Tenants should turn the tables on dodgy landlords

silvercar

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Reading the article. Maybe a property crash is what is needed to rid the market of amateur BTL investors who drove prices ever upwards. Allowing FTB's to have the security and comfort of their own homes.

The problem is that you would be turfing a lot of innocent tenants onto the street to deliver your aim.

IveSeenTheLight

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Reading the article. Maybe a property crash is what is needed to rid the market of amateur BTL investors who drove prices ever upwards. Allowing FTB's to have the security and comfort of their own homes.

:Yawn: It was not the fault of BTL that pushed up house prices. If you look at the figures, Private rental has replaced social rental.

What fuelled the house price increases was demand and the lenders willing to lend higher amounts

Thrugelmir

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

:Yawn: It was not the fault of BTL that pushed up house prices. If you look at the figures, Private rental has replaced social rental.

What fuelled the house price increases was demand and the lenders willing to lend higher amounts

Few amateur BTL's have capital other than that gained from the appreciation of an existing asset ( ie house), this was used secure the lending against a further purchase. In effect creating an upward spiral in house prices. Ask most amateur BTL's and I would suspect that are ok providing rent covers the mortgage repayment. The worry has to be that as rates rise more BTL's will default. Causing issues for tenants as outlined in the article.

(This was only one of the factor's in the crazy house price bubble in the UK).

stephen163

Who can deny that BTL has been a nuisance for would be FTBs?

Compelling arguments can be made in favour of BTL and these were frequently cited by the government in the late 90's. However, toward the end of 2007, the available stock of housing (to buy) declined for the first time in a century and the % of BTL mortgages as a proportion of all mortgages rose from 3.5% in 1999 to 28.9% in 2006.

I don't believe these figures suggest that 'BTL replaced social housing', rather BTL is a monster that grew dangerously out of control.

carolt

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

:Yawn: It was not the fault of BTL that pushed up house prices. If you look at the figures, Private rental has replaced social rental.

What fuelled the house price increases was demand and the lenders willing to lend higher amounts

Interesting idea though I find it hard to believe as I am the perfect example of someone who would never have qualified for or been a council tenant a decade ago, but would have been able to afford to buy easily.

And I think I'm fairly typical.

So do you have any actual figures to back your theory up, ie some figures on how social housing supply has gone down over the last decade relative to private housing supply increases?

carolt

silvercar wrote: »

The problem is that you would be turfing a lot of innocent tenants onto the street to deliver your aim.

Only if house prices stayed high.

Otherwise said innocent tenants could afford to buy their own place.

Guess which option most innocent tenants would prefer?

As a very innocent tenant myself I can answer that question for you.

They'd like house prices to fall - drastically. Thank you.

silvercar

carolt wrote: »

Only if house prices stayed high.

Otherwise said innocent tenants could afford to buy their own place.

Guess which option most innocent tenants would prefer?

As a very innocent tenant myself I can answer that question for you.

They'd like house prices to fall - drastically. Thank you.

That might apply to you, but there are thousands of people who will never be in a position to buy a home and are life long renters. These are also innocent renters for whom the growth in the rental sector has meant a fall in rents and greater range of properties.

carolt

silvercar wrote: »

That might apply to you, but there are thousands of people who will never be in a position to buy a home and are life long renters. These are also innocent renters for whom the growth in the rental sector has meant a fall in rents and greater range of properties.

Sorry, have to disagree.

There are thousands of people who could have bought but haven't been able to because of the rise in house prices caused, in part, by BTL. These numbers dwarf the few who would never have been able to buy under any circumstances.

I do agree that more social housing should have been built and should be built urgently now to house these people - but people on such low incomes should not be renting from the private sector anyway, they should be renting from the public sector, with low rents and secured tenancies.

I also cannot believe you could argue that the rise in privately rented properties has led to a fall in rents! - there is no evidence this has happened - and certainly not for thoe poor souls who shod have been in council accomodation all along but were unable to due to the ridiculous right-to-buy policy.

Re greater choice - I've been renting since the early 90's and have never, ever experienced any lack of choice. Don't know anyone who has.

I have however noticed a huge lack of choice in affordable properties to buy in recent years, curiously coinciding with the rise in BTL.

Can you suggest why that might be? :rolleyes:

Snooze

pickles110564 wrote: »

And that is how it should be, an address where we can go and do the damage you do to our properties.
Tenants get excellant accomodation with no up keep.
What more could u want?

I would be very interested to see internal pictures of your "excellant accomodation (sic)". From my experience of renting such described properties, they usually consisted of some cheap replacement cupboard doors in the 1960s kitchen and a thick, poorly applied coat of magnolia on every vertical surface. And for that you're expected to pay £500 per month for small 2-bed mid terrace :rolleyes: . God forbid the ad should say "fully modernised" though - general rule of thumb seems to be that the monthly rent will necessitate an extra zero on the end. :rolleyes:

Rob

IveSeenTheLight

Snooze wrote: »

I would be very interested to see internal pictures of your "excellant accomodation (sic)". From my experience of renting such described properties, they usually consisted of some cheap replacement cupboard doors in the 1960s kitchen and a thick, poorly applied coat of magnolia on every vertical surface. And for that you're expected to pay £500 per month for small 2-bed mid terrace :rolleyes: . God forbid the ad should say "fully modernised" though - general rule of thumb seems to be that the monthly rent will necessitate an extra zero on the end. :rolleyes:

Rob

Heres a couple of pics of my "excellent accomodation" 2 bed flat from which I achieve a monthly rental of £850.
Since these pictures I've improved with a 40" flat screen and DVD unit. I didn't need to do this, but it helps set my property apart from the rest and helps keeps voids to a minimum