Labour tackling the private rent market

[Pantone363]

guardian link

They seem to be the only party tackling what is a huge issue for a lot of voters.

Labour will have to reduce rents quite substantially to offset the costs inflicted upon many households from removing benefits from under 25s.

It is the only thing I can find that both the tories and labour agree on, and therefore is likely to be the only piece of legislation likely to pass in a hung parliament.

This is already happening as the tories have made the number you call to arrange a benefits appointment premium rate, one of my mates is considering paying for his 22 yr old son to rent as it will be cheaper for him overall than him eating him out of beer money. He doesn't last long in jobs and has therefore clocked up over £200 in phone bills alone in the last couple of months.

I think btl has been one of the factors in increasing prices

it's possibly a factor, but is it the main factor? There are BTLs all over the country, even in places where prices have dropped dramatically.

keepitsimplestupid

there's none as blind as them that will not see

I'd imagine anyone who is a BTL LL is going to be very resistant to fully appreciating to pernicious effect of the movement to which they belong.
A?s more and more people feel that the opportunity to be an owner occupier has been stolen from the so the knives are bound to be out for the BTL LLs?
This will be accompanied by demands from the electorate that things change. ?

I'd imagine anyone who is a BTL LL is going to be very resistant to fully appreciating to pernicious effect of the movement to which they belong.

I am not a BTL. I own with mortgage, but I am not a BTL.

But if BTLs are the main reasons prices are going up, what explains the parts of the country with lots of BTLs but falling prices?

it's lack of housing that's the problem.

?
Obviously it is a complex problem with no single cause, rather a combination of factors which feedback and into each other.
I am not suggesting that BTL is the only cause but it most certainly IS part of the problem ?

The vast geographical discrepancy has to do with the concentration of wealth in London and the south east which has increased in line with the concentration of a greater proportion of wealth and income into fewer and fewer hands

Labour won't reduce rents. Private letters are normally people who work but are poor. And if anybody is still stupid enough to believe people like that are in Labour's list of priorities I despair.

'Private letters are normally people who work but are poor'

you think so??

Yes I do Suzanne. The majority of people I know who let privately do so because they've never been able to get a deposit together because rents are so cripplingly high. And if you've always worked and you're able bodied you're very unlikely to have been able to get a foot in the door with social housing.

so when you say 'poor' you mean people who although they may have good incomes are unable to save for a deposit.

You post was surely tautologous?

I privately rent, with my partner (and child). Our household income is almost £60k per annum. We do not have the money for a deposit, however, because we are paying a high rent, high travel costs etc.

And in any case, x3 times our joint income, even with a reasonable deposit, would get us the square root of fuck all around here.

I cannot, in all conscience call us 'poor', though.

I assume it's people like us you mean, aermingers? I may not necessarily be at the very top of Ed's list - and quite rightly too, there are many in far more need than me - but I believe that a Labour govt will give me and my family more security than a Tory one ever could.

Despair away

sounds to me as if Aermingers regards anyone who rents as poor by definition of the fact that they rent rather than own

Yep. I guess I'm just not 'hardworking' enough... (Although tbf I have spent most of the afternoon on MN when I should be writing up )

as more and more people rent (and many of those will be people whose income puts them in a middle class bracket) so any gvt wanting to get and stay in power will need to legislate in their favour.

Private renter here, certainly wouldn't class us as 'poor'

Just born a couple of years too late for affordable house prices.

No I'm talking more like families who have more like £30k a year to live on. Just skim above working tax credit. We live day to day, month to month, our travel costs and rent are so high we struggle to pay the bills and have enough food to eat, let alone save for a deposit.

Housing became unaffordable under Labour. They impoverished families with high housing costs. I'm not sure about what the situation is now but children who had a working parent were more likely to be in poverty than those who had parents on benefits in 2010. Factor in high housing costs that the in work are more likely to have, they were essentially taking money off poor people to give to people who had a more comfortable lifestyle than their own courtesy of the state. They're not 'Labour' anymore, they don't represent working people. They want to create a culture of dependency, they don't want the working class to do anything but depend on the state.

Housing became unaffordable under Labour.

the problem is that there was a huge shift in this country. the government used to be one of the major home builders, and that stopped. the problem is that subsequent governments never adjusted planning permission so that the private sector could properly fill the void.

I think the root of our problems is lack of housing, and we are so critically behind that I don't know how we can catch up.

ElectraCute ... re your "I believe that a Labour govt will give me and my family more security than a Tory one ever could."

Unfortunately as history shows Labour has not left an economy in better shape than they found it since the 1930's, the odds aren't in favour of that statement.

The population grew by millions under Labour over a very short time, yet overseeing around 115,000 homes a year built, as cheap/plentiful lending saw the average price of a home rise from £73k in 1997 to £232k in early 2008.

Furthermore, it was also a Labour government that not only encouraged Private Landlords to BTL through the tax system, Labour also gave them a huge tax cut on the homes they sell those homes - when landlords don't like a State Control Labour Party's reforms trying to lock them in for 3-years at rental profits to be determined on a whim.

Global history show rent or other controls reduces the amount and quality of rental stock, and if any landlord has any sense, if Labour gets in, they should take the money and run - as who knows what else will follow to ideologically please 'progressive' administrations that end up hurting to poorest more as private investment/jobs also falls.

October 2007: ”A speculator's budget?”
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/robertpeston/2007/10/a_speculators_budget.html

”Although many will see the reform of capital gains tax as an attempt to force the mega-bucks earners of private equity to pay more tax, its signficance goes well beyond that.”

”There will now be a single rate of capital gains tax at 18 per cent.”

”When John Major was prime minister in the 1990s, that would have been seen as the very epitome of a pro-capitalist reform.”

”But Gordon Brown when he was chancellor reformed the system so that many entrepreneurs and business creators now pay only 10 per cent tax, so long as they hang on to the relevant assets for a couple of years.”

”So for them, and private equity, this reform represents a steep tax rise.”

”However for many ordinary investors in the stock market or property, there will be a big cut in capital gains tax.”

”They currently pay up to 40 per cent tax on their capital gains, and that will now fall to 18 per cent.”

tl;dr

Global history show rent or other controls reduces the amount and quality of rental stock, and if any landlord has any sense, if Labour gets in, they should take the money and run - as who knows what else will follow to ideologically please 'progressive' administrations that end up hurting to poorest more as private investment/jobs also falls.

that's if all other things stay the same. Rental protections on their own will likely raise rents are choke supply or quality. That's why we need heavy building in tandem.

Keepitsimple0 ... 'heavy building in tandem', we are in 100% agreement - thus my very early point on this thread, best wait until WE ARE building heavily, at over 200,000 a year - otherwise those currently renting could (I believe WILL) see a shrinking private rental stock and have no where to go - needing those extra homes to also put some downward pressure on home prices.

Resistance to basic protections like tenure is precisely part of the problem. People here clamour for social housing because that's the only secure housing, thus putting more pressure on the state to build houses. if you want the state out of housing or mostly out of housing (I certainly do) then private rentals have to be more secure.

If the private rental stock shrinks those houses will be sold to owners. You have decreased the supply of houses. You will release some of the upward pressure on prices as BTLs will be less profitable.

In any case, expect public pressure for social housing to be high as long as LLs resist such basic protections.