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.

I think for some age groups they are planning on renting a property out in place of having a pension. An awful lot of employers didn't provide pensions during their working lives. And the cash wasn't available to save. So I think it's a bit naïve to imagine it's all little gnomes in towers counting their gold. For some, it's a necessity to rent out for their basic income.

I do wish they would build more homes however to increase supply. We have a plan here to build 2000 homes which just can't get approved due to the number of people complaining about it. We desperately need those homes here. The land has no other use - it's scrub. Unattractive, unused. I think more needs to be done to highlight the difficulties young people are facing. The majority here seem to be oblivious to it.

The thing is that renting used to be the norm and will again become the norm. We've had a couple of generations who'd been "lucky" to have been able to buy their own home due to the economy over their lifetime.

House prices were affordable, high inflation meant "real" mortgage payments fell every year due to wage rises, many people made a killing from endowment policies (free money for doing nothing).

Go back 3 generations and wages for most people were too low to buy a house. Full stop. They had no choice but to rent or live in work related accommodation.

The "lucky" generation were just that. Unfortunately, many of them don't realise they got what they've got because of luck of being born at the right time rather than hard work.

Today's "lucky" generation will be those who inherit from parents/grandparents. Without any significant inheritance, many of todays younger generation will never have a hope of owning their own home.

It's not about 'dog eat dog' or 'looking after number one' people have many different reasons for becoming landlords, they are not all ruthless greedy fuckers you know

Buying and selling your home is expensive and emotionally difficult, and sometimes just not logical.

When DH's GM became ill and frail she moved in with the PILs. PILs intended to eventually use GMs little house as their retirement home (they would be downsizing), so they didn't want to sell it, in fact they rented it to DH and I until we bought our own home.

My DM is now old and frail but is reluctant to sell the 4 bed house she has spent most of her life in. When the time comes that she needs daily help (soon) we will move in with her and rent ours out. We hope to return here in the future, why would we get rid of the house we love?

People hanging on to their first home directly impacts the housing market as it pulls the ladder up a rung to first time buyers.

Who says all landlords are making a ton of money anyway?

I let my house and by the time the mortgage, repairs etc are paid I only make about £80 which is ploughed back into the mortgage. Ok so I'm paying off the capital faster but I'm by no means rich.

I have to let my property as I have moved to take a new job. Ironically I now houseshare whilst saving as I can't afford to buy where I live!

I agree Badbunny those previous generations did have secure tenancies though which were phased out. The odd one still exists I think.

The guardian, shelter lapdog with as much sense.

Stop right to buy.
Get the thousands of empty homes in this country habitable again.
Remove vat on refurbs and improvements.
Come down hard on housing associations that rent out dumps. (Shelter are silent on that...)

Speed the eviction process for the skanks, non payers and druggies. Then landlords will be more willing to offer longer tenancies which are perfectly legal now. Shelter and the guardian (and mn) are barking up the wrong tree due to the religious dogma of landlord hate.

The thing is that renting used to be the norm and will again become the norm.

People used to rent from the council rather than privately though. As well as being much more affordable this also gave them security and they were able to decorate etc as they wanted.

Specialsubject completely agree

My grandparents are in the "lucky" generation and own 5 properties between 3 households worth at my best guess upwards of £3m.

As far as I can tell the only way I will be able to buy is by inheriting. But I wish it wasn't that way and I would "give up" the potential to inherit if I could just buy an affordable property without having to moved hundreds of miles.

It is selfish you're right but a lot of us would probably do it given the opportunity. I think rather than berating people for taking the selfish option we need to provide better rights for long term renters and disincentivize the buy to let market.

I rent abroad, and I'm a landlord in the UK (and I've rented in the UK) - and in the UK renters rights are getting pretty good. I think the biggest problem for me are the agents.

I, for example, would happily sign long leases with my tenants (once they've been there for a bit and decided they want to) - but try persuading an agent to even put it to the tenant - it was only by studiously ignoring requests to re-do contracts that I got a tenant on to rolling tenancy (which they wanted) - saving us both the agents fees where they want to re-do every 6 months, plus of course the issues that occur - mainly to the detriment of tenants - because each contract is then a new tenancy, not to mention the agents always trying me to bump the rent by a token amount (pointlessly.. if it's going to cost me 150 quid to redo the contract, and you want me to bump the rent by 50 quid, then it's going to be more than 3 months before I even see any of that anyway)

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.

It's not really optimistic at all...I think we are headed for very dark times. This is just one symptom of the terrible situation.

I think we all know this, but I am not sure that most are really willing or able to look at what it means. They imagine perhaps tough times like post war austerity, or the "benevolent" paternalism of late 19th century liberalism.

In reality we are staring into a future, if we choose not to change the way we operate, where we will all be forced/choose to do things, and things will be done to each of us, and to our children, that would sicken and terrify if we acknowledge them.

But I do believe that if we so choose, if we use our strengths as a species, our altruism, rationalism and scientific abilities, we can make it. It will be a close run thing.

I agree op. Where I live, I know quite a few people who have moved out of London when they've had kids. They've bought a new place and revues our their old place. They are only able to do this because they bought before before prices went crazy, or because they're in very, very high paying jobs. By not selling their homes, they're adding to the problem of keeping prices high due to very high demand.

If you have money in the bank you get bugger all back in interest! That's why people do it.

If people with savings got an ok amount back in interest they would be more likely to leave their money in the bank than have the hassle of a BTL. The best interest rate I got was 6%, it must be 10 or more years ago though. Now it's 0.01%. Housing is (understandably) seen as a better investment than banks atm.

But if interest rates go up, house prices may come down, but mortgaged home owners can't afford their repayments.

Catch 22. But I can't blame BTLers for taking advantage. I'd do it!

I'm a landlord in London. Anecdotally the majority of applicants to rent from me are fairly recent immigrants. I don't have the statistics but obviously immigration will have an impact on the housing market with more demand for property. That may be politically incorrect to say, but combined with right to buy, lack of house building etc it all makes an impact.

I don't think that's the fault of individual landlords though. Blame the government, they created the mess.

Don't think I will ever be in the happy position where I get to own two properties.

But for argument's sake, if I were in a position to either retain my current property or sell it when buying another, how could it possibly affect anyone else whether I choose to sell it or rent it out?

If you can't afford to buy, you can't afford to buy. Me choosing to rent it out won't change that.

As a renter, I don't necessary mind it. However, I would like the opportunity to be able to get a pet or paint the walls bright green if I wanted to. It's things like this that reminds me that I'm just transient, that I can't make decisions about my own space and I'll admit that it rankles a bit.

Plus rent is ridiculous, as a full time nurse or PC I wouldn't be able to afford to rent a two bedroom box with anything left over in my salary to feed myself in the SE.

Arf at all these "well I have one but I'm renting it for buttons to NHS workers" posts. You make money on it and it's not an act of altrusim - you need to own that.

I did what you describe in the op. I rent it out to city types who pay a fortune. I make no apology. That flat earns more some years than dh and I do put together. It means we can afford for us to make some lifestyle choices that benefit our family. It also means we can now take holidays and have a bedroom each for our children. It will be my pension one day.

Realistically if we had sold it instead, the Treasury would lose out in the capital gains tax they will get when we do sell and the income tax on the profits in the meantime. But that's not why we did it. We did it for our family and our own self interest. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

Besides, I don't think it is first time buyers who would have the mega bucks needed to buy our flat that doubled in value over a decade (including a period of negative equity). We couldn't afford to buy that flat now so selling it would not have benefited struggling first time buyers. It might have benefited some city couple with a quarter of a million deposit and 2 x six figures salaries who will spend on a London shoebox.

I do think the new taxation rules for buy to let are a step in the right direction and I would welcome more social housing.

Until the game stops I'm going to keep playing. Even though ideologically I don't like the game. As you say, life's not fair.

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.

Rent control destroyed the private renting sector before and it would do it again. As properties fell vacant they would be sold out of the rental market.

Increase supply by more social housing and breaking NIMBY control of planning.

As a PP said, make it quick and easy to get rid of the, skanks, non payers and druggies.

Bring back direct payment of HB from the beginning of the tenancy until the tenant leaves - no option to the tenant spend the HB money on anything else and no risk to the LL of finding the HB has dried up but the tenant is still there and not paying.

But don't treat landlords as Public Enemies.

If you can't afford to buy, you can't afford to buy. Me choosing to rent it out won't change that

Yes it does! Buy to let has affected house prices.

Special you are late to the thread. You have omitted your favourite phrase of 'bile spewing' towards anyone who says anything negative about landlords

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut that is a very good post and an honest one. I agree with you.

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?

Council tenants should move on if they start earning above a certain threshold. They shouldn't have a council house for life. Council houses shouldn't have been sold off. I think that if you bought a council house for say £30k then sold it for say £100k there should be a law saying you should split the profit with the council.

And they wonder why people say MN looks like a Tory Party Conference on heat at time.

Rent ceilings don't work.