To think we should ban private renting?

[honeyrosesandwich]

AIBU to think this is a great idea?

Imagine if private renting was banned. All rented houses were done under social housing / housing association. There are already over 4.5 million houses rented under social housing, so it's on a huge scale already.

It would mean rent would be affordable for everyone and effectively help the cost of living prices. I live in a housing association house and my 2 bed is £520 a month. My brother, who private rents, pays £1100 for a 2 bed in the same area.

Repairs for my house are done by the HA's own company. I just put in a request online for it.

People that want to stay in their privately rented home will be free to do so but they put a ban on any new tenancies. The owners will have the opportuntiy to sell the house to social housing or keep it for themselves, but not rent it out further. If sold, the tenant will be allowed to stay.

I've been thinking about this randomly today and haven't come up with any negatives so far. Is it bad to monopolise housing? Well, there are already certain housing associations which own hundreds of thousands of houses.

Yanbu and i HARD agree

But you will get torn apart here so support to you in advance ❤️💐

I agree too! I don’t think anyone should be able to own more than one house.

ok, so what you are actually saying renting is ok as long as it is from the state.

so what would happen to all the people who are currently private renting?

that’s basically all the university students, all the holiday cottages and a hell of a lot of people who rent a home.

would they all be evicted?

What do you propose to do with the homeless that will create?

Great idea in theory but you've forgotten that a lot of old people are landlords. Any party that puts that in a manifesto is getting hammered.

Maybe in 30 years or so when they’re all in hell and most of the electorate are renters.

There is a need for rental properties though as a lot of people also do not want to buy for various reasons.
How will the government afford to buy all the rental properties?

“If sold the tenant will be allowed to stay”

yeah, nobody’s going to buy that.

What if they own one house but rent it out?

going to add to this. What about university renters echoing a pp.

Yes. I agree. Everyone who owns more than one property, should have all of their extra properties taken off them and given the price they paid for them. And all the extra houses should then go into the social housing stock. And at affordable rent - £400 to £600 a month, depending on what the property is of course... Lifetime tenancies.

Never gonna happen but we can dream.....

NO-ONE should own more than one property IMO, the one they live in.

Special HMOs run by the local authorities can be used to house University students.

No social housing property should have a right to buy though...

Where the money is coming from to fund this is irrelevant. It's all just a pipe dream. It would be nice if it did happen though.

.

How is this being funded?

Oh ok, I see.

so private rents will either be sold to the state (who sets the price?) or the person can live in it

the major problem is the government can’t afford to buy them all.

plus it would stop all holidays - hotels are a form of private renting as is Airbnb and holiday cottages.
nursing homes? Care homes?

Where is the government getting all this money to buy all these houses off the landlords from?

Who will subsidise the rents on HA homes?

The problem comes when you want to move. Social housing is allocated based on you having a connection to an area, what if you don’t but have a job, or just like the area? What if you have a house but your stbexh lives in it? Social housing isn’t flexible, we need a private short to medium term sector for a mobile workforce

Not just the money to but then but to maintain them and keep the rent low.

I think there needs to be more social housing but I wouldn’t completely ban private rental.

i think there should be secure long-term lets available to anyone who wants them - whether that is private or social rental - but there’s always going to be a need for some short-term lets (students, people moving to a new area and don’t want to commit to a property yet, people in-between moves etc). Private sector is probably best placed for that.

They should get given what they paid for them - what about inflation / time and money put into renovations and maintenance/ interest paid on their mortgages

There’s loads of homes rented by the council from private landlords for astronomical amounts, I don’t think many people are aware of this, it makes far more sense for the council to own them outright .
thatcher’s government allowed this private landlord monopoly , prior to this it was far more common for regular citizens to rent from the council than it is now. Privatisation allowed the councils to sell off all their stock to enable
more homeowners but nothing substantial has ever replaced that stock. Housing associations charge way more than councils, almost as much as private rental.

I firmly agree with this.

So total residential housing in the U.K. is worth 9 trillion.

https://www.savills.co.uk/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/373329/value-of-uk-housing-stock-hits-%C2%A39-trillion-for-the-first-time

Private rented is about 20% of that.

so if the government bought all the private rented sector it would need to spend about the equivalent of uk gdp per year.

it’s debt is currently about 120% of gdp so this would cost about three times as much as Covid did and that’s caused massive massive problems with government funding.

Many problems with this. Firstly, none of the landlords will sell to the social housing associations because they can only afford to buy houses way below market price. So all the houses will be sold to owner occupiers and disappear from the rented sector. Great for the buyers, but terrible for anybody who wants to rent a house. There will still be long waiting lists for social housing. Where will those people go? At the moment the council subsidises private rents for people who can’t access social housing, but are in no position to buy. Under your proposals those people will be on the streets. (Because remember, no landlords will sell their houses to housing associations at discounts to market price, so there will be no increase in social housing supply).

Secondly, what about people who want/need to rent but aren’t vulnerable enough to qualify for social housing? Eg young professionals who have moved to a big city. They might not want to buy, especially if they only plan to stay for a few years. They probably don’t have a deposit yet. If they’re still students they won’t be eligible for a mortgage at all. Under your proposals they won’t be able to go to university, and won’t be able to move for that first/second job. So they’ll be stuck in their home towns forever.

I agree too it would solve my problems anyway. It’s a long story but I have a family home and I don’t have a family. I’ve rented it out to my friend for about 10 years at a really low rent that in turn pays for me to rent a flat. I know I know this is bad and makes no financial sense at all. There was a lot of trauma involved for me and I just needed to get out of there. She had no money for a deposit on a house (she still doesn’t as far as I’m aware) and needed a family home in a nice area. It’s created a problem now in that if I did ask her to leave she wouldn’t be able to find anything the same for less than double. However if I am asked to leave I’m in the same boat because again rent has doubled. Anyway if this did become a law then hopefully it would solve the problem. She could get a house at an affordable rent and I could just buy somewhere some place else to live in without the guilt. The housing issue is terrible I don’t even know how young people are ever going to be able to leave home ! It’s not just a British thing either all these anti tourism protests in Spain etc are all because there is nowhere reasonably priced for anyone local to rent they have all been turned into air bnb.

They wont be buying every house! Home ownership will still be an option

ALSO - this Housing Associations aren't owned by the government, so the government won't be buying them. They're for profit companies