Greed of ‘buy to let’

[LittleLottieChaos]

When did people start to think that they should profit from housing? It all feels incredibly Dickensian. Pees me off when I see housing being listed as buy to let investments rather than ‘here’s a house for a nice young family to live in’. Especially with the market so horribly skewed right now.

It is shocking that people seem to think they have a right to profiteer from those less fortunate by whacking on high rents, that more than cover their mortgages. Legit: you need one house, one house only. Or maybe I’m missing something... or these are genuinely just bad people.

Interested to hear how people justify it? Do you just think, fuck ‘em I want to be rich? Do you not think about the morality?

(I rent but am saving to buy an appropriate house to live in... not to profiteer from)

@CirclesWithinCircles

1. BTL brigade can often put up more upfront, which blocks FTB and people who need low cost housing from getting a chance at those properties.
2. It is increasingly pushed as a good thing to do, but with a finite housing stock this also blocks access.
3. With the limited protection to renters in the UK, this increases housing insecurity.
4. Younger people are disproportionately affected by this.

It is one thing to have a home that you keep after you move in with a partner or move for work but intend to go back to. But with rents being as they are, many renters will find it impossible to save enough to buy their own home. So yes, I think pushing being a BTL landlord encourages selfishness.

Because I’ve had a lot of gaps in employment due to chronic health condition and caring responsibilities for family and I won’t have a full pension to retire on. My buy to let is my (modest) retirement income. Don’t wanna get rich, just rather not be living out my old age in poverty.

@jasjas1973

ALL "pension funds" grow in value because of profits made on the backs of other people. Pension funds invest in all kinds of businesses, from supermarkets, to manufacturers, to distribution firms, to commercial properties (rented to shops, factories and warehouses). Every time you buy a tin of beans, you're contributing to other peoples' pension schemes. Where do you think the pension scheme investment growth comes from???

I don't think you can equate a tin of beans, where there is huge choice of brands, cost, shops to buy from & is highly regulated, with a house.

Bottom line is, if you are in the BTL market, you are contributing to people being stuck in a spiral of excessive rent, often far higher than the equivalent mortgage, plus you are adding to the misery of young people who cannot buy a property without help from Mum and Dad, only available to the few.

The comment from the PP that he/she buys property from auctions, where any young couple can also buy from (so long as they have the cash) shows how out of touch BTL landlords are.

No, it doesnt "show how touch btl landlords are". I quite clearly said that mortgages weren't available in such circumstances, and thay was a problem.

You clearly do have a problem with making up stories about what people have said to make political points. What an awful thing to have to do to get your point across.

I'd love to see the mortgage market improved to allow young people without massi e cash dums to get mortgages on doer-uppers, and self build made more affordable as in other countries.

So get your head out of your arse and stop blaming landlords for all the ills in the property market.

I believe in capitalism. It is the best system anyone has been able to operate or put into practice. So here we are and there is nothing wrong with landlords providing a house for people any more than a supermarket or corner shop providing food for them to buy.,

Of the various of my children who have let properties out for various reasons whilst they live elsewhere etc I cannot think of a single case where the tenants have stayed as long as we would prefer. My older son's moved into a family property out of the area. My daughter had to change tenants last year as hers chose to move cities. I hope the tenants (young families in each case much better off than my landlord sons who have one property each and live at home) in these 2 houses stay for 4 years but knowing our luck in a year their circumstances will have changed or something.

Who else is greedy @LittleLottieChaos?

How about car leasing companies? For people who can't stump up £20K for a new car, so they lease it and get nothing back after 3 years.

Or people who rent out holiday homes? (Because you can't afford a 2nd home in a National Park or overseas.)

Or hotel rooms?

Where do you draw the line?

It's a complete myth that is BTL was banned, houses would be cheaper. Around 1:10 house sales is a 2nd home. It would actually make very little difference to the market because that's not enough to bring down house prices.

So you think landlords shouldn't make a profit? and should provide housing to people out of the goodness of their hearts?

• we don't have sifficient social houing in this country, and what is available is not easily accesible nor available at short notice/ long notice or to students.
• there are lots of times in my life where I have rented because buying a house would not have met my needs (solicitor fees/ estate agent fees, hassle of putting a property on the market, times it takes to buy and sell etc)
• lots of houses marketed as "buy to let investments" are unmortgageable and a buy to let investor is much more likely to be a cash buyer.
• not everyone can get a mortgage
• not everyone wants the hassle of home ownership.
• not everyone wants to live in social housing.

What do you think the solution is?

[quote Babygotblueyes]@CirclesWithinCircles

1. BTL brigade can often put up more upfront, which blocks FTB and people who need low cost housing from getting a chance at those properties.
2. It is increasingly pushed as a good thing to do, but with a finite housing stock this also blocks access.
3. With the limited protection to renters in the UK, this increases housing insecurity.
4. Younger people are disproportionately affected by this.

It is one thing to have a home that you keep after you move in with a partner or move for work but intend to go back to. But with rents being as they are, many renters will find it impossible to save enough to buy their own home. So yes, I think pushing being a BTL landlord encourages selfishness.[/quote]
I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but having worked as a conyeyancing solicitor, it's astonishing how many people are given large cash sums by their parents to buy (it's also amazing just how many have become multi millionaires by selling a small amount of land for development in an area of countryside zoned for new build housing or a new road).

Quite clearly, if we stopped taxing people's income so highly and taxed inheritance and cash gifts to buy property more highly, it would make entrants to the property market compete on a more even keel.

But strangely enough, all the many left wingers in this country are invariant dead set against increasing inheritance tax, mainly because they want to give their darling offspring a leg up.

@AlwaysLatte

Not everyone buys to rent out for profit. We bought a house so that we could rent it to my brother for 'mates rates' so we're not making any profit. Prior to that he was renting a similar property in the same area for twice the amount! So maybe if rental properties were capped at a lower rate it would be fairer and not so attractive to landlords of multiple properties.

Yes, I'm similar in that I'm not looking to make pots of money out of it. I haven't changed the rent in one flat I let for 10 years now. That meant I very quickly had over 100 requests for viewings last month when my last tenant moved on, which was quite a lot of work to deal with at the time, but there is now one very happy new tenant in situ.

I just want tenants that are happy & want to stay a long time as both of these features mean less stress for me. So I keep rent low and repair things as soon as I hear there is an issue.

The flats that I have are simply not wanted by live in owners so I don't think the process of buying them is competing in that market.

When I advertise at a reasonable, low rent it also makes it harder for other landlords to advertise theirs at extortionately high rates, so hopefully it's a little bit helpful for tenants in the overall scheme of things.

I'm really proactive on pushing factors of buildings for improvements and good care of communal areas so that hopefully makes the buildings more enjoyable areas to live for everyone there. I also frequently contact the Council regarding any issues in the local area, so that they are resolved quickly.

Don't get me wrong, this is not me being selflessly altruistic - I just view this way of acting as a win-win all round - tenants benefit, I benefit from stable income, I hopefully help contribute towards general improvements in the area and raise the value of flats I own over time as well.

This is in Scotland which has improved legislation in favour of tenants in recent years, it's a lot more regulated - tenants can easily give notice to leave with no set fixed period of initial tenancy, rent rises are limited to once per year (and can be challenged), whilst landlords have to give one or more out of a set list of reasons to end the tenancy.

@Xenia

I believe in capitalism. It is the best system anyone has been able to operate or put into practice. So here we are and there is nothing wrong with landlords providing a house for people any more than a supermarket or corner shop providing food for them to buy.,

Of the various of my children who have let properties out for various reasons whilst they live elsewhere etc I cannot think of a single case where the tenants have stayed as long as we would prefer. My older son's moved into a family property out of the area. My daughter had to change tenants last year as hers chose to move cities. I hope the tenants (young families in each case much better off than my landlord sons who have one property each and live at home) in these 2 houses stay for 4 years but knowing our luck in a year their circumstances will have changed or something.

There's capitalism, and then there's unfettered unregulated capitalism...

Anyway - I suggest they try letting to dog / cat owners. There's always a shortage of landlords who will take them. I've achieved a record length of time in my current home - 3 years and counting - and the sole reason I haven't moved is because it's tricky to find a new place with a dog in tow. Otherwise, I'd have moved a long time ago due to the damp (& landlord's inaction).

Landlord permitting I'll stay in this flat into I can afford to buy - which is a while off thanks to COVID.

@GoldenOmber

One of the things that really hurts the image of BTL landlords is the utter tone-deafness that always turns up in threads like this.

“Ah yes, OP, I hear that you have no house while I have seven houses, and the impact of the BTL sector has had a negative prospect on your ability to buy a house yourself. But have you factored in that BTL landlords deserve your sympathy too for the things we go through? And that for many of us, BTL provides a good pension and financial security going forward? Also loads and LOADS of renters don’t actually want to buy ever and love renting, so I’m sure that puts your mind at rest about wanting a house of your own.”

I know many landlords are genuinely decent people, but Christ.

Nail on head. I don’t have an iota of sympathy for landlords. Boo. Hoo.

We bought our first property in 2006 just before the market crashed. Years later we wanted to relocate, and even then were in a pile of negative equity still so we didn't have much choice but to rent out the property.
I do agree with what you are saying though, just for us we had no choice

The person who said it’s supply and demand and a lack of houses pushing prices up. It is.
But when you have 3 families trying to buy a house and 5 investors trying to buy a house it will push prices up. If you just had 3 people trying to buy it wouldn’t push the price up so much.
People just need to be able to buy the house they live in.

It’s like lockdown puppies. Suddenly everyone wants a cockerpoo and the prices have quadrupled, because you can have multiple of them yet “stock” is limited.

We have a lack of social houses, we don’t have a lack of houses.

It took off under the Blair government. He massively encouraged it (his own family have profited very nicely from it).

I had a recent look at flats to buy in my area. Quite a few looked ideal for first time buyers. So many were marketed to investors (some specifically stated investor only).

Young (and older) first time buyers looking for a home to live in have to compete against people looking to make money out of people like them (trapped in renting).

It's very wrong. It's also going to cost us a lot of money in the not too distant future. The number of private renters over 40 is steadily increasing.

Unlike owner occupiers, whose mortgage debt slowly goes down, rent goes up and up and up. Private rents are steadily rising - frequently higher than housing benefit amounts.

We're going to have a very expensive housing benefit bill to fund the high private rents of all the pensioners of tomorrow.

@JinglingHellsBells

Who else is greedy *@LittleLottieChaos*?

How about car leasing companies? For people who can't stump up £20K for a new car, so they lease it and get nothing back after 3 years.

Or people who rent out holiday homes? (Because you can't afford a 2nd home in a National Park or overseas.)

Or hotel rooms?

Where do you draw the line?

It's a complete myth that is BTL was banned, houses would be cheaper. Around 1:10 house sales is a 2nd home. It would actually make very little difference to the market because that's not enough to bring down house prices.

Cars aren’t essential (I’ve never driven in my life).

Holidays aren’t essential?

Nor are hotel rooms. Those are luxuries. You seem confused? People have the right in a humanitarian society to have somewhere to live. Or do you think that we should sleep under the stars? A house is not a luxury. Repeat after me.

Has anyone else watched the documentary called 'Push'? It was made by a UN Special Rapporteur on housing and it's eye opening and depressing in equal measure (although with cause for hope, ultimately). It explores housing inequality around the world.

My belief has always been that the very basics of human need should never be operated for profit, and 'Push' re-inforced it.

I bought 'Push' via Vimeo. I'd recommend anyone to watch it.

I was moved to action recently when I saw an advert for 4/5 bedroom homes in one of the most economically depressed areas in my home county starting at £600,000. It enraged me, frankly. 'Affordable' housing is rarely 'affordable' for those on low incomes and very little gets done to address this. I work for an organisation that helps community led housing schemes get started and progress and most housing associations simply cannot be arsed to get involved - thankfully some councils are receptive, but being as it isn't the councils themselves that build the homes, we need developers and housing associations to buy into what could be a massive revolution in the way homes are created here in the UK.

I was also dismayed to learn from 'Push' that Blackstone (a heinous organisation if ever there was one) has bought into the Danish social housing market - the Scandinavian countries have long been way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to creating affordable and sustainable housing, so to see them sell out a big chunk of their social homes to Blackstone is disheartening.

South America has a massive number of housing cooperatives, too. I recall reading that Chile (I think) has the highest number of any country in the world. The UK is so far behind on community led housing, but when I read about schemes such as Lancaster Co-Housing or OWCH ('Older Women's Co-Housing'), I wonder why we're not steaming ahead and revolutionising the way housing is created and owned/rented here in the UK.

There are vastly different landlord situations though. My DH was 'lucky' to be left a sizeable inheritance and compensation lump sum for a horrendous accident so we bought a small 2 bed in Devon where we lived. He got a permanent job at the other end of the country so we moved and rented out our house first to a legal secretary and then to a single Mum on DSS.

We've spent thousands on a house we never really got to enjoy and are certainly fed up with renting here so have now put the house on a buy to let so we can get a home here.

I agree that there should be a limit on the housing available to those deliberately buying to rent out but some people want to rent and when I was in a HMO it was brilliant and my landlord was brilliant when my hours were dramatically cut.

@EvilPea

The person who said it’s supply and demand and a lack of houses pushing prices up. It is. But when you have 3 families trying to buy a house and 5 investors trying to buy a house it will push prices up. If you just had 3 people trying to buy it wouldn’t push the price up so much. People just need to be able to buy the house they live in.

It’s like lockdown puppies. Suddenly everyone wants a cockerpoo and the prices have quadrupled, because you can have multiple of them yet “stock” is limited.

We have a lack of social houses, we don’t have a lack of houses.

That was probably me. Let's say you outlawed BTL to lower the demand for housing. That would reduce the supply of rental housing, and rents would go up, so then renters would be harmed.

If you had more housing stock both rental and purchase prices would fall as equilibrium was established at lower levels.

@CirclesWithinCircles

Its what was said...

We buy auction properties that don't allow a mortgage, so yes, a young couple could bid just the same, as long as they have the cash

Yes "out of touch"

The wider issues are driven by BTL landlords, competing with FTB's who simply cannot raise the funds these folk have access too.

..plus i was NOT even talking about you, i quoted another poster....... so not sure why your getting so angry?

An apology perhaps?

Your last remark was quite rude and unnecessary, maybe look at another way of making your point?

There are 1000s of things to invest in such as;
Metals, gems, lottery, oil, art, food, manufacturing, space, telecoms, money lending, social media, fashion, medicine, new technologies, power, crypto currency, emerging markets, premium bonds, pensions, tax free options, land, motoring, hotels, antiques, collectables etc

I don't understand why property investment has such a poor reputation

We bought our first home a few years ago, we've now moved into an annexe connected to my parents house. My FIL also let's his house out while he lives in a tied house with his job.

If we sell our house we have nothing to fall back on, we could be left with nothing so keeping it as a buy to let was a no brainer. We don't want our tenants to live in a slum, we will slowly do odd jobs like kitchen and bathroom refurb in the next couple of years all while the rent will just about cover our mortgage.

There will always be people looking to rent so please don't look at every BTL landlord as a bad person.

Now second home owners where the property sits empty for 75% of the year - look at them!

I find it bizarre on these kind of threads when people turn up and defend their owning of multiple properties by saying its their pension, their nest egg etc. Surely you understand that one day when you sell that property, your tenants over the years will have effectively paid for it, and paid for your security whilst not being able to afford any for themselves? Even if rent doesn't yield a constant profit, a btl mortgage by its very nature requires a tenant to service it

I hope you've checked exactly what your pension fund invests in and that there are no property companies or anything else that exploits ordinary people or contributes to a system where property isn't affordable. I'd guess that my small scale enterprise - one property and trying to be fair to my tenants, is probably less exploitative than a lot of investments made by the average pension fund.

Instead of us being greedy, we could all support this
gogiveone.org/

But I don't want to tell anyone what to do with their own money

Which is what this post is discussing, what people do with money

urely you understand that one day when you sell that property, your tenants over the years will have effectively paid for it, Many pension funds have rentals in their portfolio.

The NFU have squillions of them!

@midgedude
In which case farmers would go bankrupt,but who gives a fuck about them, eh?

That was probably me. Let's say you outlawed BTL to lower the demand for housing. That would reduce the supply of rental housing, and rents would go up, so then renters would be harmed.

No, what would happen is first time buyers would be better able to afford a home to buy - without having to compete against investors (who push the prices up). Then the people who can never afford to buy but now can't access rental either wouldn't be homeless. People in the lowest wage brackets, vulnerable people, many disabled and ill. Increasingly private landlords will not let to them. The landlords can do this because they have the middle earners priced out of buying.

Of course we also desperately need more social housing (and England needs to finally ban right to buy), but buy to let has massively increased the homelessness problem.

Before Tony Blair pushed everyone into buy to let, the majority of private landlords owned their rentals outright. Often inheritance. The best landlords I had when I was younger were like this. They also didn't discriminate. They took students and people on benefits. As long as the rent was paid, they didn't care.