Lots of Landlords are selling up!!

[PassingStranger]

Where is everyone going to live who can't afford to buy?

Alot of landlords are selling. Can't be bothered with all the hassle now.
People aren't paying rent and also trashing houses when they do and costing the owners lots of money to put things right.
On TikTok people are being told to trash houses. [Society gone downhill]

I know there are good tenants, but there are alot of bad ones. Family member works for estate agent and says there are more bad tenants than landlords.

You can trash a house and walk away. Nobody ever gets done for criminal damage on private rents.
There is no register of bad tenants legally allowed either. It's all left to the landlord to sort out at their expense.

Where is all the housing going to come from?
The government donthave enough.
People who are trashing houses and not paying rent are actually spoiling it for everyone..
Alot of lls are selling up now.

Most renters don't want to rent and could afford a mortgage but struggle to save a deposit due to... high rents. You aren't providing a service when most of your customers don't want it
Well said @Learsfool
What is being provided is a racket; btl lls drive up prices and out compete prospective owner occupiers who are then forced to divert their hard earned money into the landlords investment portfolio.

No one is forcing people to rent, they could live with relatives (not viable for most people) or in a tent city, on the streets etc.
Since mostly people will want a premises which they can call their own home (as opposed to squeezing in with someone who'd rather not have them there, or living rough) renting is the least worst option.

The proliferation of landlords is a big part of the reason that people need to rent, they create the problem and then profit from the solution- as I said, it's a racket!

I am a landlord but I let commercial property. I would not touch residential property letting with a 10 foot stick.

I disagree
They provide a service that still exists

If a day ever comes when no one needs to rent because everyone can and wants to buy then that would be great for everyone.
At the moment that’s not the case so LLs provide that service and I don’t think it ever will tbh. Some of us like and need to move around and buying is expensive

And no family wants to rent 4.500 sq ft with drive in drive out doors on either side of the building.

Honestly I don't really think this is correct. The less rental property there is the more expensive it becomes to rent.

The main barrier for people looking to buy is the lack of affordability of homes on ordinary incomes or people not meeting lending criteria, good credit history etc.

There is a lot of income inequality in the uk and also a lot of money passed down through inheritance. If there was less rental property then house prices might come down a bit but it wouldn't be that dramatic and even those current renters of the right age and credit history might struggle to outbid current home owners looking for more space or young people with deposits gifted by parents. Then we also have net immigration which puts pressure on housing.

I think one promising area would be sorting out the service charges on retirement properties. I think older people would be more tempted to downsize if these properties weren't such a disaster financially.

How utterly absurd, applying today’s mores to those of 200 years ago. Then using slavery as an analogy to BTL - it gets better.

You otherwise call your musings science? Science is data-led, whilst your comments are completely skewed with bias.

You asked earlier why bothered posting on this thread. I wonder too.

Mmmmmm House price inflation drives the UKs economy, people feel good when prices increase, spend and borrow.. thats supposed to be good, its how we run things in the UK, been like it for at least 40 years.

Average house prices nr me are around 245k, average salary 33k, a multiple of 3, gives 100k, even if there were 2 of you, you'd struggle and if interest rates went up, you could find yourselves unable to afford the mortgage.

So you want prices to drop? in my example a 20% fall is required - What do you think that would do for the economy and for everyone else who bought at the higher prices? unable to move, for work family, retirement etc , stuck in negative equity.

What we need is a genuine alternative to private rent, Council Housing, my family member could then move into a cheaper rent, more modern house, i could sell to a FTB...

Happy Days!!

But we are decades away from that scenario, so we need a well regulated and fair system to both tenants and LLs.

Not everyone feels good if house prices rise.

Lol I am an actual scientist who does data analysis for a living. I have a top mathematics degree and a PhD involving advanced quantitative analyses. But crack on with the lecture you are obviously very bright and know what you're talking about.

Also, um, was that just badly worded or are you saying that you don't condemn slavery because it happened 200 years ago? I think you need to clarify, because honestly if I was one of those "good" landlords you hear about on these threads, I'd be a bit miffed that you were out here representing me.

They are "forced" to rent if they have to move location to where the jobs are which is a very common scenario these days. Professionals in particular have to move to where the jobs are, especially if they live in rural areas or the less wealthy regions.

As I said rentals are required but if people don’t want to then they have to make other life choices which may bring compromises.

I do agree with this and in fact noted the same above re the need for rentals.
I simply don’t agree that people are being forced. They are making a career choice which necessitates renting if they can’t or don’t want to buy.
I never felt forced when I moved around and rented it was just necessary.

So you're contributing to a system whereby if people don't want to pay you money they can just absorb some life-changingly deleterious personal costs, like abandoning the career for which they trained, or living in a relative's spare room and foregoing starting a family. Or being homeless.

You seem nice.

I agree, sounds someone who doesn't understand how things are in some professions. It's not really "personal choice" which firm to work at if there are NO firms in your profession within commuting distance of your family home.

Even if you apply, say, for a graduate scheme training position with a national firm with several UK offices, you can express a preference as to which office you'd like to work in, but ultimately, they TELL you where you'll be working, take it or leave it!

Try being an actuary and living in Cumbria. You've no commutable firms at all and will have to move. Or if you're a graduate and apply for jobs in firms that have offices in Bristol, London, Manchester or Edinburgh - for a start probably half the population aren't within commuting distance and even if you're in commuting distance of Bristol, that's not much help when your job offer comes through as being their Edinburgh office!

I think the other poster is suggesting that if you live in a rural area or less wealthy region, then you should choose a different profession! Shouldn't be like that. We can't all be nurses and teachers where there are usually job options within commutable distance of your family home in most areas.

Not to mention that training/junior doctors often have no choice and are assigned which hospital they are to work in, again on a take it leave it basis, so again, simply no "choice" to continue living in the family home!

Re your second to last para
No I wasn’t suggesting that at all

I disagree with the word ‘ forced ‘.

By definition I do not agree a person is being forced ie ‘ imposed by coersion or physical power’
I haven’t been immune to moving all over the place, I don’t believe I was forced. It’s a very strong word.

It's not really very similar.

If I invest money in the stock market I'm just going to lose my investment. Landlords continually need to spend on their property, not just the mortgage itself but upkeep, possible outside maintenance, maybe utilities, property taxes.

Right now, I have a rental property which is attached to my small business. We decided to rent it out for two reasons - to have someone in the property for security and also because there were a lot of people in our village looking for housing. We charged a fairly low rent as we didn't particularly need or even want to make a profit, our interest in in the business property.

Tenants are nice enough, but they don't pay their rent, and they use a lot of oil - three times more than what we were using to keep it heated enough to keep the pipes from freezing (and a good deal more than what I'd expect, as it's been fairly well insulated.) So we are essentially paying out every month to house and keep them warm. We aren't going to turn off the heat, it would be illegal and IMO immoral. But it's a difficult position, I am just able to pay for the heat, but it could easily be the case that I couldn't. Then what? Why should I be taking money out of my pocket for Bill and Mary?

Why are you paying their heating bills? Every rental property I’ve ever been in or known anyone else to be in the tenant has paid their own utilities. If it’s more than you’re charging them that’s poor planning on your part.

Perhaps bills should not be included in the rent.

And that’s fine but you cannot expect them to look as new either . That was my point. The amount of clients I had saying their home was left damaged when when I went to see them it was flooring basically being used and walls needing to be painted . We used to recommend houses to be painted at least every 3 years for a reason

People do have agency. We make choices as individuals about what career area or job we will train for, and part of that decision should be around lifestyle. If you want to live rurally, that will restrict the kind of career you can reasonably expect to make work.

And we make choices as a society too. We've chosen the idea that the population should move more and be less attached to place and family compared to some other periods. That doesn't have to be the model but it's the one we seem to have chosen.

Sometimes if we want certain things, like not needing to move, we have to compromise other things.

Exactly @TempestTost

Its just part of life choices that we make !

There are all kinds of reasons utilities might be included, despite the limits of your personal experience.

But I am rather flabbergasted that you think it's "poor planning" that when a tenant does not pay rent it doesn't cover the bills. The plan - in fact the contract - was that the tenant would pay rent which would cover the costs of the house.

We have only this one property, which I don't expect we'll let again. But here is something to ponder - those landlords that can manage this kind of problem do it by owning multiple properties, so that when one set of tenants doesn't pay, they will still have enough income from the others to cover the ongoing costs (not static investment) of the property. What this means is that the rents of all of those tenants are priced to allow for the % or tenants who don't pay or destroy the property.

So when these large companies take over, the people who will be paying for others will no longer be the very terrible landlords who no doubt deserve to pay for housing others, it will be the other tenants.

I wonder if those who think tenants have a right to housing and monthly tanks of oil from the owners pocket feel that it is still ok when it's the other tenants paying.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. In this case we didn't want to take the risk the tenants would not fill the oil tank which means a large bill in itself as it's not good for the system to be run dry, and also potentially frozen pipes which is a common problem here and can be very expensive depending on where they burst.

A very possible scenario where people can't seem to get their rent together. Why would they pay their heating bill if they won't pay rent/

Ok and none of that contradicts the points that people are making above, namely that the existence of so many landlords forces people into shittier choices than they'd otherwise have to make.

And ultimately that's the choice you make if you become a landlord today - you could have done something to make the world a bit better, like becoming a teacher, a doctor or a scientist. Instead you chose to make it a bit shittier. That's who you are, and the choice you need to own.