To hate landlords?

[MsPeachh]

Last month, I had to move suddenly. I found the flat I’m in now, it had just been bought by my landlord and I’m the first person in after the former owner moved out. It’s an ex-council house that the owner had purchased under “right to buy” and now I have to pay a third of my salary to a private landlord for what was originally meant to be affordable housing.

I’m a scientist in my late twenties with good qualifications and I feel total despair that I might never be able to afford my own home, and I will be lining someone else’s pockets via rent for the rest of my life. Let alone what anyone in a position less fortunate than mine is supposed to do.

To make matters worse, I looked up my landlord’s info on Companies House and I discovered that they have 22 properties in my area! It’s a village on the outskirts of a town where lots of people move when they are ready to move out of the hustle and bustle and settle to raise kids. And more and more of these properties are being snapped up by this landlord. It makes me sick, honestly. I know a lot of people become landlords accidentally in later life due to remarrying etc and ending up with two houses between one couple, but this landlord sucking up 22 houses in such a small area disgusts me. I feel like I’m completely losing hope for the future of people my age and younger as house prices keep soaring and soaring.

AIBU?

Of course it’s a business. A very poorly regulated one. Which gives the impression to many that it isn’t.

My tenants are people who should afford to buy. They are both professionals. I expected then to rent for 6 months and give notice then to go and buy. 4 1/2 years later, they are still there.

They have had two children during that time going to the most expensive nursery in town and now private primary school. They both drive expensive new cars. Their furnishing are much nicer than mine and they go on expensive holidays.

I have no idea if they moan that they can't buy a property but if they are, they certainly have their choice of lifestyle to blame if only partially.

Nobody said it wasn’t a business, just the lowest form of one

I see your point, but yabu overall. Like other posters have said, sharing a rental property when you are young offers better value and you can often move out more easily, making it possible to take advantage of job offers as they arise. This is what every one of my friends has done until their mid 30s.

Landlords aren't evil, they are just making the most of the situation. It's government you should be angry at - they create the conditions that distort the market so much.
The Right to Buy was good for some people, but had some bad side effects on the housing stock and the market. Hardly the landlord's fault.

My very favourite landlord had several properties and he was lovely, he would pop round and sort out every problem with our shared flat and stay for a cuppa. Landlords are people too, just looking to make their living the best way they can.

I have no idea if they moan that they can't buy a property but if they are, they certainly have their choice of lifestyle to blame if only partially.

Move to stoke on Trent you can get a house up here for less that £40k

Newcastle is even cheaper.

Do you think in the future that there will ever be a time when everyone owns their own property ?

State owned ?
Private owned ?
Mixture ?

Many landlords with mortgages are selling up as they are now taxed on profits they don't make

I think many pre Covid turned their properties into Airbnb’s
Lots of people travel for work or for courses. Airbnbs don’t have to be in scenic areas or near the beach. People need them for all sorts of reasons, work/visiting relatives/courses/between house moves etc

For landlords it can be a win win situation.
They can put their income against tax and they have cleaning fees and money up front.
And they don’t have to worry about non paying tenants.

I think the Singapore model wouldn’t work in the UK. Too many people on the move. Too many people wanting short and long term lets

I agree that council property should stop being sold. But I also think we need to get rid of the life time tenancies apart from specific circumstances. I.e long term life altering disabilities where someone cannot work or needs long term f/t care by their families.
What I think should happen is that people can rent from the council for specific numbers of years and the rent charged is on a sliding scale to how long you think you need the property for.
I.e renting for 5 years is the lowest rent to 25 years being the highest amount per month.

That way there is help for those that want to buy in the shortish term and longer term help for those that want to raise a family and then buy or make other arrangements in the longer term.

A friend has been in her council house for the past 40 years. They have refused all offers to buy. They could move out if they wanted to buy but want to sit it out and leave the tenancy to their children.

If tenancies were more free flowing I think it would help people.

I actually don’t think it does some people good sitting in a cheaply rented place because they have a fear of losing their cheap rent.
I have seen it a few times and it is sad to see someone missing out on wives/girlfriends and having their own children. (in every case it is a man) because they don’t want to make the leap into the unknown and move.

@Pea1nAp0d5

Do you think in the future that there will ever be a time when everyone owns their own property ?

State owned ?
Private owned ?
Mixture ?

I don't think high levels of home ownership are necessarily the answer, but we do need secure and affordable housing...everyone needs a safe place to call home, without that basic Foundation how can you build your life?

I have no idea if they moan that they can't buy a property but if they are, they certainly have their choice of lifestyle to blame if only partially.

But maybe your tenants don't moan because renting works for them. Just because someone rents it doesn't mean they can't afford a lavish lifestyle. There is a weird attitude amongst some people that if you can afford it you should always buy & only "poor" people rent. Lots of wealthy people rent because it's often the better option for them.

@Oliversmumsarmy i think you’re right. Council housing should never have been sold off.

have seen it a few times and it is sad to see someone missing out on wives/girlfriends and having their own children. (in every case it is a man) because they don’t want to make the leap into the unknown and move.

[shocked] I’m totally stunned by this! Although I can see it happening. Once you’re out of social housing you’re probably never getting back in.

When council housing was created, Nye Bevin wanted to create communities where “the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the … labourer all lived in the same street.” I would love to see those again, and live there!

Landlords are part of the reason that many people can't afford to buy
Landlords do not create housing they merely purloin it and thereby push up the prices so that others cannot afford to own their own home

If people want to buy then the places are available. Flats and houses don’t go on some special list to be looked over by landlords first.
I put my flat on the market and it sold to a FTB within the day. 3 months on and about to sign. FTB had paid out for a survey and mortgage arrangement and solicitors fees and they pulled out of the purchase.

Flat put back on the market and same thing happens

Flat put back on the market and ditto.

By this time 9 months have gone by. Flat goes back on the market at £20,000 more.
BTL landlord comes along and says he wants it and just gets on with buying it.

If buyers want to buy then buy. Stop messing around.
These FTBs must have wasted so much money.

A lot of places that Landlords buy aren’t mortgageable so they are the ones bringing a flat or a house back to life because they have the cash and the skill set to do it.

@Oliversmumsarmy I agree, some houses just appeal more to landlords maybe because they're city centre or less appealing to families and attract more transient people who only want to stay a year.

A landlord with the skills and resources to modernise and make it easy for someone to move straight in will make more profit over time from rent than a private buyer wanting to make it top of the range then sell it on, finding they've now priced it out of the market.

If buyers want to buy then buy. Stop messing around.
These FTBs must have wasted so much money.

Maybe they had better options or long term it was better to lose the money already spent.

By this time 9 months have gone by. Flat goes back on the market at £20,000 more.
BTL landlord comes along and says he wants it and just gets on with buying it.

I don't believe just because someone is buying a property as a BTL they automatically are more property savvy.

@Oliversmumsarmy Many singaporeans do work overseas, there are parts of london where i hear nothing but the singapore accent lol. They are in london mainly on expat contracts, would return home to singapore eventually. They all own back in singapore and are allowed to rent out their flats if they show evidence that they are going to work overseas.

There is no problem with wanting to be a landlord or owning multiple properties but society wold be divided and there would be a lot of anger/jealousy if 50-60% own and the rest want to but don't. I don't think most of the people on this thread would hate landlords as much if there was 90% home ownership in the UK. There isn't a way to create 90% home ownership without massive state intervention or at least I don't see how.

@MsPeachh Thats the Singapore model! Doctors, grocers, butchers all lived in the same block. We kept that model even after independence. Makes me sad that it no longer exists in the UK when we borrowed it.

YANBU. Utter greed.

I put my flat on the market and it sold to a FTB within the day. 3 months on and about to sign. FTB had paid out for a survey and mortgage arrangement and solicitors fees and they pulled out of the purchase.

Flat put back on the market and same thing happens

Flat put back on the market and ditto.

For that to happen 3 times I’d suspect something came up in the survey or something else is wrong with the flat.

@hopingforonlychild if only I could handle the weather, sounds like a great place to live! My friend stopped over on her way to Australia for her honeymoon, she enjoyed Singapore more than the honeymoon!

Renting is great for city centre properties, absolutely. I still don’t believe there is any justification for my LL to own 22 properties in such a small, residential area where people typically settle down with families.

Here we had a flat development built on the site of an old school directly opposite my workplace. Days after opening, I saw about 10 of the flats being advertised to rent. It was disgusting.

[quote MsPeachh]@hopingforonlychild if only I could handle the weather, sounds like a great place to live! My friend stopped over on her way to Australia for her honeymoon, she enjoyed Singapore more than the honeymoon!

Renting is great for city centre properties, absolutely. I still don’t believe there is any justification for my LL to own 22 properties in such a small, residential area where people typically settle down with families.[/quote]
The 'justification' is that it benefits the LL greatly because it diverts family earnings into his retirement fund
Everyone has to work for him
Cushty!

@Yohoheaveho will be interesting to see how the government deals with the state pension that they are trying to whittle away when my cohort reaches retirement age and many are still renting!

At present older people who do not have much money and rent can get pension credit and housing benefit even if they have never worked and have no NI credits for state pension (or I assume universal credit). In fact those who never worked can be given much more money than state pension - so sometimes it pays in that sense always to have rented.

I think YABU for saying you hate all landlords. Some are amazing and will go above and beyond for their tenants because they understand they have a mutually beneficial situation. But you're not unreasonable to hate being in a situation paying so much of your salary towards rent when you would prefer to buy. There's landlords similar to yours in my area. One of my neighbours is renting and her house is smaller overall with one less bedroom and yet her rent is £300 a month more than my mortgage. Her landlord also owns multiple properties and she constantly has issues with the letting agents he uses. Including sending gas engineers out to the property with a spare set of keys and no warning. Nice surprise for her when two men she hadn't seen before entered her home while she was upstairs with her baby.

Its the landlord's responsibility to pay for repairs etc which is a definite benefit as a tenant as you don't have to worry about them. Landlords are not necessarily making a profit at all and there are good landlords and bad landlords same as there are good tenants and bad tenants.

I think there is certainly a place for private rented property but there is not enough affordable housing to buy and rent. That's not the fault of individual landlords though.

I've been a landlord and a tenant at the same time (as I had to live elsewhere for work). I think we need all types of property to rent and purchase and the issue in the UK is that in certain areas, we do not have enough.