There should be an upper limit on rental prices

[HereLiveIAmNotACat]

Am I the only one that thinks the property investment industry is horrendous and shows how awful, greedy and selfish mankind can be? Surely there should be laws around this? Or caps on the maximum profit a homeowner can make per month relative to any mortgage on the property?
How can it be right that rental prices are ludicrously above mortgage prices purely for the homeowners to benefit from someone else paying off their mortgage and make a pretty penny on top.. then moving on to their third, fourth houses etc..meanwhile renters are stuck forking up more than they can afford with little chance of ever making it onto the property ladder due to the impossibility of saving up whilst paying rent.
Unless you were fortunate enough to have a property in the 80s before inflation/money from family you’re screwed really.
Just means less and less rental properties being available. The rich getting richer the poor getting poorer. And it’s always ‘oh it’s brilliant we’ve paid that mortgage off and are making such and such per month renting out..we’re now moving to a much larger house in a much nicer area’ as if that’s something to be proud of?!

(Yes- bitter renter here)

It’s clear a lot of people have no idea how BTL actually works

I think it's more a case that not all LLs act the same. Look at the examples on this thread, lots of fair LLs who stay on top of maintenance etc but we know that's not representative of every LL.

Joe Bloggs working full time with one BTL and paying 40% tax is not cause of the housing crisis I assure you.

The housing crisis has a number of issues but it definitely exacerbates the issue when you look at the collective as opposed to just one individual.

All the desperation and twisting to justify forcing poorer people to pay for the luxuries of the rich is sickening. Just what we expect from perfidious Albion: but sickening nevertheless.

Rents are determined by supply and demand.
If you regulated the rent, you would just reduce the supply.

You either need to encourage landlords, or reduce demand.

Also council house tenancies should not be for life. That is a huge part of the problem.

Why? Why shouldn't they be for life?

Some tenants with lifetime tenancies are carers for disabled child/children and will be for life. Where's their security?

Landlords need to have their properties to hit a EPC 'C' rating by 2025 by law. It's a lot more relaxed for owner occupied houses. And if you don't have a mortgage, I don't see how anyone can force you to upgrade your EPC rating. That's additional money that needs to be spent which wouldn't be needed for many owner occupiers unless they choose to.

You clearly don't understand what social housing is or how it works.

Social housing is not a freebie. It is renting from the council or a housing association.

All the desperation and twisting to justify forcing poorer people to pay for the luxuries of the rich is sickening. Just what we expect from perfidious Albion: but sickening nevertheless
No justification, just facts, where are yours to support your claim? Don't bother looking, you won't find them!

I have done a calculation on one of my properties (mortgage paid off)

If the current tenants put 10% deposit down to buy
At current estimated price of the property
They would pay £100 more per month + maintenance

So the Ops theory is incorrect

If you think landlords are greedy villains and that there isn't enough housing, if you have a flat, why don't you invite a homeless person to move in to your flat for free? Aren't they entitled to a roof over their heads, and aren't you privileged enough to have one? Shouldn't the government step in and make sure that you provide one for someone who needs one? If it's a human right and you have the floor space for a sleeping bag, who are you to deny them?

I was an accidental landlord for a while as I moved in with dh and was in negative equity on my flat. I rented it out at a lower amount than the property mgmt company advised and I never put up the rent in the 4 years I was renting it out. I made a loss every year due to all the taxes. Then I sold it.
So I’m sure there are plenty of fatcat landlords out there but not all landlords are like that.

That would mean actually doing something rather than expecting other people to do something.

It's very much a case of I want...someone else to pay.

(My post was in response to Princess Nutella.)

I have rented in the UK (1 year in Camden as a university student, 2 years in student halls) and also in Germany (1 year in a gorgeous studio apartment in Berlin). Germany was far more problematic, despite the fact that it was a lifetime tenancy and we could decorate however we wanted (it came bare bones). We had to pay outrageous service charges in addition to the rent which were way more expensive than the service charges I currently pay as an owner of a London flat, it was in the thousands. As we were foreigners- DH was a Masters student- and didn't have 3 months pay slips, we had to pay for an agent to 'show us the door' and there were so many applicants for a single flat, people were utterly desperate for housing. But my boss at that time rented a larger flat that was cheaper than mine, all because he was German with a stable job. When I left Berlin, we gave up our tenancy to DH's classmate who was the daughter of a very prominent lawyer, and she had problems renting a flat too and she had an almost unlimited budget. The problem was the supply. We received almost 100 applications to take over our tenancy.

It turned me off renting for life and that is why when I returned to London, I stayed with family for 3 years so I could buy my flat. When you buy a flat, you can scrutinize the freeholder ( I chose a flat where the freeholder were the residents), you can look at the accounts, you can become a director of the management company. In most cases, you can't really choose your landlord and he is responsible for all repairs and maintenance. But berlin got rent controls and has far more regulations regarding rental than the UK (50% of all Germans rent) but the situation is not necessarily better. Its just that I suppose middle class Germans have more money than in the UK where middle class people tend to sink all their money into their property due to cultural expectations to buy as big as you can afford (many middle class germans are happy with 3 bed flats and there are minimum room sizes so the houses and flats there have a floor plan that is better suited for family living) so renting can be quite nice if you have more money. but if you have little money in either country, renting can be awful. Ownership means you have something at the end of it, which I suppose is an attractive proposition for someone who otherwise has very little.

@LookingForTones

Also council house tenancies should not be for life. That is a huge part of the problem.

Why? Why shouldn't they be for life?

Some tenants with lifetime tenancies are carers for disabled child/children and will be for life. Where's their security?

Some but not all. Friends mum was in a big council house for decades as her health deterioration the kids tried to arrange more suitable council accommodation she wouldn't budge. After setting fire to the kitchen she had to move out.

Alfonso--exactly. People think living in other people's houses is a human right. But I doubt that they think having strangers live in their houses is a human right.

New York City has had rent controls and it worked very unfairly. It led to situations where rich people like Mia Farrow and Woody Allen had huge rent controlled apartments for cheap and young people had to find dingy apartments way out in Queens. A lot of people who moved out of the city held onto their apartments for years and years and secretly subletted them out for high rents. It was depressing. It's hard to get a system that works really well in a city with a huge amount of money and not much room to move.

@PrincessNutella

New York City has had rent controls and it worked very unfairly. It led to situations where rich people like Mia Farrow and Woody Allen had huge rent controlled apartments for cheap and young people had to find dingy apartments way out in Queens. A lot of people who moved out of the city held onto their apartments for years and years and secretly subletted them out for high rents. It was depressing. It's hard to get a system that works really well in a city with a huge amount of money and not much room to move.

Grenfell tenants sub let when the awful fire struck this was revealed

@PrincessNutella

New York City has had rent controls and it worked very unfairly. It led to situations where rich people like Mia Farrow and Woody Allen had huge rent controlled apartments for cheap and young people had to find dingy apartments way out in Queens. A lot of people who moved out of the city held onto their apartments for years and years and secretly subletted them out for high rents. It was depressing. It's hard to get a system that works really well in a city with a huge amount of money and not much room to move.

If you get ten economists together in a room and ask their opinions on anything you will get eleven different answers. The one thing that nearly all economists agree on is that rent controls don't work and certainly don't create a fairer rental market. And there's plenty of empirical evidence for them to work with.

The cost of renting can be extortionate.
My old flat I rented for £500pcm (1 bed room with garage) My landlady didn't raise the rent and I was there for 4 years. On moving in £500 seemed a bit high but location and garage were excellent, it was within my budget.
A flat in the same block on the 2nd floor(no lift)without a garage was being advertised for £650pcm!
My current 2 bed house with a garden with a housing association is £391pcm. The house 2 doors down is being advertised for £750pcm on right move. Almost double the cost.
Lower rent charges will usually result in tenant loyalty and therefore the long-term costs are a lot better rather than having to find new tenants every year as they have realised they can't afford the £800 pcm you want even though their housing benefit is £650.

[quote Dragongirl10]@Viviennemary, that is an excellent point. Council houses should not be for life. A family with 3 children might get offered a 3 bedroom house, but when those children grow up and leave home and only 1 or 2 occupants left they should be relocated to a smaller property. This happens in Jersey, Channel Islands. If you are lucky enough to be given a state House you must relocate into smaller property as a child leaves home. Friends of ours had a 2 bedroom flat and once their dd went to uni they had to relocate to 1 bedroom flat. This would be stop as bout 7 people trying to live in 2 bedroom house or flat.
THIS ^ hits the nail on the head.

families desperately in need for family housing should not be prevented by single people in a three bed property.

If you have had 20 years of lower than market value rent and a secure tenancy, to bring up your family in, then you should not keep a larger than necessary asset from a bigger family in need.

And we need to build many more council houses.And manage them much better and more cost effectively than most councils do.[/quote]
I have a relative who is in her sixties. She has a beautiful three bed council house in North London. All her kids are adults and have moved out. She lives in this three bed house by herself. This should not be happen

Happening

I own a flat that I rent out out (mortgage free)

After Grenfell, the Freeholder did an audit of the block of flats

The Freeholder of the black of flats, now charges me a subletting fee yearly

I expect that other people have had similar extra charges too

I have a relative who is in her sixties. She has a beautiful three bed council house in North London. All her kids are adults and have moved out. She lives in this three bed house by herself. This should not be happen

Why not? According to the many who are keen to point out, social housing is not free, nor is it subsided at all on any way, and social housing tenants don’t have any benefits over what private tenants expect.

I don’t agree with all of that because it seems obvious to me that there are huge perks of being a social housing tenant, but if your relative is paying a fair amount to live in her home, then why shouldn’t she be allowed to live there?

Interesting documentary- Who can still afford to live in the cities?

'What do Queen Elizabeth, the drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, Shakira and Apple have in commonn? They all have a portion or almost all their capital in a tax haven...You buy things on the cheap with your legal money, Then you sell those properties to your company in a tax haven.Your offshore company brings the assets back to Italy, England or Germany. This is how you launder or distribute money all over the world. if you want to bring back your dirty money back to your country, you simply buy it from yourself at a much higher price than you paid. This mechanism cannot be attacked. Companies don't want inexpensive real estate, they want to pay as much as possible, this enables them to hide more money. '

What relevance does this have to you? Well as Prime central london becomes more expensive, this money eventually flows out to outer london and the regions.