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

@flashbac but if there is a surplus of rented property available rents come down. This happened recently in central London during the lockdowns.

Please don't tar all landlords with the same brush. When my marriage ended I had to choose whether to buy a typical three bed semi for myself or choose something smaller ie two up two down and a BTL. I chose the latter as having worked all my life in the service industry mainly part time when the dc were small I don't have a pension of any great worth, think hundreds not thousands, the btl was advertised on the open market and I certainly didn't snap it up; my tenants have no inclination to buy, they are charged a very fair rent and live in a well maintained property, the rent (after costs including taxes, insurances, maintenance etc) is part of my income and enables- me to semi retire and not have to work full time until my late sixties well 67 to be precise. I'm by no means rich nor do I class myself as greedy, I realise I'm fortunate but we worked hard to buy our first house and had some luck with rising property prices.

I would also like to add that when we purchased our first house in the early eighties the mortgage offers were ridiculously low, barely covering the cost of the cheapest one bedroom starter home and that was with a very healthy deposit.

It’s crap for people who can’t afford to get on the housing ladder but I don’t blame people for investing their money in houses as it is so safe. The government have made it quite clear they are not going to let houses prices drop. Every single BTL landlord could put all their houses up for sale tomorrow and the government would put something in place to stop house prices dropping. The whole stamp duty fiasco during a pandemic proved that.

Nothing will change and the gap between the rich and poor will just keep getting bigger unfortunately.

But repair and maintenance are only ONE part of the additional costs that landlords have! You clearly have no idea what the costs are.

The other costs are, presumably, those that landlords choose to take on when deciding to be a landlord if they know what they're letting themselves in for (and many seem not to). I'm quite in acceptance that renting will be more expensive than owning but it shouldn't be that much more expensive. That's why landlording should be left to professionals who have economies of scale and aren't passing on 100% of their costs to one tenant.

Plus, in terms of repairs tenants, quite rightly as they are paying for the service, put everything that needs fixed to their landlord to organise and pay for, whereas if you were an owner occupier you would do some of it/ a lot of it yourself to save money.

The landlord of the flat next to mine does all the maintenance of the flat himself. Plenty of landlords do, in the same way that plenty of homeowners get someone in because they don't know how to do the work/don't have time etc. And that's always assuming that tenants don't do some small repairs and maintenance themselves, because I sure as hell did.

@Bucanarab - the housing market is regulated though. It’s quite heavily regulated in fact and the government intervenes to house people who can’t house themselves. So your argument doesn’t make any sense.

My argument is that we should be taking measures to ensure everyone has access to safe, secure, and affordable housing. Why doesn't that make sense?

I also didn't say the housing market wasn't regulated, I said it needs to be better regulated. Any system where you have millions of people living in insecure, unsafe, and unsuitable accommodation because they can't afford anything else is broken. Yes, the government provide some support but they have very limited resources and can't provide adequate housing to everyone, if they could there wouldn't be an issue with private rentals.

I find it very frustrating. My NDN is a uni landlord and buys up numerous 2/3 beds in my town (and about 5 at least in our immediate area) all which would be great family homes. He also whacks great big extensions on them which ruin the area and create numerous traffic and parking issues. Housing stock round here is scarce and overpriced already.

@Mintjulia

I can tolerate BTL (plenty of people don't want or can't get a mortgage to buy a property) BUT ...

i) there should be legally binding rent controls
ii) sensible security of tenure
iii) a council helpline for tenants suffering from damp, vermin, faulty electrics or plumbing, inadequate heating or physically insecure housing.
iv) an absolute requirements for landlords to fix those faults within 60 days.

This.

We rent at the moment but if anything happened to our landlord or he decided to sell we would be stuffed. We pay a reasonably cheap rent and would never find an equivalent property.

I think the insecurity of renting makes a lot of people want to buy (obviously there are other reasons as well) and until this is dealt with properly the situation is only going to get worse.

Huge deposits and the difficulty of getting a mortgage stop a lot of people who would be well able to afford to pay a mortgage (which in many cases will be considerably less than what is being paid in rent) from buying.

I don't think BTL is necessarily the main reason that housing has become so unaffordable for many although it may well contribute.

Ridiculous rents do not help the situation.

Everyone who's condemning BTL landlords...what are people who don't want to buy a home supposed to do? They have to rent. Are you saying rented housing shouldn't be available? Or that it's only acceptable from a local council or housing association.

I needed to rent a flat when I split from my ex. Without that BTL landlord I would have been stuck there forever. The council wouldn't have helped because I chose to leave.

My landlord got a good tenant for a year, I got a temporary home which was what I wanted.

[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]
Oh yes! I agree 100%. The rot started here. But to add it was because local authorities weren't actually allowed to build new homes for rather complicated reasons.

@ChateauMargaux Greenpeace haven’t unearthed anything, they publish the list of subsidy recipients every year 😂

Those subsidies came from the EU which has now been stopped obviously. A new scheme is replacing it to provide greater environmental benefits and access in order to access subsidies. You will no longer get money just for owning land.

I have worked for a few of the ‘top ten’ people/businesses on that list managing their land and estates for them. I can tell you they spend far and above than on environmental and heritage protection schemes. The small farmers who really need the money require it as such little value is given to food.

[quote Macaroni46]@Blossomtoes in my opinion council housing should be means tested and this should be checked every two years or so. Those tenants who no longer require cheap housing should move out providing homes for those who need it.
Security of tenure? Sure for a set period of time but I definitely, why? No one else has that be they private renters, living in a mortgaged property or home owners - their circumstances change, they have to move! When Council houses were first established they were meant as a temporary stop gap,a leg up, so to speak. Not a house or flat that passes down through generations!
That's one of the reasons we such huge waiting lists for council housing and private landlords can charge more. Without the private landlords there'd be even less available housing. One could even argue that if there is a surplus of privately let properties available this will drive rents down. [/quote]
Local authority properties can't be passed through generations; the rule is one assignment of tenancy and that is it! If any more happen then someone is cheating. It's why we see family members getting cross because they want to carry on living in their family home but can't. They have to leave.

I agree I own a flat and struggled to buy a place despite being a cash buyer as anything decent was bought up by BTL landlords. They don’t give a shit about the properties or whose in them either so as we don’t have a management company as the properties are freehold jobs that should be shared between the properties aren’t done. The tenants regularly moved on and those of us that own are left tidying everything up as we are the only ones who care or notice what needs doing.

We need more decent flats. Population growth is not going away. People don't want the countryside built over. So we have to build up.

Not sky scrapers but 3-5 storey blocks with decent sized balconies (none of that juliette bollocks), quality fittings, built around communal courtyards, with a proportion of affordable rents which is good for social cohesion, ground floor family flats with large patios, separate bungalows.

Plus more investment in green public spaces and gardens, and more allotments.

Since Blair and his cronies made a concision decision to massively increase migration to the UK. Since around 2000 net migration to to UK has averaged around 250'000 per year.

Over 20 years that's around 5 million people or 10% of the population of England.

This amongst other issues leads to significant increased in demand for property.

Exacerbating this further until recently getting permission to actually build was very difficult because every local NIMBY would be up in arms.

Its very simple supply and demand.

The native British population is actually shrinking due to birth rates. So limit migration and more supply will naturally become available. Or build more houses.

Bucanarab I agree that working hard doesn't = doing well but fewer BTL won't help a family struggling to pay rent - rents would be higher meaning they'd be even less able to afford it. Capping max rents would also reduce BTL properties due to restrictions on mortgages e.g. 143% needed to get a mortgage etc. We definitely should not have sold off social housing

@MistySkiesAfterRain Who wants to live in a flat?

In London unless yr income is £60000 plus you cannot buy. That’s all teachers, nurses, care workers and retail staff. Where should they live?

@Mintjulia Have you looked at the legal balance in assured shorthold tenancy? It's already so massively in favour of the tenant that its a farce.

What the UK actually needs isn't just 'more' housing, it's more truly AFFORDABLE housing, with values closely tied to the pace of median salaries in the local area. We have a housing crisis in this country that's not being addressed by volume developers building thousands of houses that are way out of the reach of most basic or low income single people and families.

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how many families there are currently in need of housing in England? According to a National Housing Federation report last year, it's around 1.6million households and virtually NOTHING is being done by volume developers to address this. 'Affordable housing' is a misnomer when all it means is '80% of market value' - that doesn't take into account households who can't still couldn't afford to buy if it meant 70% of market value, or even half of market value.

There are huge swathes of the country completely out of the reach of home ownership to people who grew up in areas they're now priced out of, meaning fractures in communities that have maintained close ties for many years. I don't think housing should ever have been prioritised as a financial asset in the way that we now think of it. It's sad that one of our most basic needs; shelter has been turned into a commodity so far out of the reach of so many.

The entire UK housing system is broken and desperately needs reform. If what I've read in the past couple of days about legislation being pondered for Cornwall to heavily tax second home ownership or outrightly ban the purchase of second homes in some areas altogether is to be believed, it's also sad that it's come down to that simplistic a 'solution'. However, home ownership is largely a British obsession, with the continent being nowhere near as hell-bent on it as we are here in the UK.

I own my house, but have zero interest in reaping any sort of massive profit when the time comes for me to move on. It just doesn't figure in my value system in any shape or form. My house is for one purpose only; as my home, not a vehicle for profit. I honestly think the time has come for some truly radical, ground-breaking (for the UK) legislation that returns housing to it's sole purpose because 1.6million households in housing need is a damning indictment of the state of where we are right now.

Flats would be more appealing if they were planned like this bosco verticale

@Mintjulia

Everyone who's condemning BTL landlords...what are people who don't want to buy a home supposed to do? They have to rent. Are you saying rented housing shouldn't be available? Or that it's only acceptable from a local council or housing association.

I needed to rent a flat when I split from my ex. Without that BTL landlord I would have been stuck there forever. The council wouldn't have helped because I chose to leave.

My landlord got a good tenant for a year, I got a temporary home which was what I wanted.

Speaking from my experience no one had a problem finding a home to rent before 1996.

@cheeseismydownfall

The obsession with owning just feeds the banks - as does BTL, to be fair too, of course.

I agree - but the British obsession with owning hasn't come from nowhere. It's a result of the fact at renting long-term is a shitty option in the UK due to lack of regulation (as you correctly point out).

Spot on 👌🏻 Having lived in Europe and Canada, I see how poorly our housing rental situations are regulated and controlled legislatively.

So as a nation we effectively “rent “ from the banks instead

@MistySkiesAfterRain

We need more decent flats. Population growth is not going away. People don't want the countryside built over. So we have to build up.

Not sky scrapers but 3-5 storey blocks with decent sized balconies (none of that juliette bollocks), quality fittings, built around communal courtyards, with a proportion of affordable rents which is good for social cohesion, ground floor family flats with large patios, separate bungalows.

Plus more investment in green public spaces and gardens, and more allotments.

Co-housing for older people - where everyone has their own individual apartments, but share lots of communal facilities such as gardens, laundry, allotment space (even tools, bicycles and cars) and a communal meeting place is one way of addressing the needs of an ageing population. Developers aren't building bungalows that meet this need, and many older people don't want the hassle or work involved in maintaining a garden, or handling their own building maintenance.

There are a few incredible developments of this kind in the UK - although we lag significantly behind countries such as Denmark, The Netherlands and Sweden in this respect, as well as many South American countries where cooperative housing has long been a huge part of the housing offer.

There's one particular development called 'OWCH' (Older Women's Co-housing) that springs to mind as a fantastic example of co-housing solutions for older peoples as well as a development called LiLAC for families and single people, as well as older people that really stand out as beacons for a different way of 'doing' housing.

I think we've become so used to doing the same things, with the same materials, the same style of housing and using the same unsustainable elements (developers still installing fossil fuel-driven heating systems, not including electric vehicle charging points as standard and using tonnes and tonnes of the most environmentally-polluting building substance in existence - concrete) here in the UK that we've got ourselves into a total rut.

The dependence on developers by English councils is a complete fuck-up that should never have been allowed to happen; councils having to shore up income shortfalls via the community infrastructure levy, so essentially greenlighting any shit old housing development that applies for planning permission was always a one-way ticket into the sewer of unsustainability as far as housebuilding was concerned.

I've read thousands of complaints from unsatisfied homeowners detailing flaws and serious defects with their developer-built homes - and that alone proves that volume development so often falls far short of the standards they would otherwise wish the general public to have of them.

@Tabitha005 fantastic post

That sounds lovely, Misty.

I wouldn't like the communal courtyards because I have known a few places with them and you can get a lot of problems. Obviously the problems are not the fault of the architects, builders or owners but the people who live there but I have to say they would put me off such a place.

However the rest of what you describe sounds idyllic.

There are estates answering that description in some places. I browse Rightmove with the vague idea of moving in the not too distant future (but not far from where I am at the moment, just smaller and easier to maintain), and I see them pop up here and there. However there are obviously not enough of them.

I let a flat somewhere else, it was in the family and following a death, it has been mine. The tenants have been in for almost a year and have dreadful arrears on their rent. I gave them some leeway because of circumstances but there have been months when they've paid nothing at all. I'm still paying the mortgage and the flat is up for sale. The tenants, a young couple, have first refusal but I've heard nothing.

The estate agents told me that someone viewed the flat and the tenants told him they had no intention of moving out. Yet it was only let pending sale, was never intended to be long term. Their rent is £750 pcm and some months ago I offered to reduce it if it was more than they could afford.

You can't win.