To think landlords who own multiple properties are part of the housing crisis?

[ByArtfulOliveDuck]

Is it unreasonable to say that having a portfolio of rental homes is unethical in a housing shortage?

Yes exactly.

I know that Warrington has had a particularly progressive attitude to social housing (partly due to at least one councillor having a special interest in the area). I believe it's one of the highest rates of social housing nationally now as a result. So they built more social housing than many other areas over the last couple of decades under a housing association that was council controlled. It wasn't council housing but it still maintained much lower rates of rental costs and availability for those eligible for social housing.

I also think they transferred quite a bit of council stock to a housing authority at one point, because it meant that these houses were no longer eligible for purchase as council housing. It was a pretty smart move in hindsight.

This has paid off in the long run because they have much lower costs for emergency housing and shorter waiting lists for social housing.

The problem these schemes are facing is now an academic one - they have the funds and viability to build and expand to fulfil future demands but they aren't allowed to for stupid reasons around government borrowing. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever. On paper it's a no brainer but in practice they aren't allowed to do it - cos rules. They have the land available and allocated to do it too.

It's one of the dumbest political issues I've seen all things considered. (I have something of a keen eye for stuff like this and can crush numbers better than most. The scheme is extremely low risk.)

Compare and contrast with councils in neighbouring Greater Manchester and it's bonkers. There are massive problems just a few miles over the border. I believe that some of the housing associations in GM, that are cross boundary are now actively trying to encourage transferring people from GM to Warrington to ease pressures there and free up housing in GM.

The fact there are such massive differences between local council areas, is a failure of national government. It shouldn't have been shoved down to local government to oversee in the first place.

I believe the plan for GM is encouraging. I think Andy Burnham has been looking at this area for a while. There's still a huge amount to do, but the position is markedly better than it was a few years ago.

Again, why national government isn't looking to areas which have faired best and promoting similar schemes elsewhere is beyond me though.

Yes, it's immoral.

We have, errr, several, we charge the highest rent we can get away with, and never really think about issues of morality! (I'm very much aware of the crisis every time there's a changeover - there is an unbelievable level of demand.)

We need rental properties so I don't think (responsible) landlords are the problem.

People who own second homes and holiday homes (that can be used for residential purposes, I don't mean lodges on farms or similar) are the problem, as well as people who own empty properties.

I think there are about half a million empty properties and at least a million second homes. Those properties could house a lot of people!

I also agree we have inefficient housing occupation as well. It's not good building lots of unattractive and expensive retirement flats and expecting older people to leave 4 bed houses to move into them. Lets build quality properties for single people of any age and stop creating ghettos for the elderly.

Some of the elderly actually like the safety of them. I agree it can be a bit ghettoising but there are pros as well as cons to such places.

How so?

My friend has a few rental properties . Terraced houses. She bought one for £85k 3 months ago.

it had been on the market for 18 months.

and you say people like her are the problem?

where were the buyers????

I rented from 1998 to 2007. I did not want to be a home owner during that time as I was on a gap year then at uni then doing a training contract.

As soon as I passed my training contract I bought. Despite house prices trebling or quadrupling during this period depending on where in the uk the property is located.

Not everyone wants to buy. (Or has the credit record to do so).

govt needs to introduce a scheme for long term tenants to be able to buy their current rental property from their landlord so that landlord is not negatively impacted by CGT (often only on inflationary appreciation) and SDLT on their next purchase - so many landlords would very happily sell then.

it’s the bloody government (current and last bunch of muppets) causing this crap despite their protestations of ‘protecting tenants’. They are NOT. They are just collecting more tax. Please wake up people.

There needs to be a scheme where if a private rental tenant can show they can afford private rent without assistance and have a good history of payments, they can apply for a mortgage and not be refused.

We need a mass council housing build program. Rents are set at a cost that someone on NLW can afford without assistance. Eligibility should be based on Full-time employment and lower income. Once allocated, housing benefit loans for times of unemployment. Different allocation rules for long-term disabled obviously.
Originally, council tenants had to meet criteria that wouldn't fly today, good character, employment. Employment could still be used though. Original estates were very socially diverse and many aspirational.

Caps on private rental rents to bring in line with social housing per square metre of space. Landlords can't afford, then get out of rental. It should be philanthropy not profitable.

There will always be some needing private rentals but they should be at reasonable cost.

Holiday lets, Air BNBs and Uni student lets are the much bigger problem as they're not even occupied all year and usually have several weeks empty. In tourist locations and/or Uni cities, they suck up all "affordable" homes and removed from the residential housing market. There definitely needs to be far higher taxes on "homes" that aren't occupied as homes to help discourage it as the owners of them are usually making far higher profits, even from only letting parts of the year, than they'd make if they let out as semi-permanent residential homes.

😂😂😂😂😂

The trouble is that people have been polarised on this issue - landlords = bad or good depending on your view.
Many landlords are good/ many are bad so you can’t lump them all into one group.

Try thinking of landlords like shopkeepers they sell you a product which you consume.
There’s no animosity when Tesco makes a profit so why when a landlord does?

Tesco making huge profits while not paying staff properly, so they rely on state top ups should cause animosity.

Tesco landbank.

They buy up land to prevent other supermarkets building there. But this also pushes up land value due to this restricting the availability of land for building. So this pushes up house prices.

Holiday lets, Air BNBs and Uni student lets are the much bigger problem as they're not even occupied all year and usually have several weeks empty. In tourist locations and/or Uni cities

So where are students supposed to live, if not in rented accommodation?

Uni student Letting is an expensive con. A Way of getting high rent and small square footage perfect

As others have said surely Air B&Bs are a far bigger part of the issue? I don't see how 1 LL owning ten properties vs 10 owning one property each makes any difference to the issue?

No Airbnb and the like are causing massive issues locally. Locals can't live in them, but landlords locally are more and more moving to Airbnb and it's awful.

Our landlady is lovely, owns a few properties, we have been here 8 years, she's put the rent up twice. To be honest she could get another £200 a month for this property. But she likes we good tenants, last year she did all new carpets and painted lounge. We getting a new bolier next year.
We can't get a mortgage atm, maybe be able to buy a house next year with inheritance, but where are we supposed to live?
I gave up a council flat to move in to rented here.

I read an interesting post on X recently stating that there is an issue that people expect to make a profit on rental property AFTER paying the mortgage - and this never used be the case. That rent price should always be less, as the renter is already paying for your investment which will increase in time and if you can't afford to suck up your part of the investment, you can't afford to be a landlord. Something like rent should be no more than 90% of the mortgage cost.

On rightmove within 10 miles of my area there are just over 100 houses for sale with 3 bedrooms with a max budget of 90k.
I live in the north West

That's nice. I ran the same search and there's zero that you can actually live in; Cornwall.

Why would anyone or any business rent out their property at a loss?! Mortgage companies of these properties wouldn’t grant a mortgage on the rental property in the first place!