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?

I totally understand why you are frustrated but please don’t hate all landlords. We have become landlords not through choice - a couple of years ago we were gifted a small flat so we could take our very medically complex child on “holiday”. Hotels and air bnbs were difficult with having a noisy oxygen concentrator and organising delivery/ collection of it each time.

We now rent the flat out to a single dad on UC. He has a guarantor as he is out of work. I didn’t want to be a landlord but am trying to be a nice/ fair one...

So your son was able to save his entire wage for two years because he was living at home and being entirely supported by you so it’s not true to say
You mean as the majority of 17-18 years old? Be started contributing when working FT hence taking longer afterwards.

MsPeachh

I actually don’t think 1/3 of your salary on rent is actually that bad and a lot of places that btl landlords snap up wouldn’t be mortgageable anyway so I think they bring uninhabitable homes back into circulation

When I was in rented in the 70s and 80s I paid 75% of my salary on rent.

You have 2/3rds of your salary left to live on and save and then you wouldnt have to rent.

It is about prioritising what you want.

You mean as the majority of 17-18 years old? Be started contributing when working FT hence taking longer afterwards.

Yes, but unlike the majority of 17-18 year olds he was able to work 16 hours a week, without having to contribute anything to the house and continue studying full time for A levels. You must realise that isn’t possible for many teens at that age?

lining someone else’s pockets via rent for the rest of my life

I don't understand this. You do realize you are also "lining someone else's pocket" when you go to the supermarket, restaurants or shops? Is it the fact that the landlord is an individual, i.e. you are fine with lining a company's pockets but not an individual's? Or the fact that it is the basic need of being housed (but then why is it different than eating?)

One of our dc owns a home and a rental, not even 30. They had help with house deposit and an inheritance.

Instead of moaning make a plan.

Yes OP- just make a plan to inherit some money and get help with your house deposit. Simples.

@Racoonworld I didn't have a 100k deposit! I had 40k largely because I lived at home to save & crucially I bought with DH.

I was born & raised in London so yes I did expect to buy there, why wouldn't I?

• One of our dc owns a home and a rental, not even 30. They had help with house deposit and an inheritance.

Instead of moaning make a plan.*

This is a joke surely, are people really that thick?

@AlpineSnow

In past generations they had to leave school and work hard/save hard to get a house I think some people don't seem to grasp the very basic point that house prices are lot more unaffordable now than they were in the past

Exactly. My parents first home, a house in the best area of a southern city cost £1000 in 1955. That is the equivalent of between £25,000 & £30,000 now. They didn't even have a mortgage. My blue collar (caretaker) grandad lent them the money. My parents were manual workers.

Fwiw dd is a landlord on a flat she bought at 18. She then learned a lot of the skills to renovate the place, dealt with builders etc and was going to sell it but because of this pandemic it is now a rental property

She works incredibly long hours doing anything and everything. She worked yesterday in one job, then went to a 2nd job getting home at nearly 1am then was rung up this morning at 7am by an agency she is with to say that a company was short staffed and could she cover. So at 7.30am she was on her way to a 3rd job.
She already has December booked out with another company. 13 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Most of her friend who didn’t go to university but by the time they reach mid 20s have bought a place. It is the ones who did go to uni who are the ones who are struggling.

I know it is only anecdotal but I would love to know the figures. The difference in home ownership/renting between those that went to university and those that went into a trade.

My family always rented - I have been doing family research (other than a few rare exceptions - one mining ancestor, an "overman" in the 1851 census proudly wrote that he was a "proprietor of houses"!) So owning somewhere is a fairly new thing really and not everyone wants to either as they have to pay when the boiler breaks down etc and it is expensive to move due to stamp duty and legal fees and finding a buyer.

However for those who do want to buy remember most landlords in the UK by far let out ONE property, not 22. Also as those landlords who pay 40% tax and have a mortgage on the property are now taxed on profits they do not make many have been selling up and huge numbers are making no profit at all whilst the value of the property goes down year (although not this year as I think values have gone up about 5%). Plenty are tentants and landlords (my daughter for example). Some have less income than their tenants - my student sons are landlords and have less money than their tenants.

It is not a simple picture that all landlords have 22 properties without mortgages and after 40% tax and deduction of costs of repairs are making huge sums. They also pay an extra 3% stamp duty when buying and they pay 28% capital gains tax IF the property actually rose in price. Sometimes it drops instead.

itsad surely not a joke. I made my plan aged 14 years when I ecided to read law at university not something else as law pays more. My daughters owned in their 20s because they are London lawyers etc etc. I have helped my children to buy but the older ones could have done it without my help because they bought before they had children, secondly they are with a fellow professional and work full time, live in London (rather than NE England where I am from ) etc etc. In other words plans were made which have helped them to be able to buy eg they picked commercial legal work rather than very low paid legal aid work.

@Xena do you think the OP would have a plan if she had an inheritance and help with a deposit?

i don't dispute its harder for landlords to make money nowadays, I just see that as a positive.

I honestly think landlord hate us very weird and seems to come from a place of jealousy with a lot of people

Yes, but unlike the majority of 17-18 year olds he was able to work 16 hours a week, without having to contribute anything to the house and continue studying full time for A levels. You must realise that isn’t possible for many teens at that age?
What are you on about?

The vast majority of 17-18 (actually 16 as he started at 16) don't study and work and pay keep to their parents because their parents can claim benefits for them if needed.

Many could take on a PT job but don't because they feel it's too much to cope with in addition to studying. Those who do normally do fewer hours and then spend the money on things they want, not to pay their parents towards their keep.

My DS' friends with got a summer job after GCSE but gave it up when starting college, or never looked for one in the first place or only continued with a few hours a week and spent it all on gadgets.

My DS opted to continue with the 16 hours whilst working hard on his A levels (he did very well) and didn't spend hardly anything (he did pay for his haicuts, clothes and shoes but was happy with two pair of jeans from Primark and one not very expensive pair of trainers he kept for 18 months).

They could have done the same and be home owners too. They are not because if the different choices they made.

I certainly made a plan, get a good career & work hard in it, meet DH with similar aspirations, have children after getting on the ladder. However the biggest part of my plan was been able to live at home & save rent.

@Smallsteps88

You mean as the majority of 17-18 years old? Be started contributing when working FT hence taking longer afterwards.

Yes, but unlike the majority of 17-18 year olds he was able to work 16 hours a week, without having to contribute anything to the house and continue studying full time for A levels. You must realise that isn’t possible for many teens at that age?

I don’t understand this either. Why can’t the majority of 17 year olds get a job and study? Obviously not at the moment because of covid but in normal times? Everyone I know at school had a job as well as doing GCSEs and A levels, and the majority had jobs whilst at uni too. There will always be some where this is not possible but for the majority it is.

“Nobody’s fault but your own”. Really? I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of being a property owner if I hadn’t met my DH (he is older, was a high earner and already had a house). I was living in a shitty flat, riddled with damp and had inadequate heating. I earned £30k but no chance of being able to save/get a mortgage.

About 9/10 years ago, I was living at home after a relationship break up (we’d had a rental property as part of exPs work), I’d lost my job, found another but only PT and I earned less than £7ph - which was more than the min wage at the time (I was 32). My mum used to go on at me for not saving and having my nails done every couple of weeks. It cost £20, forgoing that would have netted me less than £500 per year. On the wage I was on, I wouldn’t have even met the criteria for affordability in a shared house or private rent as I didn’t even earn enough to pay income tax.

Depending on where you are, shared housing isn’t always an option. The area I’m from is considered ‘cheap’ in housing terms. And, yes compared to the South it is cheap, but it isn’t free and single people struggle. House shares aren’t really a thing here, as most people can afford to buy if they’re in a couple and both have jobs. If both, for e.g. earn £20k you could easily find a terrace that they can buy, when it’s one person earning £20k or less, then no chance.

Wages are low, jobs are very few and far between, especially well paying ones. If I search jobs in my town, the only vacancies are care assistants, poorly paid and you need a car usually. It’s not a job everyone can do (I have an injury which means I struggle to lift anything over 10 kilos).

I feel for you OP, it’s really shit. My last LL was awful, refused to sort the damp out, didn’t have smoke alarms in, just dreadful.

Most older people have no clue, yes interest rates were high but houses were cheap. My parents bought their first house in 1971 for £2000, my DGM gave them £1000 as a wedding gift. 50% deposit! And yet, my DM refuses to accept that it was harder for me.

My ds is at college and has a part time job but barely makes enough to cover driving lessons (especially now as his hours are cut due to pandemic). Who are all these people that managed to save thousands of pounds for a house deposit by the time they reached 18 whilst earning under £5 an hour in a part time job that fit round college??!!!

There you go OP! You have a plan- on your next birthday, turn 17, live with your parents, have no bills and inherit some money. Sorted. You’ll have your own BTL portfolio in no time at all.

Obviously not at the moment because of covid but in normal times?

Depending on where they live the competition for any job is fierce! 17 year olds who can only do evenings and weekends rather than be “fully flexible” are not at the top of the hiring list. And that’s before COVID put its lovely spanner in the works. Things are only going to get harder for young people. And yet in 10 years time we’ll still have smug twats telling them they just didn’t “have a plan”

@Smallsteps88 there’s always going to be some places like this but I’m talking about the expensive south east where people are moaning they can’t afford houses. Before covid so many places were crying out for workers, most school kids had jobs alongside studying. Not always the most desirable jobs but plenty to go round. Unemployment rates were very very low.

I don't dispute its harder for landlords to make money nowadays, I just see that as a positive

What would happen if there were no places to rent. Landlords turned their properties into Airbnb type places or sold up or left the places empty
The council haven’t got enough housing stock and not everyone would be able to afford to buy.

Shorter term I.e moving for a job or just checking out a new area before buying wouldn’t happen unless people were willing to pay over the odds and by the night/week in advance.

Landlords like other businesses run a service. You can choose to use the service or not by deciding early on whether you want to go down the university route or working and living at home or getting a trade route
You can cut how long you use the service for by saving every penny and working every hour.

Like everything in life it is about choices

@Oliversmumsarmy I said upthread that rental property can be useful & I have used it in the past however that doesn't change my opinion that I think it's a positive that it's harder to make money from it.

I wouldn't put my money into a BTL, I have no desire to be a LL. You think differently.

Like everything in life it is about choices

It's not a level playing field, not everyone can make the same choices.

@itsadress

Like everything in life it is about choices

It's not a level playing field, not everyone can make the same choices.

Life is never a level playing field, life is never fair. There are always going to be some people for which it’s not possible. It’s too idealistic to think otherwise. But for the majority of people it is about choices and it is possible. Some people will have it easier and be handed money and others will have to work for it, but that’s just life.