Vitaminz ….. I covered your homes “puff of smoke” point, where you somehow think it is “good for tenants” when landlords sell to owner occupiers above. Hmmm.
Re your propaganda (below) straight out of Labour’s 1970’s ‘Class War Manual’ below, designed for the 2015 General Election; next you will be telling me that Labour’s unemployment, immigration and home build policies were because they were so ‘IN TOUCH’ with their working class roots.
“It is notable that just last week the Tories and Lib Dems voted against a ban on letting agents charging tenants. We all know that the Tories are the party of the rich and far more Tory MP's are multiple home owners and BTLers so have a vested interest in keeping housing supply squeezed, making sure the private rental sector is as insecure and unattractive to renters as possible so they will want rather take on the huge debt of a small new build than continue to rent (that is why they won't reform the private rental sector so that tenants have longer security of tenure or put a stop to things like retaliatory evictions).”
The Conservatives you call being “the party of the rich”, are in 1970’s parlance, the party of encouragement of a thriving Business/Private Sector (Labour pathetically calls ‘the few’) as they STILL don’t understand what PAYS for the Public Sector/Welfare – and that most of those 1.6 million that have work since 2010 are neither rich, or can thank Labour whose only policies pre 2010 for job ‘growf’ was to lower VAT for a year and INCREASE National Insurance.
Furthermore your accusation on why it is the Conservatives who want an “insecure and unattractive” rental market to drive home purchases might have held some water if UNDER LABOUR from 1997;
- Brown had not raised Home Stamp Duty from a Flat 1% to help pay for his massive increase in Public Sector Spending, financed by his looser bank lending regulations - so home transactions became his cash cow.
- Brown had not discouraged traditional pension saving, and encouraged Buy To Let investment to take up the slack of home provisions he was not prepared to finance via the State.
- Brown put Council Tax up over 110% in 13-years, again using homes to fund his fat State, draining renter’s discretionary income back when they did not give a hoot about ‘the cost of living’.
- Brown did not offer far more funds to Council/Social housing to try to compensate for their current needs, never mind Labour’s immigration policy, and the amount of those more secure homes FELL under Labour.
I reiterate, this country needs homes built to drive down prices/rents, all Labour offers is vote winning populist solutions, as practical as a chocolate tea pot, similar to reallocating cabins on the Titanic – as seriously, what GOOD is banning estate agents fees for managing properties in the practical home shortage scheme of things?
As far from providing more homes, as estate agents would no longer manage the credit checks, rent collection and day to day running of Landlords properties, all it would do is encourage those who can not do it themselves, to sell, lowering the amount of properties for rent.
Impractical populist policies for votes are Miliband’s theme for 2015; apart from locking landlords (Private Capital) into too long/financially risky fixed terms to paper over Labour’s past housing incompetence, ex Energy Minister Miliband proposes ‘energy freezes’ to an industry that he left us requiring $100 billion plus of Private Capital, otherwise our lights will go off.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/1983467-UK-Energy-Policy-Price-scandal-outages-due
Labour/Miliband says ‘he understands’ the Cost of Living crisis, which is just as well as you get one with EVERY recession, and his party left us with ‘the mother’ of all recessions since the 1930’s - with no practical solutions to date.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2044969--Cost-of-Living-a-cunning-plan
Labour cannot create a sustainable economy, or solve problems, they just like to ‘fiddle’ with them, make new laws (nearly 4,300 last time?) AND pretend someone else in the Private Sector will pick up the tab for their incompetence - when all it will do is drive that private capital away that HAS A CHOICE whether to put up with Miliband’s State Controls ‘vision’ for the next parliament, or vote with their financial feet.
The Solution; build 200k homes in 2015/6 and every year after, and ensure the Rental market continues to take up the slack, reviewing ways to
ENCOURAGE existing private landlords to offer longer fixed term contracts, and
ENCOURAGE institutional money in to fund the building of new homes and rent them out for 5-year plus fixed terms – and this will solve many of the costs and security issues, rather than reduce the availability of rental properties before the State raises it's game.