying off huge chunks of their mortgage. It's just luck. Several of my friends were completely over-extended mortgage wise around that time, and had interest rates had gone up, they would have been stuffed and lost their houses. There's still a lot of people in negative equity.

It's not necessarily a matter of 'working hard', I bought and sold property which in hindsight, had I known historically low interest rates were round the corner, should have toughed it out for a year or two.I thought I was doing my family a favour by getting out before it all crashed, when our payments were so incredibly high (and we lost jobs)- I was wrong!

If circumstances changed, people's 'luck' will change again.

Honestly, I know it sounds trite, but do just think how lucky you are to have a home, even if rented. I do. I don't really get all these threads on MN about people being jealous/seeing their neighbours with bigger cars/better things. There was one the other week where someone with a 2 million pound home tried to tell us it was hard living on a street with 3/4 million pound homes. If you haven't cracked happiness by the time you are in a 2 million pound home, you never will.

Your soul isn't going to be happy fed by jealousy. Lucky them, they have a house and rent it out, but you will be lucky in different ways.

That's not to say the rental system and housing system in the UK isn't utterly rotten. It is. But I don't think dwelling on your landlord will solve that.

But I have owned property for over twenty years. There have been times when my mortgage was more than rent would be. I have sold property for less than I paid for it in order to relocate for a job.

It's all swings and roundabouts and we live in a capitalist economy. It's life I'm afraid, communism has been shown to fail.

I get you OP, it hard but times were probably very different when the LL bought the house you rent.

I think you might have to make a sacrifice your lifestyle to buy by moving somewhere cheaper. Or, could you save enough to buy somewhere cheaper and let it out? Then you'd see what being a LL is all about too!

the rental market is completely unfair. Landlords are making big profits out of people renting, and I don't care if people say they paid a deposit and paid more in mortgage earlier etc., the fact remains that some people who are in a better position is benefitting from the unfair way the rental market and the entire UK economy is created. It is completely normal and healthy that you should feel bad about it. This country's fiancial system is not good for anyone's soul who ahs not managed to get on the property ladder.

Unfortunately, it's true what people say that you can't do that much to change what your landlord charges, as that is the way things are now, someone will always be willing to pay the rent asked for.

But it is not true you can't do anything. You could look into share to buy ownership, or try to save like crazy so you can buy your own place one day.

You can also get involved in local campaigns for affordable rent or get involved with politcs who strive to make living conditions fairer. It may be for the long haul, but it will open your eyes to the fact that you're not to blame for your situation, that so many people are caught in this situation because of the horrendous system we all live under. And it may make you feel beter to knwo that you are in a small way part of fighting for making things better.

Frankly, I don't think it'd matter if the LL spent all his income from property on hookers and charlie. As long as the property is in a fair state and he meets his legal obligations, his background/earnings/circumstances/outgoings/repayment plans are none of your business, and you'd do better to occupy your mind with something else.

Maybe reading up about the causes of this divide between owners and renters, and how the housing market in the UK has been allowed- and encouraged- to get so fucked up would help to ease your dissatisfaction? Then you could get involved in campaigning to try and set things right.

As for the people who are telling you "That's life, that's what renting's like, house prices are always astronomical in nice areas, etc".....they have very short memories. It wasn't like this 30 years ago, it's not an inevitability that it will be like this 30 years hence. This housing inequality is the result of a series of deliberate political decisions, interleaved with complacency and incompetence.

So you would feel better living in a house where the LL doesn't make much of a profit? That really doesn't make sense. Rents are based on market rates, not on the LL's costs.

I've had my rental properties for around 20 years and most are completely paid off and the final one will be next year. So, yes, I'm now making a lot of money. What it does mean is that if ever there is a problem I have the money to fix it immediately, and I can also afford a lot of ongoing upgrading/replacing. I have already spent over £10,000 in repairs and upgrading (new kitchen, replastering, decorating and adding an additional bathroom) in one house alone in this financial year.

Also, incidentally, the money I make from rent enables me to volunteer almost full time in a charity. I'm not sure what point I want to make with that, but I think if I were paying rent and knew that, then it would make me feel better.

So I think if a tenant had a choice between a LL who was making a decent profit and one who wasn't, providing both were charging market rents, they would probably do much better with the LL who had money to spare to keep the property in good nick.

It's likely to be an interest-only mortgage (most BTL mortgages are), on a property bought when prices were cheaper

Good point. In which case the LL will likely be paying an additional monthly sum (from the retail income) into an endowment policy or some other investment in order to cover the difference.

The problem here is that the OP is drawing conclusions based on a snapshot of what she perceives to be the LL's monthly incomings and outgoings based on one piece of 'evidence'. OP (if you're still around), you don't have the full picture, so making yourself miserable by assuming he's coining it in at your expense is only going to eat away at you, whilst simultaneously making no difference to your situation, or his.

All right stubbornstains

Tell us what changes you would make to housing which (1) are politically feasible and (2) would not dry up the rental market.

Unless you have a particular passion for this topic, I wouldn't spend too much time campaigning about it. I'd just file it under the 'life isn't fair' category along with not being a top model, having an interesting job etc. I'd prefer to have kept the houses I bought, but I couldn't. It would be a shame to let regrets define you.

I just think you have to make your peace with the inequality around us if it's not to affect you- I also do think of all the people around the world who would look at me and think I was incredibly lucky (rented but decent size house, ok job, plenty of food).

The landlord is only "doing nicely" because he either put down a very large deposit or bought a long time ago when prices were much lower. If it was the former, then if you spread the amount of capital (plus the interest he would have earned on it) over the length of time he has owned the houses the monthly figures will look very different. If it was the latter, the cost will have been relative to what would probably have been much lower figures for his earnings at the time, so again it would be proportionate.

Some people can afford property and unfortunately some can't.

Some people buy extra houses that then become homes for people that can't afford property.
A lot of Europe are quite happy with renting it's only this country which is obsessed with house buying.
We are a small country with a massive demand for housing so prices are high for both rental and buying.
and my next big purchase will be another house (no mortgage needed) am I supposed to let people live there for free or can I take a wage from it?

Unless you have a particular passion for this topic, I wouldn't spend too much time campaigning about it. I'd just file it under the 'life isn't fair' category along with not being a top model, having an interesting job etc. I'd prefer to have kept the houses I bought, but I couldn't. It would be a shame to let regrets define you.

Well said. The best and most sensible and rational response on this thread so far in my opinion.

If the landlord bought the house today, put down a 20% deposit down and started a 25 year mortgage, they wouldn't be paying such a nominal amount. It would likely be a similar amount to your rental payments. And interest payments are at a record low so at some stage, you could be paying far less than the LL. Interest rates were in double figures 30 years ago. Even in the 90's, they were over 7% at times - I got 6.19 fixed and thought it was fab! Interest rates wax and wane. You're comparing very low interest rates at this moment in time with high housing costs at this moment in time. However, they've probably had the house donkeys years. That's the way things go. Houses in the south east have gone up massively due to the proximity to London.

Uh? Why isn't it good for your soul? That's ridiculous! What he pays in mortgage shouldn't affect your feelings at all. I'm confused why you need to feel so emotional about it. I can understand you feeling inadequate because you haven't got a mortgage but that's nothing got to do with your landlord.

YABVU

You are paying 1100 a month and the landlord probably has £400-800K of equity tied up in the property at market rates. So in reality your rent is actually quite cheap and they could probably increase it if market conditions allow.

We live in a financialised economy. People complain and moan, but the upside of this is that it allows lots of long term planning as the fruits of labour can be stored up and extracted at a later date (e.g. i am working on some 5+ year projects that would never get off the ground if it wasn't for the guaranteed return on profits in the future).

I find it hard to have much sympathy when I know so many people on average incomes who have managed to make it work whether they own a house or not and live happy lives. If you think owning a house will make you happy then you have seriously low expectations in life.