To think it's selfish to deliberately plan to rent out the old house when you buy a new

[jdoe8]

I understand why people do it, its dog eat dog out there and people look after number 1 even if it means it screws others.

But how are the next generation going to ever afford to buy if people carry on doing this?

This makes for depressing reading especially the comments - www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/26/the-sad-cost-of-renting-never-having-somewhere-to-call-home

I don't believe any generation worked any harder, you just had to be lucky and in the right place at the right time. Its very well to say just rent but renters have such poor rights in the UK it's very undesirable.

There is a middle ground, my parents are looking into this and think that if they rent their former home it will come through a local community trust, it will be a longer-term let and will bring in less income but they know it will be handled in a way that is much more socially fair.

Sorry I think renters are being selfish if they expect owners to un invest in their own and their children's future just to free up one property. There are also other reasons why they might not sell....... negative equity anyone?

I've not read further than VintagePerfumista because I agree whole-heartedly with her. And just want to add, I think the problem is that we are working from the wrong premise. England is the only European country I know of (though granted, my knowledge is limited) where tenants' rights are so appalling, and where people are made to feel like second-class citizens for not owning their own homes. Places like Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece - everyone who is not massively wealthy, rents, and unless they hugely screw up, have life-long tenancies if they so wish. The buy to let market in England (starting with the selling off of council houses) is what has ruined social housing.
And breathe.

No, six it means that houses have been taken out of social ownership which adds to the increase in house prices for those who would previously have been able to buy.

Private renters pay higher rents (approx 12% nationally) than social. Renters pay about an average of 34% of take home income on housing costs, mortgage payers 12%.

Diluted version of Deutsche report

Deutsche Bank said investors could expect returns to fall to between ‘0 – 0.5 per cent’, and predicts that around 35 per cent of landlords in London would sell up as a result. Around four in ten London homes are owned by landlords.

Oliver Reiff, co-author of the report, said: ‘You also have to bear in mind that because of new mortgage regulations in the pipeline, many landlords may not be able to take out as much debt as before.

‘This is likely to see fewer landlords buying properties, which will be a shock to the London market.’

The report predicts that house prices could fall by 20% but I can't see whether foreign investors will continue to be taken in to account.

Mumsnet seems to have a lot of landlords on here, I am no socialist and did also rent my house out while I was a tenant elsewhere, but there is a massive problem with buy to let in this country.

Lots of housing stock is unfit for habitation, amateur landlords have no idea (or care) about legislation (you only have to read threads on here to be reminded of that) and it's insecure.

We need more affordable housing and better protection for tenants (just wait for the stories about tenants trashing properties now).

I bought a flat at 23 with my partner. We were on a combined wage of about 40k probably a bit less. The mortgage was £1200 a month. We didn't have any help at all. We saved every penny since leaving uni. No holidays. No expensive clothes, only bought essentials and rented a room for 2 years so we had minimal outgoings. This was in the south east too. Many of my friends made different choices with their money and now bang on about how they can't afford to buy a house...because they spent all their money. I obviously understand that people earn a hell of a lot less than 40k between them and they are many exceptions but among my peers (uni leavers on a relatively low starter level salary) they could have afforded somewhere cheap, in a less desirable area if they were willing to make sacrifices to save money. You can't have your cake and eat it.

We did, a couple of times. Just because it worked out easier for moving etc.

Yes but I bet that if the shoe were on the other foot, your worthy principles would take a back seat.

This is of interest.

I was reading recently that it is a human trait that we assume other people think as we do.

Just yesterday there was an article about taxes, and one poster said something along the lines that everyone cheats if they can. I don't think that is necessarily true.

I think our current system rewards self interest, but in reality our strength as a species - why we aren't still out on the savanna red in tooth and claw - is that we have this singular ability....and as far as we know so far we are totally unique in a vast, vast universe...to act for the good of the group. To empathise, to plan and to rationally see farther than the immediate.

It's really not as simple as giving up your iPhone and not eating out

A homebuyer earning the median salary for their region in 1995 would have had to spend between 3.2 times and 4.4 times their salary on a house, depending on where they lived. In 2012-13, the last year for which complete data is available, the median house price had risen to between 6.1 times and 12.2 times median regional incomes

It was an even lower ratio in the 70/80s.

I saw the figures on paper and it made sense to keep it on. But I have morals and would of felt like a selfish cunt.

Right so everyone that doesn't think like you, in your words is a selfish cunt then.

Wow how delightful.

Oh and I have plenty of morals thank you.

makeourfuture - love your optimism in the face of the massive self-interest currently on show in Theresa May and the Tories, and Trump and the Republicans.

I have an investment property. I've got my kids' futures in mind.

I think housing benefit distorts the market. I rent out a flat which was bought 15 years ago as an investment- the rent we ask now is only 15% higher than it was 15 years ago because the market here is largely professional couples and corporate tenants and based on supply and demand. At the lower end of the market I wouldn't mind betting that rents have gone up a lot more than 15% over that time frame. If people didn't receive housing benefit they couldn't afford inflated prices and the market would have to adjust downwards.

But if social housing were available for those renters cabbage they wouldn't need to turn to the more expensive and less secure private rental market. It is no surprise that there has been such an increase in private rentals at the same time as such a decrease in social housing rentals.

We have 3 properties and I feel no guilt at all. In the absence of anything approaching a secure pension we want to be able to stop work sometime after our 70th birthdays and support ourselves in old age. I feel about as bad about that as I'm sure all the government employees feel about their generous pension packages i.e. not at all.

Where are my student DCs meant to live if there are fewer private landlords?

Sixisthemagicnumber I get what you are saying but I am suggesting that buy to let has impacted the entire housing market and prices.
Therefore, many more are renting who would previously have been able to afford to buy.

A previous poster has just said that she owns four houses (and feels no guilt).

The landlord bashers always overlook the fact that investing in property isn't a one way bet - when we bought the buy to let flat just after 9/11 people said we should pull out. We didn't, we took a risk, and with the benefit of 15 years hindsight it paid off. It might not have done! People forget very readily that there have been bad times in the housing market and prices can go down as well as up.

thatdearoctopus that is a completely different market and not really what anyone is claiming should stop.

There will always be a market for young professionals too who have different requirements.

Echoing superbeagle above, we've got a BTL as a way of saving for our children. The housing market is in such a state that I feel this is the only way of getting them on the ladder.

The housing situation isn't going to improve because a few small Landlords sell their BTL properties. The housing/renting market needs systemic change. The Housing White Paper didn't go anywhere near addressing the issues or there.

Gallivanting Do you mean that Council tenants should be forced to move on or that people who have exercised the right to buy should now be forced to sell?

Both batshit crazy but which do you mean?

Or both?

By coincidence the chap who called Labour's manifesto in 1983 "the longest suicide note in history" has just died. Even that only proposed to make buyers give first refusal to the council at the price paid when the buyer chose to sell!

I have no interest debating with someone who discusses the very real issue of but to let as 'landlord bashers' but why do you assume that people forget?

I suspect that I am older than you, I had a house in negative equity for ten years.

As others have said, renters should have more rights but that doesn't include the right to buy. Apart from anything else, if renting was a better option there wouldn't even be any need to buy. Also we need some landlords as believe it or not, not everyone would like to buy a house as soon as they leave their parents house. Even in the 90s, when buying a house was much more affordable for professionals, many wanted to rent for some time while moving around with their jobs.

We should be taking it out on successive governments and local authorities for not providing affordable housing stock.

There was housing stock. Thatcher sold it off. And didn't allow the LAs to keep the money to build more. Successive governments have cut back funds further and further.

I (a home owner) think that rents should be capped at a level appropriate for the area, so that no-one would end up paying more in rent than they would have done on a 90% mortgage for property.

Often rents are two or three times what a mortgage payment would be.

Between all these small landlords, one in five properties are a buy to let. Of course it distorts the market.

Threads like this always annoy as you get a load of people who:

1.) Claim that buying a house is actually easy, they lived on beans for two years and could afford when they were early 20s. Rest of society are lazy fuckers etc - when drilled down these people always have high paying jobs (and/or parental help) or it was ages ago when houseprices everywhere, but especially the southeast were comparatively more affordable. People who really think that not having a phone and the odd costa coffee could allow young people to buy are deluded and offensive.

2.) "Accidental" or other landlords who claim to be oh so virtuous, they rent below market rate to "worthy" people etc - just sod off. You own a property for your current and future income - it helps people massively if Mummmy and Daddy can sell a rental property for a few hundred k to help their kids get on the market.