I'm so sick of people buying multiple properties for BTL

[flashbac]

So the landlord next door has hoovered up another house on the street for BTL. A nice house that wasn't even on the market but they managed to get their mits on it. Yes I know I sound bitter because I am! I'm so fed up of investors hoovering up all the houses. There should be a limit but with most of our government being BTL landlords nothing will change.
I'm sick of the increasing gap between rich and poor.
now runs and hides because reckons half of MN have a BTL or holiday home

@FangsForTheMemory completely agree. Plus the fact that once you're living in a council house you seem to be able to stay there indefinitely regardless if your circumstances change and you no longer need it.

@Journeyofthedragons - the funds for what? There have always been people who rented including pensioners, it works for many and no need for private rental housing to be eradicated. We do need more housing overall to satisfy demand and make it more affordable though.

[quote Macaroni46]@FangsForTheMemory completely agree. Plus the fact that once you're living in a council house you seem to be able to stay there indefinitely regardless if your circumstances change and you no longer need it. [/quote]
Because social housing isn’t means tested. It isn’t for the poorest people in society. Security of tenure is the entire point of it.

Around here there's lots of house-building going on. There are things wrong with it, though:

1. Instead of putting houses across the county, according to where they're needed for local people to be able to stay local, the houses are concentrated in multiple large estates in the same area.

1. Plans sometimes include a certain percentage of 'affordable' homes & so they're given permission. At a later date, those 'affordable' homes are declared to be no longer financially viable so the number is reduced to a level which would not have received planning permission - but the development still goes ahead.

If they were so kind and generous, they'd be charging under their mortgage rate to allow the tenant to save money to get a house of their own. Not ask the tenant to pay a good amount over the mortgage so the landlord can make a profit

This is just stupid. You are saying that strangers should give literally hundreds of pounds a month to someone they do not know so that they can save for a deposit to buy a house.

To all those criticising landlords, can I ask, if you do own a home, now or in the future, will you oppose the state funding your care needs in old age, instead saying that the assets in your home should pay for it, even if it leaves your children with nothing?

Because this is a current debate. Arguably, raising taxes to pay for social care, if it means that costs come from here rather than housing assets, is saying that poorer people should subsidise affluent people's care to allow them to maintain a substantial asset to give to people who have done nothing to earn it (their children). All my uber lefty friends balk at the idea that their children should not inherit their homes and get their lawyers to come up with wheezes to avoid capital gains tax.

I don't really see how it makes sense to criticise landlords (or complain about lack of investment in state services) if you want to transfer social care costs to the state and from your own assets.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@Journeyofthedragons - the funds for what? There have always been people who rented including pensioners, it works for many and no need for private rental housing to be eradicated. We do need more housing overall to satisfy demand and make it more affordable though.[/quote]
The funds to pay for the huge amount of renting pensioners requiring housing benefit that will come online ~2045

no need for private rental housing to be eradicated. We do need more housing overall to satisfy demand and make it more affordable though

I agree with this

@Blossomtoes

Yes, that’s exactly how it was *@ifIwerenotanandroid*. That was a huge mistake. The most shortsighted policy ever.

I always assumed it was deliberate, rather than a mistake.

I the town I grew up, back in the 90s, the cheaper houses were advertised as "First time buyer" houses. I had a job and started looking for a first time buy.

Things changed though and now cheap houses are advertised as 'investment' properties. You can get a house on a Buy to Let Mortgage too so you can get someone else to buy the property for you.

So now the town I grew up in has sky high rents and very few cheap houses. Most estate agents have a list of investors they'll call when a cheap house comes up for sale. My dad died and his house wasnt worth much. We got 3 valuations done from varying estate agents. They forwarded the details on to their investors without even advertising it. I didn't want to sell it to an investor and wanted a First One Buyer to buy it. But my elder brother wanted it sold quick. So an investor bought it.
About a month later, on Rightmove, my dad's house being rented out for £750 a month.

@IceLace100

When I bought I was so pissed off with seeing lovely flats that were "landlord only" or "investor only"

These were probably because the property was unmortgageable ie, existing tenants and needed a cash buyer

There isn't any first time buyer properties around here unless it's advertised as a ' retirement flat ' for the over 55s! Tiny places.
Most of my sons friends have had to move away in order to buy anything.

@flashbac

And that Homes Under The Hammer programme needs to p i s s off and die!

I agree with the OP and this. Govt needs to make BTL seriously unattractive. And I loathe how the word 'property' has replaced 'house' and 'home'. Says it all really.

Not read the full thread.

In any other sector we observe and expect that big businesses have economies of scale and can offer cheaper prices than small ones. So why would banning big business landlords reduce rental prices?

Now if a single landlord gains a monopoly position in an area, I say the government should use competition laws to force a breakup.

I believe the root cause of high housing costs is high home ownership. Rents will be strongly influenced by purchase prices. And as long as most voters live in owner-occupied homes, which is still the case, they will continue voting for policies that keep the monetary value of those homes high. Between a planning process designed to mostly prevent housebuilding, and the selloff of council housing pushing up demand for private rentals and ownership, we've had decades of such policies.

Only once most people are renting will we see change.

Yeah, homes under the hammer can piss off!
Please.

Apropos of nothing this is also when a lot of BTL landlords reaching retirement age will be thinking of selling their houses to realise the the profits on their neat egg.

FIL is in building trade - neither he or any of his family have ever been landlords but some of his friends/collegues have - it seem to be about 10 years or so after retriement age - sometime longer when their health takes a nose dive and p/t seasonal work they often pick up also dries up that they seem to sell on. Most FIL knows/knew don't have huge property portfolios though and directly manage properties.

FIL always prioritised paying into different pension schemes as apparently across the secotor pensions prevision is really poor but I supposed doing up and renting is similar planning idea though and has been going on for decades before BTL became so popular.

Builder next door in his 50 has done similar - has some rentals very nearby to his house he's done up slowly and now rents out he also has a holiday home in England.

I think there's always been this sector in the market just seems to have gotten very popular - though I'm still not sure BTL is the entire problem in most cases.

Building houses people in in areas with work or redistribution work/econcomy/jobs - is also much needed - I often wonder if that's what the whole leveling up thing the Tories keep going on about is partly a smoke screen for SE housing crisis.

@ifIwerenotanandroid

Around here there's lots of house-building going on. There are things wrong with it, though:

1. Instead of putting houses across the county, according to where they're needed for local people to be able to stay local, the houses are concentrated in multiple large estates in the same area.

1. Plans sometimes include a certain percentage of 'affordable' homes & so they're given permission. At a later date, those 'affordable' homes are declared to be no longer financially viable so the number is reduced to a level which would not have received planning permission - but the development still goes ahead.

This is also happening here - with the addition that

1. There is zero improvement in roads, schools, GPs etc.

and 4.Our Council are two-faced cunts who have spent thousands (possibly millions) of our money writing ridiculous development polices about sustainable transport and climate change but permit loads of development in direct contravention of it. All the new estates around here will have at least one car each. There are no decent cycle routes and the bus services are actually being cut back.

100% agree OP. The housing situation in the cities ( and elsewhere of course) is untenable. But as a pp pointed.out, a vast proportion.of MPs are BTL landlords so we as a nation are fucked. Quite how such a glaring conflict of interest has been allowed to continue for so long is shameful. But that's our Parliamentary system for you. It has exploitation of the poor built into it.

They are stuck paying extortionate rent (my partner and I pay almost £300 a month more in private rent than a mortgage would cost us)

Well, this is because most landlords are amateur landlords.

Not necessarily. My mortgage agreement states that I have to charge 145% of my monthly mortgage payment if I rent it out. Consequently the flat next to mine pays a much higher rent than my mortgage for exactly the same thing.

If you make a luxury like that available to everyone, then what incentive is there to better oneself, seek out and take advantage of opportunities etc?

Well we could apply that to everything, couldn't we? What incentive is there for people to better themselves and work hard to fuel the capitalist state and pour money upwards into the pockets of the wealthy few if there's food on offer other than gruel? Why not make people accept worse living standards as a stick to strive harder?

When you can tell me that there's genuinely equality of education, opportunity and cultural capital in this country then I might entertain this as a notion. Until then it's just a different version of the American Dream, and just as much of a façade.

Houses are still cheap by UK standards in places where there's no work.

How do you afford a house when you have no work? Housing will be cheap if no-one locally can buy it and BTLers won't touch it with someone else's bargepole because no-one wants to live there because there's no work...

My friend owns 10 properties and makes about £10,000 per month from them, he’s thinking of buying more. He has no idea the struggles people like my sister are going through, paying rent each month which is more than if she could have a mortgage but stuck in the vicious cycle of renting which means she can’t afford to save for a deposit for her own property. And I have no idea how my children are ever going to afford to own their own homes, 3 bed properties round here have shot up to £450k+.

@Thewholeshackshimmy

My friend owns 10 properties and makes about £10,000 per month from them, he’s thinking of buying more. He has no idea the struggles people like my sister are going through, paying rent each month which is more than if she could have a mortgage but stuck in the vicious cycle of renting which means she can’t afford to save for a deposit for her own property. And I have no idea how my children are ever going to afford to own their own homes, 3 bed properties round here have shot up to £450k+.

I’d love to know how he makes £1k a month. The average is £250 and they have to pay tax on that.

Well, this is because most landlords are amateur landlords.

Not necessarily. My mortgage agreement states that I have to charge 145% of my monthly mortgage payment if I rent it out. Consequently the flat next to mine pays a much higher rent than my mortgage for exactly the same thing

Umm, you just proved my point. Mortgage providers put those conditions on because they don't want amateur landlords (as opposed to professional private landlord companies) to underestimate how much rent they need to charge and default on the mortgage. Also shows you just how much more the costs are of
of being a landlord over and above the mortgage.

I really can't understand how some people are so surprised renting from a private landlord is more expensive than a mortgage. Landlords have mortgage costs PLUS all the other expenses I outlined above.

@flashbac do you own your home or rent? If renting and in a position to buy but you had not approached that properties home owner, and have not been previously outbid by a BTL LL then I don't see what your issue is?

If you're not in a position to buy then what difference does it make who buys any property, in your street or elsewhere?

If there were no BTL landlords then people needing to rent would be fucked as there are certainly not enough council properties.

I agree with restrictions on people buying BTL's or holiday home in village/small town tourist destinations as it's preventing locals from buying in their own area. In larger towns and cities I see no issue with BTL landlords.

I'm sure that any buy to let landlord / lady would say they pay a huge amount of tax and it's not all profit etc. of course, people appreciate this, but in order to start their portfolio took money to start with or a leg up from somewhere.
They will probably be very quiet about how that happened for them. Not everyone has the same chances in life to build an empire sadly.

So intrigued by £1000 per month. A landlord I know earns about £200 per property after everything (minus tax).

[quote FangsForTheMemory]@dangerrabbit The root cause of the housing crisis is that Thatcher let thousands of people buy their council homes and councils never built new ones.[/quote]
Councils were not allowed to build new ones.

Councils couldn't build new properties to replace the ones that were sold on.
Big part of the problem.