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

Pure supply and demand capitalism is fine for things like fizzy drinks, vehicles, cinema tickets but it doesn’t work for the essentials of life

Co-signed

I agree, OP. The only way BTL would be ok is if the rent was capped and kept low. I wouldn’t mind so much then.

I find it shocking how much house prices have risen over 25 or 30 years. It used to be that even a relatively low paid job would allow you to buy a cheap house - and there were plenty about because the lower prices kept the housing market buoyant. When my ex-H and I bought our first house our mortgage was around the same price as our rent. Now rent is often way, way above the cost of a mortgage on the same property.

Selling off the council homes was the most destructive thing to happen in the 1980s.
I know many became millionaires from it , I know it was popular and a vote winner and I appreciate that it was seen as inspirational

And the argument back then was "everyone should be able to own their own home" same as this thread. It was short-sited then (selling off council housing) and suggestions to curtail private landlords now are also sort sighted.

Now rent is often way, way above the cost of a mortgage on the same property.

I've known this to be the case. I've only ever paid more mortgage than the equivalent rent. Current house -£1500 mortgage. Same house across the street, £1200 rent.

The UK is a strange place. Adults in their 30s cannot afford to live on their own, yet you have people asking why people aren’t getting married and having babies.

There are low marriage & birthrates in Taiwan, Romania, Italy & Japan, too. Is that also due to BTL?

Maybe some form of rent control could be an option

Either something needs to be done to make ordinary working people more able to buy a home for their families, or there needs to be much stronger renters rights.

I'd love to have a few children but I'll never be able to buy a home big enough for a family, not without tens of thousands for a deposit at least. But renting is so unstable, you can be told to move out with little notice, if an appliance breaks you're at the will of a slow landlord to sort it, rents can increase by quite a lot, it's hard providing a stable home for children when you rent in the UK. Both options are bad and I don't think that a stable home for my children should be so difficult when I work hard.

If the housing market/rental market was hurting the pockets of Tory MPs and their donors, they’d be knocking it down and starting again. As it is of course, as a group which is mostly in the top 1-10% of British wealth (with their donors and supporters in the media and elsewhere in the top 0.0001%), they all benefit massively from the status quo: IE spiralling house prices, shite rentals … and above all a continuous, gradual but steady upward transfer of wealth from the bottom 50% of the UK to the top 5% of the UK. Understand that and then the rest is just details and small print. It’s class warfare but it’s also now generational warfare, though at some point the Tories may need to change strategy as I’m not sure how many dirt poor renters in their 40s and 50s in 2030/40 will be voting Tory. But they can always blame the immigrants, which usually does the trick.

I totally agree with you op

@DocAutumn

Aw, just let the rich people have everything because they can afford to pay for it.

Also, with buy to let mortgages often requiring miniscule or no deposits and the tenants paying rent that more than covers the mortgage these rich people often aren't even investing any money in the properties they end up owning.

Where are you finding zero deposit BTL mortgages?

And ok, so some of you are so amazing at your jobs, your bosses overlook your diabolical timekeeping. Fine - especially in the era of home-working, it must be easier to get to your desk on time.

But how do you meet work deadlines?

Oh wrong thread! Sorry!

Yes, I remember the arguments that owning a property was the thing to aspire to and why shouldn't council home owners have one ? It was the huge discounts that were unfair though : my parents and in laws friends and families bought and sold them on as soon as they were able to and moved to much ' nicer' areas.
Hardly anyone wanted to stay in the areas that the ex council homes were actually in and had the cheek to moan about the ' sink estates' they left behind!

@supermoonrising

If the housing market/rental market was hurting the pockets of Tory MPs and their donors, they’d be knocking it down and starting again. As it is of course, as a group which is mostly in the top 1-10% of British wealth (with their donors and supporters in the media and elsewhere in the top 0.0001%), they all benefit massively from the status quo: IE spiralling house prices, shite rentals … and above all a continuous, gradual but steady upward transfer of wealth from the bottom 50% of the UK to the top 5% of the UK. Understand that and then the rest is just details and small print. It’s class warfare but it’s also now generational warfare, though at some point the Tories may need to change strategy as I’m not sure how many dirt poor renters in their 40s and 50s in 2030/40 will be voting Tory. But they can always blame the immigrants, which usually does the trick.

People don't make these connections or else there couldn't be so much Tory support.

If there were more controls on rentals the market would fall off a cliff.

I totally agree. I'm renting and would love to buy this house once we get a mortgage and do it up a bit but I don't think our LL who owns about 20 houses would consider selling it. It's in need of modernisation so I think once we move out he'll do the work and rent it for more whereas he could sell to us for a profit and we could have a house to make our own. I understand it's not his problem but still.

Totally agree OP. I think BTL should be severely restricted. I would also ban the buying of holiday homes - they ruin communities.

There are low marriage & birthrates in Taiwan, Romania, Italy & Japan, too. Is that also due to BTL

I’m sure cost of living and general life stress is certainly a factor. I know that for sure in the case of China/Taiwan and Japan. I’ve heard similar from colleagues in Spain.

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. They have bought the property as an investment, so they have a mortgage to pay and on top of that they have to pay for all the repairs and maintenance to the property, have to cover void periods (when they still have the mortgage to pay), have to pay to make the property compliant with legislation and pay for all the regular safety checks, paying for landlord insurance (not cheap), quite likely paying for letting agent fees (about £100 a month), so it is not surprising that rent is more than the mortgage when you have a lot of amateur landlords with a full mortgage and all these additional costs. Apparently the average profits for landlords are 5%.

That's why we need a professional landlord sector run by companies who are maintaining properties across generations and therefore not thinking in terms of a 25 year mortgage that they need to cover plus all the considerable additional costs of renting a property out.

@DynamoKev
People don't make these connections or else there couldn't be so much Tory

There isn’t that much Tory support. About 1/4 adults voted Tory for their last landslide. The centre-left vote was 1.5 million bigger than the right wing vote. More people in the UK hate Tory policies than support them but FPTP doesnt recognise nuance.

I’ve rented from some excellent landlords and some awful ones. The awful ones have always been through letting agents, who IMO are an even bigger problem. Ripping off both parties and taking on landlords who simply shouldn’t be landlords.

Feel very fortunate to now own my own home and would never aspire to a second property on principal.

@supermoonrising

If the housing market/rental market was hurting the pockets of Tory MPs and their donors, they’d be knocking it down and starting again. As it is of course, as a group which is mostly in the top 1-10% of British wealth (with their donors and supporters in the media and elsewhere in the top 0.0001%), they all benefit massively from the status quo: IE spiralling house prices, shite rentals … and above all a continuous, gradual but steady upward transfer of wealth from the bottom 50% of the UK to the top 5% of the UK. Understand that and then the rest is just details and small print. It’s class warfare but it’s also now generational warfare, though at some point the Tories may need to change strategy as I’m not sure how many dirt poor renters in their 40s and 50s in 2030/40 will be voting Tory. But they can always blame the immigrants, which usually does the trick.

👏👏👏👏

“and above all a continuous, gradual but steady upward transfer of wealth from the bottom 50% of the UK to the top 5% of the UK”

If this ISNT Tory policy than the Tories are absolutely shit at governing, because this is exactly what has been happening the last twenty years with the country under their control.

Either something needs to be done to make ordinary working people more able to buy a home for their families, or there needs to be much stronger renters rights.

We seem to have a system thats awful in both directions - landlords lose serious money and suffer huge stress trying to get really bad tennants out but most decent renters have few rights.

We'd have often prefered longer rental conracts and more freedoms to do things - which I belived are common in some EU countries we could have delayed buying even longer then.

i do think they'll be a economic shock though as our generation which has had less opportunity to buy then struggles with paying rent out of retirement incomes.
Home ownership among people aged 35-44 has plunged – ONS

Welcome to capitalism.

We have one BLT property and in the process of buying a second. Disgruntled people have no idea of the sacrifices we've made to make this happen. I really have zero fucks to give - especially as I strongly suspect that this is just sour grapes, and the disgruntled would do exact the same if they were in a position to do so.