Op this is always going to be contentious on here. Some folks think that landlords are scum of the earth and renters are doing them a favour by paying their mortgage off. They can’t see it as paying to live some place.
I’ve no problem at all with LLs – of course it’s a mutually beneficial agreement, although the cost of renting vs buying is heavily weighted in favour of the LL, who may or may not have helped to push up prices by buying houses to rent out.
I know a couple of LL’s and I don’t think they’re getting rents two to three times the cost of their mortgages
Of course they are not but it's better to believe this to justify hating LLs. I make no money out of my property from rent. That's because over 30% of it goes into tax, yes, that thing that helps people get hb....by the time the mortgage is paid, and 20% is set aside for repairs, decoration, fees, potential non payment, there's nothing left and the property is only an investment no different to the money being in bank except that this way, it actually help some people who are happy to live in such property but can't afford to buy.
I never said that the LL gets to keep all of the money that they receive in rent. Like most income, there will be tax to pay on it and other associated costs. I don’t hate good LLs at all – I was one for a decade. The fact is that it costs far more per month to rent a property than to buy the same property, if only you were able to get the deposit together and be accepted for a mortgage, which is something that many people aren’t privileged enough to be able to do. There is also the fact that, the more first-time buyer properties get snapped up by LLs, that will inevitably drive up prices and make the tenants even less able to afford to buy. I am in no way juxtaposing the two scenarios from a moral pov, but, taken to an extreme, the principle is a little like with ticket touts – they also often claim to be helping people to obtain tickets for events that had otherwise sold out immediately, but it was often to them that many of the tickets were sold in the first place. Of course, nobody needs to go to a concert, but we do all need a home.
Why is it such anathema to even consider that, should the tenants' monthly rent leave a temporary shortfall in your monthly mortgage payment for the property, which you then have to make up from your own funds, you are still in a very fortunate position in your longer term goal of owning a house outright at relatively minimal cost to yourself?
That statement is pathetic. People don't opt to rent to be kind to LLs and want to support them financially. They rent because they want a roof over their heads or above house they otherwise can't afford to buy. They do it for their selfish reasons. Nothing wrong with this at all.
That doesn't mean that LLs should have a responsibity towards tenants whose personal circumstances they hardly know. Many LLs were tenants themselves once upon a time just as many current tenants will end up LLs one day.
I'm so tired of this all 'tenants are poor victims of circumstances above their control whilst LLs are lucky bastards who just got lucky'.
This certainly wasn't my circumstances in any way, yet because I'm LL, I'm labelled as such automatically. Envy really brings the worse in people.
That’s completely misrepresenting me (and seems quite a confusing argument from a logic perspective based on the quote). I never said that a LL should run their business as a charity or as a kindness to their tenants, nor that the tenants are only renting to do the LL a big favour. I was referring to the crazy idea that many hobby/unrealistic LLs have, as in the quotes below, that renting out property is a short-term business plan, and that it only turns a profit if you are left with excess money every single month that you own it, right from the start. Many LLs who do understand how it works treat it as their pension. Paying any money into any form of a pension will not bring you much of/any short-term profit – indeed, it will usually cost you hard cash each month. You do it because, at the end of a long period of investment, you will (hopefully) start to receive a healthy income and/or have a property that you own outright. It’s just basic business planning. If you want to see an instant month-on-month return, becoming a LL is probably not the best idea.
By the way, I was a LL myself for a decade and I did quite well from it, so I neither hate nor envy myself.
I've explained several times it's the landlord tax section 24. Even with that I break even with a decent amount to cover repairs so my buisness is still very successful even if it doesn't return a large proffit.
It barely makes a profit after the landlord tax that has now come in.