How buy-to-let turned into a mug’s game

Realy

carolt wrote: »

Never betted on anything in my life, but with quidco etc keeping offering me money to bet, how do I go about it?

Betting on falling house-prices seems like a bit of a no-brainer!

Funny I am sure a few BTLers made exactly the opposit bet.
Betting is never a no brainer.

Riq

carolt wrote: »

Never betted on anything in my life, but with quidco etc keeping offering me money to bet, how do I go about it?

Betting on falling house-prices seems like a bit of a no-brainer!

The odds will reflect assuming such a market actually exists.

Pssst

!!!!!!? wrote: »

With the effective end of council housing (new stock not being built to replace the sold off stuff and to meet new demand) someone had to take up provision of rental properties.

The problem here is the amateur LLs tempted in by property !!!!!! programmes and the media in general telling them that they couldn't lose. And facilitated by lenders that should have known better than to give them the cash to speculate.

These are the idiots who bid up normal family homes - most professional LLs would have went for properties with better margins but these fools figured that buying up prime residential housing stock at values that gave them negative cashflow made sense.

End result: Would be FTBers having to borrow absolutely silly amounts to own their first house or having to rent it instead with their moron landlord making a loss on the rent.

Indeed,we agree on some views but..

With reference to so called professional landlords, it is quite clear that many of them buy housing stock in previously owner occupied areas and have made fortunes extracting a living from social tenants via the housing benefit system. How many terraced homes are blighted because of a BTL next door or in the same street? I was in a terraced house the other week on business shall we say. The Police had raided it because it was full of Heroin addicts who were dealing. They were in a BTL terrace. Private houses either side had for sale signs up.

Again,last year i was in a BTL terrace in the course of my business. A young teenage mum was there with her fec kless baseball hatted BF. She was cursing the landlord,calling him an F ing P*ki etc etc. Her mum who was with her had the temerity to suggest she go and sign up on the council housing list. The Scrubbers reply..a torrent of abuse.."I'm not living in no effing council house....blah blah blah..ive seen a nice semi and spoke to the landlord. The 'ousin benefit will pay most of the rent and I'll pay the rest out of me munny" (bennies). Two fe ckless individuals,breeding and living on the backs of others and yet not willing to accept their lot. The scenario multiplied a thousand fold across the country and ably assisted by BTL landlords.

Its not all young professionals,pied de terres and power showers you know..

darktrader

brit1234 wrote: »

How buy-to-let turned into a mug’s game

[EMAIL="jonathan.guthrie@ft.com"]jonathan.guthrie@ft.com[/EMAIL]


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f6482962-9abb-11dd-a653-000077b07658.html

Thanks for this - really interesting.

I'd assumed it would all collapse but reading this prompted me to look up some articles. I had wondered what would happen to Mr and Mrs Wilson - saw a documentary about them a year or two ago.

If people like that are selling up, Heaven knows what the amateurs are going to do

At least with many more properties coming onto the Market it will keep the prices falling until they reach a sensible level again.

neverdespairgirl

stevetodd wrote: »

lthough nowadays the computer software that bookies use does this automatically.

I wokrd part-time at Ladbrokes for a couple of years when I was a student, and we never worked out the odds, just looked them up.

JonnyBravo

stevetodd wrote: »

so when is the end date Dec 31st or was it for the financial year (ie April 6th if that is the end of the tax year). That was a good price well done to you for taking it and Kennyboy for flagging it up

yeah the end of Dec. is the last date for the data. Guess they'll publish in late January.
It's the rolling 3 month figure I am interested in.
Q4 07 = £196,792
Need it to be £177,112 by Q4 2008

:T

JonnyBravo

carolt wrote: »

Never betted on anything in my life, but with quidco etc keeping offering me money to bet, how do I go about it?

Betting on falling house-prices seems like a bit of a no-brainer!

Don't think you'll get meaningful odds now carolt.
At least not on a minimum of 10%

A bit like the BTL game.... if you're getting in when others have been in for a while..... you're too late! :cool:

JonnyBravo

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

As someone who is waiting to buy, why bother with Ladbrokes?

If prices were (and this is not a prediction) to fall 50%, taking into account the interest paid on the mortgage, I would roughly save (in cash terms of course) the sum of the peak price. So if a £250k house fell to £125k, I gain £250k (in cash terms). This is based on the rule of thumb that you pay back twice the sum of your mortgage.

Absolutely. You'll "make" more money that way, but why didn't more people put their money where their mouth was?
I was (/am?) one of the people who predicted the smaller end of the scale for the drops but even I was saying >10%.... (20-30% IIRC)..... so it seemed a no brainer to make a bit of cash. Free weekend on the pop etc!

Even better...... overpay on your mortgage and there's no way you pay £2 for every £1 borrowed..... hence being able to buy twice in seven years as I did (98 and 05)

JonnyBravo

darktrader wrote: »

Thanks for this - really interesting.

I'd assumed it would all collapse but reading this prompted me to look up some articles. I had wondered what would happen to Mr and Mrs Wilson - saw a documentary about them a year or two ago.

If people like that are selling up, Heaven knows what the amateurs are going to do

At least with many more properties coming onto the Market it will keep the prices falling until they reach a sensible level again.

THEY were the amateurs, don't you realise this yet?

manchestermike_2

Always nice to see a thread of people laughing at other's misfortune... :silenced:

Forgive me if I hope karma (if such a thing does exist) comes back and bites the OP hard in the backside