@purpleleotard
Do love the invective coming from SwanBuster.
"thicker than the thickest pig shit"
Yesterday afternoon I spent a vile hour clearing the blocked sewer from my let house.
Yes I could have invoked the tenancy agreement and asked the tenants to pay someone to clear the blockage but I knew that they didn't have the money.
No I don't charge excessive rents.
No they are not spongers on society, they are foreign students.
I provide a vital service for the community, the university is the second biggest employer in my city.
Being a landlord is not all fun and can be utterly disgusting. Some tenants have little concept of personal hygeine.
As for insurance, a student left a joss stick burning, to make his room smell nice. This burnt the roof off my house. At a cost of £47000. As he was destitute, another foreigner, I provided accommodation for him for the remainder of his course.
Similar here. I actually love being a landlord. The main challenge is the constantly changing government regime (I'm in Scotland). I don't know why they cannot just have one regulatory regime and stick to it for a few years at least.
But I meet some very interesting people and I am on top of everything - I only have 2 properties but they are HMOs. Ever increasing government regulation is by far the biggest headache. A couple of years ago we had to put in 30 minute fire resistant letterboxes, but they could only be provided by one company approved by the local authority, and they cost £350 each. I wasn't allowed to go and buy the same letterbox cheaper and install it myself.
That is what I mean about the sector not really being an example of the free market. People simply do not realise how much increasing government interference costs. There are far far more safety certificates and licenses required than in Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, France, etc..
The idea that students are all going to buy properties for their course or live in halls of residence or social housing is ridiculous. The latter just leads to a lot of child-like adults who have never experienced living in a normal home, paying bills, etc..
That said, having a bunch of 19 - 23 year olds to deal with as a landlord is quite hard work and I put a lot of effort into "training" them from the outset so that they know what to do when moving into a shared flat. They do not know how to register for bills, take meter readings, notify neighbours of parties and stop making noise after a certain time at night, not block sinks or toilets, not lock themselves out, register for council tax exemption, change lightbulbs, switch on the central heating and many appliances, etc particularly when they are just going into second year. They need a huge amount of input and even then I still get phone calls in the middle of the weekend about things I can do nothing about, such as power cuts or road closures!