The king and queen of buy-to-let, will they take Ashford in Kent with them as they fall?

[Upwind]

from today's Guardian:
"Judith and Fergus Wilson used cheap buy-to-let finance to snap up hundreds of homes, mostly around Ashford in Kent."

• They own more than 900 houses
• They will have single handedly pushed up the prices families paid for homes around Ashford
• They have started to sell now into a falling market and at realistic valuations, they can't be far from negative equity.
• As they specialise in small family homes, their selling off of stock mean that their tenants lose their homes
• If the Wilsons lose their big gamble, their tenants will suddenly be made homeless en-masse due to reposession, and through no fault of their own
• This big sell off will push down prices in the area
• From the article above they seem oblivious to the immorality of their own actions

[swedishmum]

Will check the local weekly tomorrow and report any news....
Leoloopydoo, it's not that I resent them, it's the way they treat people. They come across as unpleasant. He was done recently for using a mobile while driving. Tried to get off by saying he was holding a drinks can up to his ear or some such twaddle. I remember Dominic Littlewood taking a great dislike to them on that Property MIllions programme. They have swayed the market - a real lack of properties for 1st time buyers in Ashford. Trying to rip people off and not return deposits for ludicrous reasons.....

[Freckle]

You can get far more money for an empty property than for one with a sitting tenant. So I suspect that a fair few tenants will be receiving notices to quit (all done legally of course), so that their homes can be sold. Then of course they will have to see whether they can get their deposits back.

[Leoloopydoo]

I've read the article but not the whole discussion here and I am sure I am going against the general opinion, but..... As far as I can see the Wilsons haven't done anything illegal and there are many more people doing much worse things than them. They saw an opportunity and made the most of it and have come out of it rich - there are many people who have tried to do the same thing but have failed. The Wilsons are no better or worse than those people but are resented for the fact that they got rich from it.
I don't think they plan to dump a load of houses on the market and bring the house prices down, that wouldn't benefit them, they want the house prices to stay high so they can sell for as much profit as possible.

There is nothing in the article to suggest that they can't pay their loans and that people will be turfed out of their houses.

I do however think that the laws protecting tennants in the UK are really bad and that is the reason that everyone wants to buy and not rent and now have mortgages that they can't pay.

[Upwind]

Swedishmum - somehow it makes me even more to think they might not be able to enjoy their ill gotten gains!

I wonder will they really get their comeuppance - they used to say that if you owe the bank £100k you have a problem, but if you owe them £100,000k the bank has a problem. I guess the Wilsons and scum like them will be given favourable terms using taxpayers bailout money.

[swedishmum]

Have seen him a few times in local DIY shops. Always looks miserable and wears trousers too short. They seem totally unlikeable to me. I live just outside Ashford and their names aren't written in gold. There are a couple more very major landlords round here - as far as I understand they aren't planning to sell right now. In fact, there are many many people I know of round here who own 10 plus homes. Not me I must add before any mud flings my way.........

Much as I hope the recession misses most hard working nice people, I'd love to see greedy miserable people like them suffer. And I'm a nice person....

[Upwind]

That is interesting Harman. So, if they have gambled a bit too far many of those affected by any reposessions will be on benefits...

What an utterly disastrous policy on social housing

[harman]

Message withdrawn

[Lizzylou]

There are a fair few repossessions going through the Estate Agents where I work on a Saturday. They are being snapped up by Buy to let investors. A few of the repos were owned by buy to let investors who were heavily mortgaged and then couldn't afford the higher rates. I'm learning that min 50% cash/rest mortgage is the safest way to invest in property (if not v long term), just a pity I have bugger all capital.
We also have a rival (independent) Estate Agent's repossessed family home on the market. It is scary stuff.

[TwoIfBySea]

Yes, well done Upwind, I kept getting redirected to the main site!

It stuck in my mind because of the fuss made over the picture hooks. Tiny little picture hooks. I think that was the one who had photographic proof of the state of the house.

[Upwind]

Was THIS the watchdog episode you saw Twoifbysea?

Fio, your friend should probably get some advice from Shelter/CAB before moving out if she rents from the Wilsons.

[TwoIfBySea]

Okay, it was on Watchdog and it isn't available on iPlayer but I googled it to see if anyone had a copy but on an investor site I found this and then I also found this.

So it would seem their pure greed is what drives them as opposed to any business ambition.

[TwoIfBySea]

If she does Fio then better remind her to take photos of the place before she moves out. According to the programme rather than take it to court so the people could defend themselves the Wilsons threw it straight to the debt collectors. I really need to have a hunt and see if I can find out which one it was...

[Rose100]

Wasn't there was some unofficial link between John Prescott and his brownfield, build in back gardens scheme and his son owning some kind of property development business to do with brownfield sites?

Also the Blairs have a few buy to lets don't they? Not that I'm against small portfolios, you can't stop it all. But I'm totally against unlimited endless ownership. At one point, I seriously wondered if the Wilson's aimed to buy the whole of Kent. There would have been nothing to stop them in theory.

[LilianGish]

Point taken Upwind. I suppose what I meant was let's not pretend it would have been any different if Dave had been in charge. That's what is really depressing - there doesn't seem to be anyone qualified to get us out of this mess. I entirely agree with your final sentence.

[Upwind]

Lilian - It's easy to criticise the Labour government because they've had over ten years to do something about this and they have not. They made the buy-to-let explosion possible by deregulation of the banks and by allowing the credit bubble.

I've been told that Labour ministers are largely supportive of buy to let landlords like the Wilsons because a large number of them have been involved in it themselves. I guess it might be possible to confirm how true that is. The founders of the Labour party must be turning in their graves.

[LilianGish]

Council housing ensured a secure tenancy in a decent house - thanks to Maggie (who not only sold them all off but also banned councils from using the profits from Council house sales to build any more houses) we (tax-payers) now fork out housing benefit to accomodate tenants in properties owned by the likes of the Wilsons. I cannot think of a policy more designed to exarcerbate the difference between the rich and the poor. Instead of our taxes being used to invest for the future with a decent stock of social housing it is lining the pockets of buy-to-let investers who have no obligation to their tenants. It's easy to criticise the Labour government because the chickens are coming home to roost on their watch, but this is the inevitable conclusion of a Tory policy applauded at the time by the many tenants who were able to pick up their homes for a song.

[onceinalifetime]

Sorry, I take back what I said - I hadn't realised they were such bastard landlords.

[Rose100]

I always found it astonishing that this kind of thing could go on under a labour government- unlimited numbers of houses owned by individuals/one couple, vast swathes of countryside being concreted over for hideous new housing estates all so that one family can buy the lot (at discounted prices) rather than ownership being spread out amongst many stuggling young families.

Why didn't labour stipulate a limit on buy to lets, say a maximum of 100 properties or introduce punitive tax disincentives? It seems amazing that they have effectively allowed the equivalent of a modern day Duke of Westminster to emerge.

I do feel for Ashford. They have lost their green spaces forever, and also the international train service that underpinned this greed and nonsense.

And I do think that Margaret Thatcher takes a lot of blame for selling off our council houses. Better to have a decent supply of state owned social housing stock than pass ownership into the hands of a few immensely rich individuals devoid of social conscience.

(I speak allegedly of course and not referring to any particular individuals...)

[noddyholder]

Thye are about to get their come uppance

[Upwind]

TwoIfBySea - that is shocking. It makes me that the guardian article below is so sycophantic. They could have mentioned that programme at the very least.

I just did a search on google news to see if the Wilsons had been written up by anyone else recently. It seems they are getting out of the horse racing/gambling business too. From the sun: Fergus Wilson is quoted as saying "You wrote the first story about me in 1998 when I had £4,000 on at 250-1 that I would own a Grand National winner.

?I stood to win £1m but I don?t think it will ever happen. We will NOT be buying any more young horses. I always said I?d give it 10 years."

Wilson will go down in turf history as the owner who always aimed for the stars ... and seldom even saw his horses finish.

This year Wilson?s no-hopers have been the usual disaster"

[TwoIfBySea]

I remember seeing a programme featuring some of the tenants of this pair. Apparently they were making up any excuse not to hand back deposits when the tenants moved out and sometimes adding a "valeting" charge expecting the tenants to pay for cleaning up after them.

Only some of the tenants (this was more than one case, not linked other than having them as landlords) had proof that the houses were fine when they had moved out. They were being chased by debt collectors to pay these extra charges.

If that is how they want to make their money then on their consciences be it. And I think more people would feel happier renting rather than buying if there were secured tenancies.

[Upwind]

Freckle - it is one of my pet rants, unfortunately the media don't seem very interested in the predicament of tenants. They prefer to obsess about hard-working-home-owners.

southutsire - that is why I am fairly certain the Wilsons are screwed. They were still buying houses this year. Why suddenly change your mind and start selling up if you saw this coming? They claim that prices had not dropped much around Ashford, but that is because there was a pair of greedy people playing monopoly with the homes in the area and snapping them all up! When the same pair start selling the opposite will happen.

[southutsire]

Prices doubling every ten years is very misleading though. Depends which ten years you pick! Ten years is no way 'long term'. Thirty years maybe. And of course you have to take into account inflation.

They do seem a little slow on the uptake: 'the party is over'. Er, yes... more than a year ago... didn't you notice all the lights were off and everyone else had gone home?

[Freckle]

Upwind, I don't disagree with you. I'm just pointing out what has happened historically. Some people seem to be so intent on getting on to the property ladder that they will commit ever increasing percentages of their income on housing. And a lot of that has been to do with irresponsible lending on the part of the financial institutions. If 100% mortgages 7x your salary were not available, house prices would have to slow or even start to drop.

Also house prices have been artificially inflated by the massive buy-to-let industry, including the Wilsons. Hopefully that market has reached saturation point or even the point where houses will have to be placed back on the market.