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

@ComtesseDeSpair

The problem isn’t, per se, the tenure in which housing stock is held. The problem is that housing is unaffordable in many areas because we don’t have enough housing in the areas most people want to live. If we had enough housing stock then we wouldn’t need to worry about BTL landlords because the market would even out.

Should the government restrict the size of property each individual can own according to family size, because large houses with big gardens and garages and driveways take up a plot which could be used to build three of four more modest homes?

The problem is way bigger than BTL. Hedge funds buying vast amount of properties driving up prices, and controling rental stock/ price is a considerable problem in many countries including the UK. It is detrimental, and will only get worse unless legislation or regulation is put in place.

@flashbac

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

I really despise that programme - ingrate the way they renovate them as they all look like utter shit afterwards. Greedy bastards.

@XingMing

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

I love that design! Visiting my brother in Berlin recently, I was struck by just how many apartment buildings with balconies had made use of the space for growing plants, flowers and vegetables - in many case ENTIRE apartment blocks looking very much like that one in the photo of the link you've shared.

I've never seen such a big determination to make use of even the smallest balcony space to grow anything here in the UK - it was as though whole blocks had made some collective conscious decision to do it. We walked down one particular street in Berlin, full of fairly newly-built apartment blocks (there's a LOT of building going on in the city right now) where every single balcony was ablaze with potted plants and flowers, climbing roses and containers growing tomatoes, fennel, chilli peppers, cucumbers and other veggies. It honestly was a weird sight - quite literally took my breath away - because I've never seen anything like it in London. It can't just be that Berliners (and I include the huge population of non-German people who live in Berlin in that statement as there's definitely a certain, holistic vibe to some parts of the city) have some natural affinity for growing plants and flowers, but it sort of feels like there's some kind of unspoken, collective consciousness that's taken hold and by NOT doing it, you'd be the odd one out.

[quote babbi]@Tabitha005 fantastic post[/quote]
Thank you. I get a bit passionate about housing!

Yanbu. We tried to buy a house for several years and ever time it went to another BTL and it came up for rent. Finally one seller agreed to meet us aNd said wanted house to go to a family..we still here five years later....I suspect alot of the properties we put offers in the offer wasnt put forward...in fact in one I know it wasn't as the BTL paid less than we offered. The one I know our offer wasnt put forward we complained but despite having proof it wasn't worth it....

It's social housing, in Milan. If it can been done there, why not here?

Only read first few pages but I'm confused by the idea that certain things to do with this should only be available to the 'indigenous population'.

Who are they then?! I have no idea what is being suggested there!

@DocAutumn where did you hear that? Deposit is normally 15%

They could just bring in the type of rules you get in say France where the tenant has the automatic right to live there as long as they like and the annual rent increase is capped regardless of market conditions.

That way a btl can be a liability not a cash machine as a tenant who has been there 15 years is likely paying well below market rate.

This has been suggested but Govt said no.

@IceLace100 those properties normally have a low lease that's why they are sold to investors that pay cash.

@Wherearemymarbles

They could just bring in the type of rules you get in say France where the tenant has the automatic right to live there as long as they like and the annual rent increase is capped regardless of market conditions.

That way a btl can be a liability not a cash machine as a tenant who has been there 15 years is likely paying well below market rate.

This has been suggested but Govt said no.

This would be a fine way to reduce the supply of rental properties.

@NiceGerbil

Only read first few pages but I'm confused by the idea that certain things to do with this should only be available to the 'indigenous population'.

Who are they then?! I have no idea what is being suggested there!

I hoped they meant people who actually live in the uk (of any race, religion, nationality etc) instead of houses being bought by people who don’t live in the Uk or even visit the properties very often and being left empty for years as “investments”

@elbea My point is that the distribution of land is unfair and the system (whether EU or UK government.. it all comes from our taxes) continues to support and uphold this disparity by enabling them to keep the land rather than selling it. They may well spend the money on the land but they have plenty of resources to pay for that out of their own funds.

Yes 'Greenpeace' haven't 'uncovered' this, they were bringing light to it.

And while there may well be environmental strategies involved in some land management, there are also significant environmental concerns around the management of land and its effect on flooding and carbon storage. These are not the green saviours of our land that some might like us to believe.

The second (third, fourth) home double council tax could become standard.

Would be nice if landlords invested to maintain their houses too, on my street the rentals are mostly eyesores, not fair on the tenants or the neighbours

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
No the reason that there are huge waiting lists for council properties, is because people want the security that a council tenancy offers, that is not available privately. They are trying to get out of over priced, often sub standard private housing.
A situation created by greedy 'feather your own nest' buy to let landlords.

And when we had that protected tenant legislation, before 1987, there was very little rented property because landlords had no control. Assured shortholds were introduced and landlords stepped up.

As I posted upthread earlier, some elderly relatives of slender means inherited 40 or so tenement houses, which they couldn't afford to maintain and from which they couldn't evict even the worst tenants. Rent controls were upheld by local councils to avoid adding to the pressure on social housing. This was long before Thatcher and the right to buy policy.

The whole ' an Englishman's home is his Castle ' thing doesn't help matters either.
We are brought up not to share things like resources etc. People want their own spaces and don't want to integrate that much.
Maybe a change is needed , but I think a lot of Brits would be a bit suspicious of a different way of living in a more 'communal ' type arrangement.

@ supermoonrising
Yes, apparently in the last election it was the non working population of Britain that voted in the Tories,eg. Pensioners.I dont know many working people who vote Tory.

They could just bring in the type of rules you get in say France where the tenant has the automatic right to live there as long as they like and the annual rent increase is capped regardless of market conditions.

They have this in The Netherlands too, my landlord didn't know the rules and couldn't kick me out when they wanted to sell - after two years (when unbeknownst to them) I wanted to leave I wangled a reasonably large cash payout from them to vacate.

@Tabitha005 A house builder needs to make a profit from a project for them to want to do it.

The affordable housing and taxes such as community infrastructure levy have to be added to the costs of the house builder which are ultimately paid for by the people who arent eligible for these subsidised homes. So yet again, this is an example of the "have a little's" getting screwed.

Between 5 and 20% of the cost of a new build home in taxes and subsidies such as this.

What's more perverse than BTL is stamp duty, you actually get taxed for having the audacity to want to own a home for your family.

When we lived in a northern city council houses were being sold off 'on the cheap' to councillors for funny money i.e.£5. If that's not taking the proverbial - what it. The houses in question were semis in quite a nice area too. (1977 for reference)

@Sommernacht89 I know lots of working people who vote Conservative, the Greens, Labour and Lib Dems pretty much unelectable.

Labour despise the white British working classes and are largely supported by the indoctrinated university educated liberal elite and older people who vote Lab because they always have.

@Journeyofthedragons

They could just bring in the type of rules you get in say France where the tenant has the automatic right to live there as long as they like and the annual rent increase is capped regardless of market conditions.

They have this in The Netherlands too, my landlord didn't know the rules and couldn't kick me out when they wanted to sell - after two years (when unbeknownst to them) I wanted to leave I wangled a reasonably large cash payout from them to vacate.

And you are a prime example of why people shouldn’t fall for the narrative that all landlords are the bad guys and tenants are poor, helpless victims of capitalism. Shame on you for what you did to your poor LL.