Tenants should turn the tables on dodgy landlords

IveSeenTheLight

stephen163 wrote: »

Interpreting that graph as 'BTL has replaced social housing' is innacurate in my opinion. It is more accurate to say that the decrease in social rented has actually been replaced by rising home ownership rates. Remember the 'right to buy' scheme - that came as a result of the housing act of 1980, explaining neatly the change in that graph from 1981 onwards.

The proportion of people in private rented accommodation remained steady at 10% from 1981 until around 2001. Notice it creeping upwards - at 2005 it is at 12% and on an upward trend. What is is now? 15%? I think this is a movement away from a critical balance and caused by the massive increase in BTL.

That is a fair enough comment however, you cannot deny that the percentage of available accomodation both social and private has decreased

Using your dates in 1981 rental accomodation accounted for about 43%
In 2005 rental accomodation accounted for about 30%

Snooze

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

The flat on its own is £750 which you will see for the area is slightly under the market rate and it does not include any utility bills.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Daylight robbery.

Rob

Cleaver

Snooze wrote: »

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Daylight robbery.

Rob

You mean that you feel, in your opinion, that the current market value of rental properties is above what you would like it to be. It obviously isn't 'daylight robbery' as he's already pointed out that it has very few void periods which suggests it is at a competitive price.

The whole "How much for a two bed flat? That's utter madness I tells ya, madness. I remember when..." attitude on this site is a bit odd.

Snooze

Cleaver wrote: »

You mean that you feel, in your opinion, that the current market value of rental properties is above what you would like it to be. It obviously isn't 'daylight robbery' as he's already pointed out that it has very few void periods which suggests it is at a competitive price.

The whole "How much for a two bed flat? That's utter madness I tells ya, madness. I remember when..." attitude on this site is a bit odd.

Clearly people up there have more money than sense then, unless it's in some 'millionaire's row' part of town. Aberdeen is in the middle of nowhere and is certainly no business hub.

In comparison, you could get somewhere equivalent to ISTLs gaff in the heart of Leeds city centre (including parking spot) for the same money and Leeds is the 3rd largest city in the UK by population.

Rob

Cleaver

Snooze wrote: »

Clearly people up there have more money than sense then, unless it's in some 'millionaire's row' part of town. Aberdeen is in the middle of nowhere and is certainly no business hub.

In comparison, you could get somewhere equivalent to ISTLs gaff in the heart of Leeds city centre (including parking spot) for the same money and Leeds is the 3rd largest city in the UK by population.

Rob

What a frustrating argument.

All I'm saying is that if the flat is constantly rented, it represents 'value for money', i.e. it is competitive in the market place.

If you don't want to live in Aberdeen because you feel it's too expensive then you don't have to. As you've seinsibly pointed out, you feel that Leeds is a place you like and you feel that the market there is more to your price range.

carolt

stephen163 wrote: »

Interpreting that graph as 'BTL has replaced social housing' is innacurate in my opinion. It is more accurate to say that the decrease in social rented has actually been replaced by rising home ownership rates. Remember the 'right to buy' scheme - that came as a result of the housing act of 1980, explaining neatly the change in that graph from 1981 onwards.

The proportion of people in private rented accommodation remained steady at 10% from 1981 until around 2001. Notice it creeping upwards - at 2005 it is at 12% and on an upward trend. What is is now? 15%? I think this is a movement away from a critical balance and caused by the massive increase in BTL.

Excellent points.

Also, the graph stops in 2005, just as BTL went through the roof. A rather more detailed look at the years 2000-2008 say would be more helpful in determining the effect of the huge growth in BTL in that period, than trying to analyse the last few years of a much larger scale graph over a much longer period.

At least half a million BTL mortgages were taken out in 2006-7 from memeory; I think more - obviously data that can't get a look in on this graph. Don't forget that numbers owning actually fell for the first time in decades last year.

This graph is hopelessly out of date, frankly.

carolt

silvercar wrote: »

The fact is that there is a shortage of social housing, so people on low incomes are renting from the private sector. There is no alternative, short of leaving them in B&B or homeless.

Agreed. But hardly ideal More social housing should be built - surely you do not disagree?

Of course an increase in supply will be a downward pressure on rents.

But they didn't. Show me any figures suggesting that rents fell in recent years as a result of BTL - no rents started falling only this year, as a result not of the policy of deliberate BTL but due to accidental landlords having no choice but to rent out their existing homes (not BTL as they weren't bought to let - they didn't remove houses from those wishing to buy, as per my previous point).

More likely caused by lenders giving high mortgages to people.

Agree - this was a factor. But so was BTL.

Why so keen to exonerate BTL, silvercar?

chucky

let's get back to the point Carol instead of continuing this one-woman vendetta against BTLers.

there are bad landlords out there, there are probably just as many bad tenants too.
in the end they get what they deserve.

if a landlord doesn't run his business properly he will/should face the consequences.

just as a tenant who does not face up to his/her responsibilities in the property that they are renting.

carolt

chucky wrote: »

let's get back to the point Carol instead of continuing this one-woman vendetta against BTLers.

there are bad landlords out there, there are probably just as many bad tenants too.
in the end they get what they deserve.

if a landlord doesn't run his business properly he will/should face the consequences.

just as a tenant who does not face up to his/her responsibilities in the property that they are renting.

Oh I agree.

But you're missing the point of the article, and my point - that the law is currently weighted heavily in favour of landlords. And that that should change.

Good landlords wouldn't be affected.

But dodgy ones - those who don't pay their mortgages, don't do their repairs etc would find themselves unable to rent.

A national landlord registration scheme, as has been mooted, or a tenant-led rating system (like the ones the govt is proposing of doctors by patients, for example) would be a big wake-up call to the unscupulous or unprofessional landlord that is the bane of every tenant's life.

IveSeenTheLight

Snooze wrote: »

Clearly people up there have more money than sense then, unless it's in some 'millionaire's row' part of town. Aberdeen is in the middle of nowhere and is certainly no business hub.

In comparison, you could get somewhere equivalent to ISTLs gaff in the heart of Leeds city centre (including parking spot) for the same money and Leeds is the 3rd largest city in the UK by population.

Rob

Rob, you are obviously in a different timezone / planet.

You cannot compare Aberdeen to Leeds as they are totally different areas and markets and no, the property is not on "Millionaires Row".
Come back down from cloud 9.
You are making assumptions on 4 pictures, have no details about the flat, location, amenities, market data etc. You also do not know the properties it competes against or the town wealth / income.

"Leeds is the 3rd largest city in the UK by population"
Population has nothing to do with wealth.

Finally some little stats about Aberdeen compared to the UK
http://www.aberdeen-info.co.uk/facts.html
Gross Domestic Product = Aberdeen City £6.43 billion. If Aberdeen was a country, it would one of the richest countries in the world with a GDP per capita of £29,764. (Luxembourg tops the list with a per capita GDP of $35,000. The UK GDP per capita is £17,400.

If you want to compare earnings between Leeds and Aberdeen, the following link shows the mean Aberdeen wage is £524.60 per week while Leeds is only £464.40 per week.

Incidently a full time male (as I am) is £723.10 per week (£37,700 per year) as opposed to £589.50 per week (£30,700 per year) almost 23% more

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_labour/ASHE_2008/tab7_1a.xls