To think rent is so bloody unfair

[Tar19891]

My rent is 800 per month. A mortgage on the same value flat would be 450 per month. Not in London obviously. It’s not fair is it?

Renting was sort of alright when I was in my early 20s, professional 9-5 job, no pets and generally a cookie cutter sort of tenant.

Now I'm older, I have a dog that I inherited, I went self employed and I have a disability. My landlord is evicting (not my fault - the building needs structural renovations).

Would I be able to find a new private landlord would take me on in the insanely competitive market? Would I fuck. Self employed dog owners are right down the bottom of the list of desirable tenants, even though I pay the rent and look after the place.

By sheer dumb luck I've come into a bit of money and am in the process of buying a home.

If that hadn't happened, I'd almost certainly have ended up homeless. Not for lack of money, but because landlords can pick and choose who's allowed a roof over their heads. Would the council have housed me? I sincerely doubt it - I'm a child free dog owner. As a direct result of homelessness my business would collapse (it's not the sort of business you can run using a laptop alone). And then I'd be an even less desirable tenant to the private landlords.

And so the spiral begins, it is only sheer luck (and timing of that luck) which means I won't be sleeping in a tent this winter. All because private landlords can evict people who've done nothing wrong, and they can pick and choose who is allowed a roof over their head.

@DietOrDie so are you saying landlords shouldn't carry out the structural repairs on the property, or should keep tenants in situ whilst they do? And why are you ok with the council not housing you but furious that private businesses won't? If there are only x number if private rentals available and x +100 people looking then 100 people are going to miss out. That problem remains even if you find somewhere.

@DietOrDie

Renting was sort of alright when I was in my early 20s, professional 9-5 job, no pets and generally a cookie cutter sort of tenant.

Now I'm older, I have a dog that I inherited, I went self employed and I have a disability. My landlord is evicting (not my fault - the building needs structural renovations).

Would I be able to find a new private landlord would take me on in the insanely competitive market? Would I fuck. Self employed dog owners are right down the bottom of the list of desirable tenants, even though I pay the rent and look after the place.

By sheer dumb luck I've come into a bit of money and am in the process of buying a home.

If that hadn't happened, I'd almost certainly have ended up homeless. Not for lack of money, but because landlords can pick and choose who's allowed a roof over their heads. Would the council have housed me? I sincerely doubt it - I'm a child free dog owner. As a direct result of homelessness my business would collapse (it's not the sort of business you can run using a laptop alone). And then I'd be an even less desirable tenant to the private landlords.

And so the spiral begins, it is only sheer luck (and timing of that luck) which means I won't be sleeping in a tent this winter. All because private landlords can evict people who've done nothing wrong, and they can pick and choose who is allowed a roof over their head.

All because private landlords can evict people who've done nothing wrong, and they can pick and choose who is allowed a roof over their head.

The alternative is that the building literally falls down around you, would you prefer that?

I am a landlord and have had my fair share of nightmare tenants to know that those with pets create more mess / smell and those who are unemployed more likely to default on the rent payments. Unless there is a more sophisticated rent default scheme to protect landlords then of course they should be able to pick and choose who lives in their property.

[quote Porcupineintherough]@DietOrDie so are you saying landlords shouldn't carry out the structural repairs on the property, or should keep tenants in situ whilst they do? And why are you ok with the council not housing you but furious that private businesses won't? If there are only x number if private rentals available and x +100 people looking then 100 people are going to miss out. That problem remains even if you find somewhere.[/quote]
The landlord quite literally papered over the structural issues before I viewed, so I didn't have a clue. I would never have rented the property if the landlord hadn't gone out of his way to deceive me. The landlord should have done the structural repairs and THEN let it out.

Where did I say I was ok with the council not housing me? I'm not. I'm also not ok with private landlords acting as they do.

At the end of the day everyone has a right to a roof over their heads. Thatcher's decision to sell off social housing - much of which eventually ended up in the hands of private landlords - has a lot to answer for. It has created a system where private individuals can pick and choose who can access a fundamental need.

Imagine if supermarkets were the same - you're only allowed in to buy food if you have a high paying job, don't have pets, and perhaps a couple of arbitrary criteria too. There would be uproar.

Yet that is the system the government has created, where access to basic life sustaining needs is controlled by individuals who can act on a whim.

What would you suggest that I should have done, if I hadn't come into some money at the exact right time?

@Jobseeker19

I have yet to meet a landlord who pays insurance.

If the landlord has a mortgage then they will 100% have to have buildings insurance as a condition of the mortgage.

Is it contents insurance you are thinking of?

The alternative is that the building literally falls down around you, would you prefer that?

Well I'd prefer a substandard home to no home at all, sleeping in a tent in winter.

Wouldn't you?

@DietOrDie

The alternative is that the building literally falls down around you, would you prefer that?

Well I'd prefer a substandard home to no home at all, sleeping in a tent in winter.

Wouldn't you?

The other option is not “sleeping in a tent”, you’re being dramatic about that

If you think rent is too high, and mortgage much cheaper, then surely just buy is the answer 🤷‍♂️

Clearly lots of landlords on here
No its not fair when looking at mortgages that they don't take into account people have been paying x anount rent as affordability and its all about the deposit which is the stumbling block for most
Most landlords make huge profits so yes they should pay tax etc and upkeep as its an investment

@Whammyyammy

If you think rent is too high, and mortgage much cheaper, then surely just buy is the answer 🤷‍♂️

Wow.

I hadn't realised it was possible to be quite this out of touch.

Of course it is unfair. A rentier qua rentier, precisely takes, but does not contribute, value from the work of others.

[OED: rentier : A person who derives his or her income from property or investment.]

Our society's economic system is rentier capitalism. In rentier captalism, some people work, and thereby create value. (Goods, etc.) Part of this value is taken by the people who create it the workers and part is snaffled by people who own things.

Think this is unfair? Well, you have a vote: use it.

But (of course there is a 'but' !) ... the communication media, which tell us all, workers and rentiers alike, how things are in the world, are owned by rentiers. And guess what? these media tell us it is not unfair, and that dire things will come to pass if workers try to take back any of the value snaffled by rentiers.

Of course the good people of MN are sensible creatures, uninfluenced by these media. They have all come to the conclusions rent is not unfair really, bad things will happen if we even think about common ownership, never mind vote for it entirely off their own bat.

Of course they ( we !) have.

@Chestofdraws insurance isn't exactly a lot and renters pay home insurance for contents its not covered by the landlord
They also pay for furniture and appliances etc
At 400 pound a month I think the OP could cover maintenance & buildings insurance quite easily on a 1 bed flat, as insurance covers major and other things such as new kitchens , bathrooms aren't done a huge amount
There are also insurances around for blocked drains , boilers etc
So lets not pretend landlords have the raw deal

On the OP, yes it is massively unfair.

Everyone pointing out that your poor LL doesn't just have to pay their mortgage, but also maintenance, repairs, insurance etc are missing the point.

After twenty five or thirty years of being a landlord, even if they don't make a penny in profit in that time, your LL has a very significant asset. You, on the other hand, have diddly squat and have to continue paying rent at whatever rate the market sets.

The answer to all of this is deeply unpleasant for those people who own their own homes - but it is that there needs to be a national target for a maximum house price to income ratio of 4:1 or maybe, at a push, 5:1. That means house prices need to not only stop growing quite so fast, they actually need to fall dramatically. Anyone who owns their own home is obviously going to hate that. But the sad fact is that the market is broken and needs radical action to fix it.

I own my own home

I would be quite happy for prices to be adjusted

I have only paid about half its value so if it halved in value I wouldn't have lost out

The other option is not “sleeping in a tent”, you’re being dramatic about that

If I couldn't find a landlord willing to accept a self employed dog owner (which is likely - it took 3 months to find this place when I was a well paid traditionally employed dog owner)

If the council won't house me (no kids, dog owner - well I can point to a fair few people fitting that description sleeping in tents on my local high street) or will only put me up in the local homeless hostel where one resident recently stabbed another to death.

... Where exactly do you think I should be living? I've no family in this part of the UK, and friends are renting with a no pets clause in the contract so I couldn't even sofa surf without risking their tenancy.

Best thing we could do is build more social housing so people are not reliant on the private market and extortionate rents and also allow people to buy based on affordability of previous paying rent etc so much smaller deposit allow maybe even overPaying for first couple years to cover deposit
When many live in sub standard accomadation and cannot afford rent and food despite working yet others own multiple houses its all wrong

@Whammyyammy do you not think people want to
How do you save when your paying £800 a month rent though for a deposit working a minimum wage job
Really shows you must be very privileged

@DietOrDie everyone blames thatcher but they sold of lots of houses needing work due to age etc and lots of normal people also became a householder for the first time in generations
The issue was the money was not used to build new houses, even now selling off and building new would help as newer builds are more efficient etc
Also successive governments after Thatcher just never built enough council/ social housing for a hugely rising population
The blame does not lie totally with Thatcher we have had 30 years to put it right

@worriedatthistime

Best thing we could do is build more social housing so people are not reliant on the private market and extortionate rents and also allow people to buy based on affordability of previous paying rent etc so much smaller deposit allow maybe even overPaying for first couple years to cover deposit When many live in sub standard accomadation and cannot afford rent and food despite working yet others own multiple houses its all wrong

Agree.

But I think we also need to rethink how we think of Social Housing. We tend to think of housing for people on low income.

But the model I'd prefer is a major publicly owned rental housing stock available to everyone regardless of income - but with the rent payable then dependent on income.

So if you earn £100k you can rent from the state, but pay full (but still fair) rent, and if you earn £10k you can also rent the same housing but paying a much lower rent.

Private rental also need to be desperately reformed to provide far greater security of tenancy. The default should be that sitting tenants can only be removed if they are failing to abide by their side of the tenancy agreement. As long as they are paying rent and acting reasonably, it should be very difficult for landlords to bring tenancies to an end, even if the property is being sold. We need to recognise that rental properties are first and foremost homes, not just assets or investments.

@Blossomtoes right to buy doesn't apply to most in social housing unless lived in before certajn dates
And the new trial the goverment promised but failed to deliver was that if a social housing sold a house they would build 2 properties , which I think is better
I live in social housing , we cannot buy on open market due to age etc , yet I have paid around £70000 already for my house and spent lots of money in it as we have to decorate , carpet, do gardens , replace fencing etc its not all done for free
Yet I could afford mortgage on it as rtb price as also wouldn't need a deposit
That way 2 properties get built newly and 2 more housed
As it stands I will stay here until I either die or end up in a home and no properties gained
So it could work if done properly

@TeaKlaxon yes would have no issue with that
We now earn more than we used to as worked our way up but I won't leave my social housing for private as ii is not stable , not always good condition and also a lot more, but would be happy to pay slightly more rent for my current house which Ive put a lot of money into
Where I am now though they do nit give life term tenancies anymore so its not as secure as once was

@TeaKlaxon

On the OP, yes it is massively unfair.

Everyone pointing out that your poor LL doesn't just have to pay their mortgage, but also maintenance, repairs, insurance etc are missing the point.

After twenty five or thirty years of being a landlord, even if they don't make a penny in profit in that time, your LL has a very significant asset. You, on the other hand, have diddly squat and have to continue paying rent at whatever rate the market sets.

The answer to all of this is deeply unpleasant for those people who own their own homes - but it is that there needs to be a national target for a maximum house price to income ratio of 4:1 or maybe, at a push, 5:1. That means house prices need to not only stop growing quite so fast, they actually need to fall dramatically. Anyone who owns their own home is obviously going to hate that. But the sad fact is that the market is broken and needs radical action to fix it.

I agree, in the sense that high house prices and rents are just an indication of the ratio of demand to supply. In other words you can't just legislate house prices (or rents) lower (at least not without causing the imbalance to create some other sort of dysfunction). You actually have to address the problem, not it's symptoms. And the problem is largely lack of supply. That would bring house prices and rents back down, ideally gradually.

If house prices fell suddenly and dramatically that would itself create all sorts of problems, not least for the banking system. Banks lend money secured on housing. If the houses are worth less than the amount outstanding on the loans then the banks are insolvent.

[quote worriedatthistime]@DietOrDie everyone blames thatcher but they sold of lots of houses needing work due to age etc and lots of normal people also became a householder for the first time in generations
The issue was the money was not used to build new houses, even now selling off and building new would help as newer builds are more efficient etc
Also successive governments after Thatcher just never built enough council/ social housing for a hugely rising population
The blame does not lie totally with Thatcher we have had 30 years to put it right[/quote]
I understand that councils were banned (by Thatcher) from using the money to build more social housing in the 1980s so it was quite an ideological decision by Thatcher - not just to give people the chance to become householders but removing social housing for future generations.

Being in need of repairs is no reason to sell off social housing - if it was beyond economic repair it wouldn't be saleable as you'd never get a mortgage on it. Otherwise it could have been repaired, and the asset retained.

I'd love to see a situation where the local government builds lots of houses, sells some off at market rate, and uses the profits to fund the entire build, with the other houses being used as social housing. The idea would be to build new social housing on a cost neutral basis.

Of course it would start to reap financial rewards for the council quite quickly as they'd reduce their spend on housing benefit, which goes straight into the pockets of private landlords, never to be seen again, and they'd have an asset.

The answer to all of this is deeply unpleasant for those people who own their own homes - but it is that there needs to be a national target for a maximum house price to income ratio of 4:1 or maybe, at a push, 5:1. That means house prices need to not only stop growing quite so fast, they actually need to fall dramatically. Anyone who owns their own home is obviously going to hate that. But the sad fact is that the market is broken and needs radical action to fix it.

I can understand why the public's immediate emotional response would be to reject this.

BUT if mortgage balances were also reduced downwards so that no one ended up in negative equity, it would benefit most people.

If you sold your current house you could still buy an equivalent house elsewhere with no loss of money.

If you were upsizing it would cost you less to upsize.

If you were downsizing or emigrating you would, however, get less back.

Everyone would pay off their mortgage much quicker and be able to spend their money on more interesting things.

Even if you're worried about what you'll leave your kids, your kids will still be in an equivalent financial position (unless they've already paid off their mortgage in full). They need a house each, and each of your two kids have inherited half a house in value. They can then go and put down a 50% deposit on a mortgage on an equivalent property (or pay off the mortgage). It doesn't matter if the sums involved are £50,000 or £500,000, it's still half a house.

Of course your proposal of a maximum price for houses linked to income would need to be much more nuanced to account for huge London mansions skewing what happens to 3 bed semis, but overall people wouldn't lose out as much as they imagine in the event of house prices falling IF mortgage balances were adjusted downwards and no one ended up in negative equity.

if mortgage balances were also reduced downwards so that no one ended up in negative equity, it would benefit most people.

We do seem to be entering the realms of fantasy here. I wonder how this would work. Who is going to fund this debt write off for people who paid too much for their houses? (One possibility of course would be to tax landlords properly and to get the money back that way.)