Housing crisis

[lollipoprainbow]

Aibu to feel really angry about the housing situation in this country ?? I think it's terrible that tenants that privately rent only get 2 months to find somewhere else to live once issued with a section 21 surely in the current climate of a rental shortage it should be six months ?? I think it's awful that people can't get mortgages despite paying the same or less in rent each month. I think it's disgusting that 'affordable housing' is anything but for the normal low wage earning person. There is zero help for people working on a low wage. Sorry but I just need to vent, I want to complain but don't know who to !!

That's true on interest rates. I bought my first flat in 2007 (hello peak of housing market 🤦) and interest rate was 6.8 on a fix. I then started seeing my now DH who had bought 5 years earlier, and had a discounted mortgage rate, below base. So he was paying around £75 mortgage, when I paid about 550 😂

@Ginandtonicbiatch agree I'm paying extortionate rent but a mortgage repayment each month would be lower. It really pisses me off. There's a reason for my vent as my own landlord is selling and I'm about to be made homeless as there is sod all available to rent where I am due to lack of properties and my low salary. You might have seen my many other posts about this, I'm on one at the moment !!!!

19:05JaceLancs

I totally agree - a friend has just been given 2 months notice after renting lovely home for 8 years - landlord is selling
She can’t find anywhere within 20 miles that she can afford and as a single 60+ year old with no disabilities she is unlikely to get help from council or housing association

Due to her age the council will house her - it won't be as nice as her current house, but she will be given a small unit in over 55 housing (unless she finds a nicer place for herself).

This is why I'll never give up my HA home.
I have a three bed, just for me, but if I swap to a new area and downsize I'll lose my lifetime tenancy.
Why on earth would I do that?

So this council house theory is a bit lazy and basically from the school of thought where you shouldn’t pay people enough and have them dependent on welfare and subsidized housing

It’s a large part of why there’s a housing crisis. Long term council tenants paid for their houses several times over, they weren’t subsidised at all. Right to buy was the biggest subsidy of all time - huge discounts on market value to bribe erstwhile council tenants to vote Tory.

If we still had a good supply of social housing we wouldn’t have the complete injustice of people with the least money paying off wealthy people’s mortgages.

@Ginandtonicbiatch

My brother bought with a 100% mortgage around 17 years ago and did fine with it. Should be brought back. Fuck the banks.

They gave out a lot of subprime mortgages on 100% 15 years ago and those people didn't do so well with repaying when energy inflation rose (sounding familiar...). Look where that got us.

@Blossomtoes

So this council house theory is a bit lazy and basically from the school of thought where you shouldn’t pay people enough and have them dependent on welfare and subsidized housing

It’s a large part of why there’s a housing crisis. Long term council tenants paid for their houses several times over, they weren’t subsidised at all. Right to buy was the biggest subsidy of all time - huge discounts on market value to bribe erstwhile council tenants to vote Tory.

If we still had a good supply of social housing we wouldn’t have the complete injustice of people with the least money paying off wealthy people’s mortgages.

Sold-off council homes haven’t stopped being homes: they’ve simply changed tenure and are now either owner-occupied or privately rented. The problem is that demand for housing overall, in all tenures, in the places people people want to live, now outstrips supply. We don’t build enough homes. If we did, a lack of social housing wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

Where my relative lives - every house on their road was a council house there were 12. There are now 4 council houses left with families in. Of the 8 “right to buys” 1 has the original tenants who bought them and the remaining 6 were then bought by landlords who have turned them into student houses and played the fun game of “how many students can we squeeze into this once family home for as much money as possible”.
I don’t begrudge the original tenants who sold their homes nor the students but it has taken away a sense of community were I grew up and the cheekiness of the landlords is another level. We saw one of them put planning permission to build an extension just put it as a communal area. They’ve built it as separate flats and basically just lied through their teeth to add 2 more students into a small 3 bed house - council did nothing.
There’s something horribly wrong with our society where some people can’t afford a roof over their heads while others have turned that basic right into a money making living.

We are accidental landlords. Just got new tenants in and realised the rent is WAY below the market (other properties in the building have just let for 30% more than ours). Totally our fault (and it costs us a fortune in service charges that we pay and don’t ask the tenants for).. We are tied in for 12 months and have lovely tenants.
BUT
DSis rents in the same town and has just been served notice. She can’t afford anything locally (her current rent is £200 below market rate at least). She doesn’t drive so must live in the town for work. What are we supposed to do now?!

The impact on my mental health from our LL constantly dropping hints about selling soon, and popping round unannounced. Once (that I know of) she even let herself in to take photos to sell while we were out! She told us afterwards because she'd knocked over a vase while inside and broken it! We went weeks without a boiler, another time water pouring down the wall and she wanted us to wait until her preferred roofer was home from his hols. It was a hell and we couldn't find anywhere else to go close to dc school ( not an easy decision to move any child let alone a SEN child from their school).
Some good came from it, because it pushed us to work all the overtime we possibly could while we saved every penny we could and managed to buy a really dated and shabby semi in our relatively affordable town. This was achievable then with some sacrifices. I felt like a weight was off my shoulders, and I realised how anxious I'd felt where we lived before. What a horrible way for young families to live.

10 years later and while our town is still relatively cheap compared to others, we wouldn't be able to buy this house even with our now higher salaries. It worries me for my DC when they get older.

@pixie5121 I agree 8 weeks is disgraceful to essentially pack up your life. Makes me so angry.

We have been considering renting as our house sale is taking forever.

Went to view a house today and it was awful - like a conveyer belt of people.

It was a perfectly ordinary family home with three beds (not London) … I don’t know how people not working or reliant on benefits cope.

Sold-off council homes haven’t stopped being homes: they’ve simply changed tenure and are now either owner-occupied or privately rented

Of course not but removing them from the rental market has been a major contribution to the shortage of affordable rental stock. The real iniquity - apart from using housing as political capital - was not allowing councils to use the proceeds to replace them.

The less attractive the government makes the rental market for landlords (e.g. massively increasing notice periods) the fewer will want to let out their properties so it would make supply decrease further still.

YABU and YANBU

People don’t have an automatic right to borrow enough other peoples money to buy themselves a house. Rent and mortgages are very different things.

You have a fair point when it comes to being expected to pack up and move your life in two months because it’s not enough, but if you can’t do that the law is entirely on your side. Tenants have all the rights and protection if they decide not to leave and the LL has none, so with that in mind it’s fair that he gets to know in two months rather than six if tenants are going to be difficult to evict.

@WulyJmpr

The less attractive the government makes the rental market for landlords (e.g. massively increasing notice periods) the fewer will want to let out their properties so it would make supply decrease further still.

Or it might flood the market with realistically priced property for people to buy who will actually live in it.

It’s a pity that there isn’t investment in quality social housing now. I bought a flat from the council around 8 years ago. They were selling it off so actively getting rid of potential housing for someone in need. It was a great flat, really solid build from around 1930s. We now rent it out.
Last year we bought a house which was part of an estate of social housing built in the 1920s/30s. Again, really great house. Solid built, quality home. I doubt any of the estate is still social housing, I imagine it’s all been bought. But there’s no chance they’d built homes like these as social housing anymore. There’s just not the investment anymore.

Unfettered capitalism and unchecked greed do not create a fair society. The ‘market’ doesn’t care if you have a house or not. Only people can care. The best thing we can all do is vote in the party that do genuinely have policies that support more equality. Check their policies directly. Don’t rely on media - go to the actual party sights and check voting histories. We still have some power to effect change in this country. Just.

Blossomtoes

Or it might flood the market with realistically priced property for people to buy who will actually live in it.

I agree. Less investor land lords means more housing stock, more choice and so lower prices.

Just before covid hit DH's business had a huge windfall and changed our lives. Until that point, us getting on the property ladder was impossible, and frankly crushing. Owning our home has been (and will always be) the most life changing event for us, no matter what else the money brings that security is something I genuinely thank our lucky stars for every single day. Being mortgage free let alone being on the ladder changes everything. I honestly think had the bizarre series of events that unfolded to allow us to do that hadn't of happened I'd have had some sort of mental health crisis by now. The worry and stress of an unsecured home and renting made me feel ill almost daily. Home insecurity is a huge crisis in the UK, and yet every single landlord we ever had had MULTIPLE houses and portfolios, hoarding masses of accommodation and charging more and more from their tenants year on year. I find it borderline immoral.

It’s not borderline immoral @PaddleBoardingMomma. It’s right in the heartland of immoral

Yes I agree on OPs suggestion and the time scale goes up. But on the agreement that at the same time land lords are able to get tenants that miss payments forcibly removed after 2 months. Not the half year plus it currently takes.

It has to work both ways.

@Blossomtoes

It’s not borderline immoral *@PaddleBoardingMomma*. It’s right in the heartland of immoral

Yeah, actually. Fair play calling me out for that, you're right. The fact there are vulnerable single people, families with young children that never miss a rent payment but couldn't get a mortgage for their own home (which is often times less than the rent) is immoral too. The whole system is a showcase of that famous saying the rich get richer and the poor get poorer... as landlords amass more property, those who only want their own home get further away from ever achieving it. The disparity is shocking isn't it. And I can't see the gap ever closing.