DH hoarding properties.

[Feefee00]

Me and my DH want to upsize we have one 3 bed semi and a 2 bed house rental. DH wants to keep both properties and buy another to upsize too. He's said he wants to keep both for DDs future. The 2 bed is paid off worth about 150k the 3 bed semi one is 250k with 75 percent paid off. AIBU to think DD doesn't need 2 houses ? We aren't planning on anymore DC so wouldn't need a spare one. We could use the equity from one property and savings to have a very low mortgage on a bigger one. Part of me feels it's morally wrong to be keeping hold of houses.

😂. No it’s not insensitive, of course people with different amounts of wealth can post on aibu and any other topic. Stop being so ridiculous.

Someone is always offended by something 🙄

OP, my husband and I are in a very similar situation. We are currently looking to move into a larger house. We have a flat we tent out and our current 3 bed semi. We plan on keeping both as security for our children's future. Either for them to live in if needed, to rent or sell. Whatever works best for them in the future. For financial security reasons I really don't see an issue with this from your point if you can afford it.

It's also a good security blanket for you (and how I see it for my own situation) should you find yourself needing the money for anything in the future. You really never know!

I don't understand this view.

Private landlords are a needed part of the ecosystem as not everyone wants to buy, for a whole host of reasons. If you aren't planning to stay in a specific region or country for long, for students, for someone who doesn't feel optimistic about U.K. property prices, for someone with property elsewhere etc.

You could always commit the Mumsnet sin of owning more than one property, installing wood burners and adding a hot tub ……..

Or you could recognise that propery investment could be a good way for your child to earn a steady income in the event she does not get a high earning job, wants to do something worthwhile but low paid such as charity work etc. She may want to be an artist, or enjoy working in hospitality. Having property or no mortgage will give her options not available to everyone. Who would not want that for their child?

This exactly. Private landlords are needed! Unless people prefer houses to be in the hand of ruthless private equity and other financial investors buying up tens of thousands of properties??

This is how poor people think.

Rich and wealthy people always leave things for their children and ensure the wealth gets passed down generation to generation.

You have the mentality of a poor person truthfully.

I haven't really made much there's tax to pay and repairs/landlord insurance. I had a new roof put on I haven't raised the rent in a few years. Luckily I can afford to do that as no mortgage they have lived there for 5 years so I think if they unhappy they would have left by now. It's more a place to park money especially with inflation now. I want to more diversify after the economic situation calms down and we are in the new property. I'm quite risk adverse so putting lotd in the stock market at the moment when it's having big swings would give me too much anxiety.

Well yes I came from a working class family , everything. I don't have a rich persons mentality because no I'm not from a rich family.

@Feefee00 no idea which question you were answering.

I'm querying your view that it's morally wrong somehow, when I'm saying that private landlords are required in the system as not everyone can or wants to buy.

@Feefee00 yes & I think that's sad. Because you struggled you want your kids to struggle too. It's a little bit short sighted

Yes, of course a certain amount of private rented accommodation is needed.

But why does this have to be provided by private landlords?

Why couldn't it be provided by the government, for example?

(This is a radical idea, but one thought.)

If the government gradually bought back all of the rental houses in the UK as they came up for sale, and limited buy-to-let purchases, then we would eventually get to a point where there would be no private landlords at all (or very few).

There would be only affordable houses available to buy and live in, or houses available to rent from the government, on a sliding scale (the cheapest end of which would be council housing for people on benefits of course).

Yes this is a socialist view, and would require a radical overhaul over many years, but why shouldn't it work? - it would free up so many houses to buy, and enable so many people to have a home.

If you believe that everyone in the UK should have the opportunity to own one home in which they live (which I strongly do), then this would be an option to provide for those who want to rent AND free up affordable housing to buy and live in.

People do not need to invest in property. There are many other ways to make money. Homes are for living in, and everyone should have one.

@carmenitapink well hopefully your comment will be of some reassurance to @unclebuck

@lowclouds this view is confusing to me. Your model makes sense if the government rents housing out to all those you mentioned, but once you give people the right to buy (this is essentially what Margaret thatcher did) then we end up in the same situation as we find ourselves today with hardly any public housing stock.

If you can afford to keep both then it is a good idea. You will have the rental income as a buffer against any difficult future financial situations.

Well I suppose the idea is that there would be a very large number of houses available to buy at any given time, and they would be affordable.

I suppose you'd have the issue of people getting attached to a rented house and wanting to buy it. Perhaps they could buy the house they live in and the government would then use that money to purchase a different house, to keep the amount of government-owned housing stable.

@lowclouds it's a really interesting idea. Hard to see how it would work in practice as there would be so many workarounds, but the theory of it sounds v interesting!

Thank you.

It would take a really long time (decades) to get to the 'ideal' and I think there would be issues getting through middle ground along the way when you have some private and some government owned rental housing. But I often wish that it could work this way.

I just don't think there should be any need for people to profit off something that is actually a basic human need - shelter and warmth - everyone should have that as a minimum.

Are you saying gift one to your DD to live in or to sell as she sees fit? She's young and may go to uni, move to another town or abroad... the property could be an investment if she rents it out. Not sure why you wouldn't give her the smaller, cheaper one and move into the bigger one as a family home or sell it. I understand your concerns about just handing something on a platter that most people have to work long and hard for. There are other options which will give DD a leg up without gifting her a family home at 18.

Is the spare property rented out? Cos your Dh will get clobbered for capital gains tax if he sells.
We have a property I'd love to sell but we'd get hammered so it's very much for dd's future / inheritance.
We don't want the hassle of it really but we're stuck with it for now.

I’d be using one of the houses as a pension pot, you’ll get a better return on your money than you would with a bank these days. I kind of agree with you about not gifting you DD 2 houses.

You do realise that councils already lease houses from blt landlords to provide housing for their tenants.

Well, I must say that if you're going to have a problem, you might as well have a problem as nice as this one.

Anyway. I'm with you on this. I can see why he wants to keep one house for your daughter, but unless you basically want to be professional landlords I really don't think it's necessary to keep two.

The alternative is that you invest in stocks & shares/ISAs and or pensions

This should increase in time & you could gift some money to your child in the future

The difference is that you currently invest in physical assets

The ISA pension option may be better in relation to paying tax versus paying tax on property

You have to take emotion out of it & crunch the numbers

This nonsense always makes me laugh. Do you really think the only thing stopping some young couple desperate for a home of their own from getting one is some people owning more than one?
There are houses aplenty for people who can afford to buy them. Affordability is the problem, not housing stock.

You're not wrong, we get asked to do the same from our council.

So yes the council uses the property of landlords.