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?

Yes, hence why I recognise my privilege & empathise with the OP & wouldn't tell her to do as I did because she didn't have my choices.

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

Dd and Ds have been working for years. Saturday jobs, birthday and Christmas money and dd was working every hour she could at 17 and certainly not on £5 per hour. She was supposed to stay on at college till she was 18 according to the government but had, had enough
She opened her own business and did agency work on the side that paid well. Kept an eye on people at events who were supervisors and managers and said she could do the job so put herself up fir supervisor then manager roles
At 18 she was on a minimum of £15 per hour (sometimes £20) doing agency work which was usually 12 hour days 3 x days per week and could make anything from £2-400 per day in her business on other days.
She is also qualified in a couple of ECAs, one of which she can charge £35 per hour for a private lesson.

When you can be working anywhere between 10-12 hour days 4-7 days per week at a minimum of £15 per hour it starts to add up.

I don’t hate the woman who bought it at all, my ire is directed at the landlord

Unfortunately that's where you revealed this is about envy rather than principle; if you cared so much about depleting social housing stock for people who need them, why wouldn't you blame the original buyer, who probably trousered a huge discount and then profited again by selling it?

And why rent this particular place at all, since it's just encouraging the cycle you claim to detest?

Don't hate the landlords, hate the government for doing nothing about it.

Its not the landlord's responsibility to help people achieve home ownership. Its the government choice on whether they can build affordable housing to be sold at cost price to young people who can't afford to get on the housing ladder. A lot of MUMSNETTERS would disagree and say that government housing should not be sold and reserved solely to rent for free for the poorest in our society, yeah there is some merit to that; the argument being that if you are educated and healthy, you should be able to figure out your life for yourself rather than have a nanny state fussing over you but that also means that the vast majority of the population would never benefit from the government's policies.

In my home country, singapore, there is 90% home ownership because the government builds 85% of all housing. if your household income is below the equivalent of £84k, you can buy a subsidized government flat. If you own other homes, you don't qualify. Landlords can't buy it. As I own a london flat, i can't buy it either.

@Oliversmumsarmy

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

Dd and Ds have been working for years. Saturday jobs, birthday and Christmas money and dd was working every hour she could at 17 and certainly not on £5 per hour. She was supposed to stay on at college till she was 18 according to the government but had, had enough
She opened her own business and did agency work on the side that paid well. Kept an eye on people at events who were supervisors and managers and said she could do the job so put herself up fir supervisor then manager roles
At 18 she was on a minimum of £15 per hour (sometimes £20) doing agency work which was usually 12 hour days 3 x days per week and could make anything from £2-400 per day in her business on other days.
She is also qualified in a couple of ECAs, one of which she can charge £35 per hour for a private lesson.

When you can be working anywhere between 10-12 hour days 4-7 days per week at a minimum of £15 per hour it starts to add up.

So your dad didn’t do it from a part-time job that fits a round college?

My ds would have loved to go straight into a job from school (especially on £15ph!) but unfortunately the career he wants now needs a degree so college was his only option.

Dd not dad 🤦‍♀️!

welcome to the magic offspring bullshit extravaganza

My ds would have loved to go straight into a job from school (especially on £15ph!) but unfortunately the career he wants now needs a degree so college was his only option

Some of the jobs dd does on paper need a degree. Depending on the career there are other ways into some jobs that say they require a degree
Dd as I said is qualified in an ECA. An agency she is with last week offered her a teaching position teaching something related to the ECA.
It was in a senior school for possibly 6 months covering maternity leave
She declined it as even though she could have winged it, stayed one step ahead of the students, the idea of teaching A level anything to students only a couple of years younger than herself was a bit scary. We always presumed that A level teachers were required to have passed the subject at A level before they were qualified to teach it.

Dd and Ds are both ADHD and I doubt they would stick at anything long term unless it is mixed up with various other jobs and activities.
We were laughing as she is booked for the next 5 weeks in 5 different types of jobs. Really random stuff.

user1471565182
What do you mean by that?

Tough one.

I can see it from both sides.

I agree with you and completely understand and accept your point of view.

However,

I have grafted for years, sacrificing buying new cars, phones, holidays, designer clothes etc to pay of my first mortgage. I’m almost there 22 years early. The plan is to re-mortgage buy to let to release deposit for next house and then once this buy to let us paid off keep buying another house so I could end up in same position as your LL.

We view property as the longest stable investment.

I’ve grafted and made sensible financial decisions I’m not a partner to anyone else’s either life choices or circumstances.

I earned £30k but no chance of being able to save/get a mortgage
Singke, without children? Sorry but even in the SouthEast, I can't understand how there wasn't opportunity to save with that income if doing so was a priority. Essential bills don't cost that much.

DS started on £7 something. He was interviewed like other older applicants and was given similar responsibities, hence the same income despite being it 16. It went up to £9 something after 12 months.

@dontdisturbmenow I agree, 30k is a large enough salary to save even in the south east. I was on less than that when I first bought. My single friends were on less than that when they bought too, in the south east, not too long ago. House prices are the same now as they were then (even a little lower in some areas). If someone is on 30k it’s absolutely about choices and priorities.

@dontdisturbmenow and @Racoonworld that was me and the max I could save was £200 pm and that was sharing. In my first house share (well, I was a lodger) I wasn’t allowed to use the oven/cooker/washing machine so in addition to the rent I had to pay to use a launderette (about £100 pm) and often ended up eating out/buying expensive takeaways so I could have a warm meal.

I then moved into a flat share with one other person. After a couple of years he decided he didn’t want to live with someone else. I couldn’t afford to stay by myself as the rent and bills were equal to my take home pay, I’d have had nothing left.

They built some new flats in the town I was living in, a 10% deposit would have been £22k. Please tell me how I could have saved that much, bearing in mind I’d only earned that salary for a year or so, previously I’d been in my £6 ph job. I moved to a cheaper area, but I then had higher commuting costs. A 10% deposit for the flat I rented there would have been 13k, would have taken me approx 6 years to save by which time the price would have increased. Even if I had the deposit, I don’t think my credit/earning power would have meant I’d be accepted for a mortgage. I know plenty of people in similar situations.

Oh and prices aren’t the same. My ex’s sister had a one bed flat in this road in a block very like this. She bought in 98/99 for £55k. Sold it in 2001 or thereabouts for treble that. This is a similar property in the same road, could be the same flat but I can’t remember the name of the block.

www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/56954861

@SadSecretSanta

Yup. I know exactly what you mean. My landlord happily tells us we are paying for his retirement.

My partner has two houses that he rents out. His plan is that it is his retirement investment. At the moment he makes no money on them after paying mortgage and other costs but he knows that the mortgages will be paid in time for his retirement so he can then live off the income from it. He is also providing two families with affordable housing at the same time.

Not everyone can buy or wants to buy.

@ChrissyPlummer, spending £100 on washing makes no sense. £20 per wash with 1 week?

If I couldn't use the cooker, I would have bought a second hand microwave and a microwave cookbook from the charity shop.

As for the flats, why would you consider a new one? As said, my DS went for a pocky 1 bedroom in an old building in not the worse area but certainly not what is considered desirable. He is happy though because it's his and a first foot on the ladder.

So yes, it is about priorities.

YABU

Help to buy means that 2 people over 25 on minimum wage can buy a £225,000 new build home once they save the deposit of £11,250 between them.

Deposit £11,250
Help to buy £45,000
Mortgage £168,750

(Salary £17,000 x 2 x 5)

2 receptionists starting a family could buy this home

www.zoopla.co.uk/new-homes/details/56820730

Maybe the home that the receptionist got from the council 20+ years ago isn't the type of home that you as a young scientist wouldn't have wanted. But time and gentrification has changed the property.

@ChrissyPlummer I’m talking about prices being the same as a few years ago when I bought. They haven’t been increasing much year on year over the last 5 years in the south east. 30k your take home must have been around £1800? A house share in my expensive area is £600 per month for a room. Add £100 for bills, £200 food and £100 extras (being generous here) and £100 spending money. You have £700 left over per month and you can save £8000 per year. Five years and you have a generous deposit.

@Joswis

itsadress, it isn't a huge thing to do to change the system. All it takes is not to vote Tory. We had the best chance of affordable housing we've ever had in the last 40 years last December, but I'm betting some of the people complaining on here voted Tory.

Conservative = landlords and no affordable housing.

It was Labour - under Tony Blair, that encouraged people en mass to profiteer from other people's need for a roof over their heads. Labour massively pushed buy to let.

Labour also enthusiastically continued the taxpayer funded right to buy - at a time (90s) when there was still quite a lot of social housing stock left that could've been saved.

Renting can be a short term solution or it can be long term. It's good to have a choice.

Some people think it is worth working several jobs: main, evenings and 12 hour shifts at weekends, buy no takeaways at all, not even coffees, only socialise in turns at friends', don't go away, or to any kind of event, have a limited wardrobe of charity shop clothes, have limited and old-style tech, etc, for a few years, and certainly postpone starting a family, in order to buy a small, not very desirable home in an inconvenient and not 'sought-after' location.

Other people prefer a more expansive lifesyle, but cannot then get the money together for a deposit and thus, choose to rent.

To 'hate' a person who provides one of those choices seems unreasonable. They are avoided by making the other choice.

@emilyfrost

YABVU. You’re able to live there because the landlord purchased it and kindly let you rent it.

It’s nobody else’s fault but your own that you can’t get a deposit together to buy a house, and people that can shouldn’t be prevented from doing so (repeatedly, if they do choose) simply because some can’t.

What a dreadful ableist attitude. Are you saying that disabled people are to blame for their disabilities? It might not be relevant for OP but you're suggesting it's people's own fault if circumstances mean they can't afford to buy a home.

As for the landlord 'kindly' letting them live there... There's no kindness about it. They're making money out of OP's need for a home.

@dontdisturbmenow yes, about that. The launderette I used charged by weight and my work uniform needed washing weekly, as well as my own clothes/bedding etc. They wouldn’t allow me to have any electrical appliances beyond a hairdryer. I did have a mini fridge at first (the sort that students often have) and they made me get rid of it as they said it was adding too much to their bills (they told me £100pm which was ludicrous but when you live as lodger you have virtually no rights). I could and did use their microwave but I got very fed up of ready meals. I did buy a quiet fan heater that I used to hide in my locked suitcase when I went out as they only had the heating on at limited times and I worked shifts.

I wasn’t really bothered whether a flat was new or not, just using that as an example as I remember the prices. Tbh, older ones weren’t necessarily that much cheaper and most of them were snapped up by BTL LLs.....the flats in the block I shared were 3/4 bought and rented out. The girl who lived above us was the only owner who actually lived there. The one I rented in the other town was older and cheaper but the building had major structural issues (the damp was a big part of that) so it’s not always a better buy.

The trouble is by the time we've paid the rent and our other bills we don't have enough money to save for a house as well.
My husband works full-time and I work 30 hours a week which doesn't leave much as I have to pay for childcare too.
I know a lot of people who rent and would love to buy but are in the same situation.
It's very selfish.

Saving once you have kids is very hard she to childcare costs.

I told my 3 kids to prioritise getting the house before the kids and start small. It's so much easier afterwards. Sadly, with people waiting to go to Uni, then taking some time to enjoy themselves afterwards before saving, they get to their 30s and decide kids are more important. By then, with childcare costs or having to support children on one income, it dies become almost impossible to save for the 3 bed with a garden that they want and rent.

• Help to buy means that 2 people over 25 on minimum wage can buy a £225,000 new build home once they save the deposit of £11,250 between them.

Deposit £11,250
Help to buy £45,000
Mortgage £168,750

(Salary £17,000 x 2 x 5)*

Can people on those salaries really borrow 5 x?

Saving once you have kids is very hard she to childcare costs

Absolutely, yes - which is why your advice to your DCs is very wise

The point is that none of us can have everything we want all time. It's great to spend a few years splashing the cash without thinking much of the future, but that's a free choice and it's hardly up to others to pick up the consequences