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.

How would this work for me and my husband.... my husbands job comes with a house that we have to live in, and always will whilst he remains in his line of work. But at retirement we would be homeless. So we own a property that we rent out, purely to cover the mortgage, plus giving us somewhere to live in our retirement. How would we, and many in the same line of work have anywhere to live in our retirement if we were unable to rent out our own property whilst living in our tied accommodation?

Do you qualify for rent at that level in some way? Is the same price from the HA available to absolutely everyone no matter their income or assets?

Heavily licensed, spoke companies on government tender could provide short term lets, student let's and so on, I think fully state owed rental wouldn't work, I think a grace period or perhaps application to rent for a certain period may be feasible eg you're going travelling so you may be allowed to rent for a year... Just spit balling but yes I think in principle OP if we largely stop private landlords renting to people things would change significantly ie people cannot purchase spare houses for themselves to profit from rent from those who cannot afford to buy a house

If all private rentals were sold tomorrow where would all the renter's go? There simply aren't enough social rentals ATM. There would be millions homeless.

OK, I accept private rents are higher than Council/HA. If all privates were taken into social, who is going to pay the approx 1m+ additional homes: to buy, to keep subsidising the rents, to maintain, etc, etc.

Under the feudal system, the King owned all land and granted vast estates to barons, known as Lords of the Manor, who then let the land to tenants in exchange for labour, crops, or military service. The commercial use of the term landlord survived the decline of feudalism, evolving from a form of literal nobility into a standard legal term for anyone renting out land or property. Critics argue that retaining the term subtly preserves a psychological hierarchy, giving modern property owners a false sense of social superiority or paternalistic authority over tenants.

Self aggrandising landlords on Mumsnet often use such expressions as "I look after" my tenants, which again implies a paternalistic orientation. The phrase "looking after" tenants strongly reinforces a paternalistic orientation, subtly casting the property owner in a parental role and the tenant as a dependent child. In a standard business model, service providers do not "look after" their customers; they fulfil contractual obligations and provide value for money.

We need to dispense with this archaic term "landlord" which harks back to the feudal system and the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. It connotes a hierarchical social system rather than a purely business relationship between a service supplier and a service user. Alternative terms like housing provider, property owner, or lessor are often suggested to replace "landlord" and reframe the dynamic as a neutral business transaction. There are some who argue that this change would achieve nothing as it is purely cosmetic. However removing hierarchical or paternalistic connotations could encourage more respectful, and equal communication. Re-framing the relationship around "customer service" positions the renter as a client with purchasing power, and the property owner as a service provider whose income depends on client satisfaction.

I'm very happy renting from my lovely private landlords who leave me alone, don't do inspections and only contact me when they need to send anything required by law or a gas engineer visit annually for example.

Although my current neighbours are twats on one side, I like renting in nice areas with properties that are a mix of owned and rented. The people that live on this street are as diverse in terms of heritage, income and working status as they come and I like that. I like that most of my neighbours go to work.

I've rented through housing association previously. Whilst a lot of my fellow housing association neighbours were nice, many were horrific, smoking drugs, stealing, cars getting smashed in, pissing in the lifts and just generally horrible people with no ambition. I wouldn't want to do that again.

Out of how many total homes? And how many homeless are there in the borough?

Numbers sometimes look shockingly high, but in context only show that there aren't nearly enough homes.

Take Tower Hamlets, for example. They have about 1,100 long term empty homes. But that's out of a housing stock of nearly 150,000, so less than 1%. They also have over 3,000 households who are homeless. The overall housing vacancy rate is about 2% and people frequently can get the housing they need when they're looking for it. Even if all those long term empty homes were brought back in to the market today, it would not come close to solving their housing crisis and people would still be unable to get the housing they need, when they need it.

Low vacancy rates hit lower income people and families the hardest as they have less flexibility and the costs of being inappropriately housed hit them a lot harder than the better off.

Do you really think the average foreigner who buys a house in the UK is buying the kind of property that would end up as homes for the average renter/the homeless/first time buyers?

I've been thinking about this randomly today and haven't come up with any negatives so far. Is it bad to monopolise housing?

Yes it's bad to monopolise housing - it's a basic human need and shouldn't be a way for wealthy people to make their millions any more than water.

(Yes we pay for water, but we don't have people paying extortionate rates to private water owners).

Unfortunately I think human greed will never allow the kind of world you are envisioning there - there are a lot of people making a lot of money from private renting. And some people who have got into situations where they 'have' to rent out a property (really there is always another way, but people have based their finances around the current situation, so change makes things very difficult and they'd never vote for losing money).

A lot of what you seem to want could be achieved with tighter regulation and rent controls in the private sector

How would you fund?
You can't take people's private property off them.

I doubt that what you propose would work. OP. But I agree that we have to do something effective about home ownership in the longer term.

One of the most dismaying things I ever see on here is posters talking about their buy-to-lets as ‘nest eggs’. People just shouldn’t be able to use houses and flats as investments for themselves in that way. If you own real property you should live in it.

In which case they're private renting, just on a large scale.

Housing associations are not for profit. Their schemes like part buy part rent subsidise low rates for rentals. They get hmg money for capital build spend.
Don't get me wrong I would love to have a council or HA flat but they're unaffordable to be roles out..
Interestingly my leftie mate was saything the other day to scrap all social housing as its distributon is so unfair with so many good earners in there.

So basically you are saying that everyone will be able to rent the house they want, where they want, it will just be much cheaper.

So what will stop everyone from deciding to rent a mansion with a swimming pool in Notting Hill? And given you won't have as many as you will need, how will you choose among potential renters?

The price mechanism does serve a purpose. The reason it is currently distorted is that there has not been enough building to keep up with demand, which has driven up prices so that housing has been one of the safest places to park your money for retirement. If new houses kept being built then house prices would be relatively stable and it wouldn't be worth the hassle and maintenance cost to be a landlord for most people.

Like hell i want to move into a low social economic area of rental hokes run by a goverment here or the Uk
Duno about Uk but Nz I would be wondering if the car was in the drive every morning
The druggies, bums and low lives cant rent in a private rental is one advantage of private.
No stupid idea and are the house healthy and decent...probably not from what i read on here.
Nz has had a batch of goverment owned and built 2 yr old new social housing area having most of thr heating needs replaced...the neighbours are feral and near a know drug unemployed street...fark off no way.

I assume someone has to buy all the privately rented property so they can continue to be rented? Or will the landlord just sell and the property is no longer in the rental market? The first is going to be hugely expensive and the second will mean far fewer properties for rent. And if it does create more subsidised housing where will the money come from for that, or will properties be rented at a market rate? Will it also include people renting a room to make ends meet? And HMOs catering for itinerant workers and students, etc?

I don’t agree that all private rental should be banned but I do think the right to buy social housing shoukd be permanently abolished.

all social housing to stay as social housing

OP, what about temporary renters? Young people living in London or Manc don't want a lifetime tenancy, they just want to experience London for a few years.

Where as I think housing associations should not exist and rent should be a free market. Why should the state subsidise housing and let it and sell it below market value? Your example shows exactly why this wouldn’t work because your not paying enough to cover costs where as your brother is.

This. It should never be sold off, especially under market value, because who picks up the tab/ makes up the difference? The taxpayer of course!

Most of the pp's on here if they have a private pension will be investing in large scale private rentals via the London stock exchange.

Why not say what you think. Individuals must not be allowed to use housing as a business opportunity. Anyone with that mindset should be voting for socialism.
Ll's are not to blame for high rent, it's market driven. Flood the market with homes and rent will fall, basic economics. Of course some Ll's are doing very nicely, especially the Duke of Westminster.

The government have never built enough housing and have encouraged anyone who is willing to become Ll's. Having let our home briefly whilst abroad I can honestly say never again. Good Ll's will only lose out. All the new rules have done is left the market with less housing and more bad Ll's as they never follow the rules anyway.

Absolutely.
Thatcher has a lot to answer for.

Then there wouldn’t be a rental market?! It’s no different to any other business. I can never understand why people see it wrong to make a profit from housing but not gas/ electric/ supermarkets etc who all provide essentials too.