Positive action - what do you/can you do?

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

If you own a house that you rent out to someone else so that you can make a profit, it is a business. If you own a house that you live in, it is your home.

and sometimes your pension?

tomterm8

lostinrates wrote: »

and sometimes your pension?

That's the same as any other business. People generally want to be able to sell their business, and eventually retire. I know I do.

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

That's the same as any other business. People generally want to be able to sell their business, and eventually retire. I know I do.

I actually meant the home you live in...I was just reading Conrad's thread where he alludes to homes as pensions

tomterm8

That's generally pure idiocy, LIR. People who expect to be able to retire on the proceeds of one home... well, they generally haven't thought things through. When you sell up, you still need to live somewhere... and people generally don't want to move into a much smaller house in a much worse area.

I don't think it works.

I can see it being possible to retire on the proceeds of ten or so rented houses, a well organised business that makes a profit, but not off your home.

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

That's generally pure idiocy, LIR. People who expect to be able to retire on the proceeds of one home... well, they generally haven't thought things through. When you sell up, you still need to live somewhere... and people generally don't want to move into a much smaller house in a much worse area.

I don't think it works.

I can see it being possible to retire on the proceeds of ten or so rented houses, a well organised business that makes a profit, but not off your home.

I'm not really arguing it either way...just raising an alternative view. whatever happens. I see trouble ahead with this, most of my professional friends don't own, the ones that do don't seem to pension plan....its hard to afford both....

I don't really care so much in an ''I'm alright jack'' sort of way...tonight..

Cleaver

carolt wrote: »

I don't get this bit!

Can you explain, as it's as clear as mud currently.

Sure.

In my view (and I think in a simple economic view) we have lots of landlords because it's been very easy to make money from property over the past ten years. There's been pretty much no government policy to keep a good, quality supply of housing to first time buyers and there's been an unchecked trend of people making money from property. The answer is not to tax people more because of this, it's to not let this happen in the first place (via numbers 2 to 4 in the original post).

Because lots of people cannot afford to buy housing, lots of people plug that gap by buying houses and renting them to those that can't afford it. By definition it becomes easier to become a landlord and, therefore, the quality of landlords goes down. Who hasn't had a sh*te landlord in the last 10 years who doesn't know what they're doing? I certainly have.

If housing were more affordable it would be harder to become a successful landlord because renting costs would be closer to buying costs, therefore it would become more unnatractive to people, thus less would do it. Those that did choose to do it would have to be good at it (i.e. make money and treat people well) to get the business. Many people chose to rent rather than buy (you are one of them Carol) and landlords should be good to get custom. Over the last ten years they didn't have to be because of a number of reasons: a lack of legislation around rentals, the government not building enough houses and not enough done to help first time buyers by keeping property prices out of the stratosphere.

To go back to the original point, taxing landlords more than other business is not doing anything to help people priced out the market. You need to put conditions in place to make housing more affordable to people in the first place, this in turn will make the rental market more competitive, this will mean that only quality landlords will survive. And those quality landlords should have exactly the same tax rules as those who own any other type of business.

If you tax different small businesses at different rates because of mistakes in policy and planning in central governement you'll have chaos. In my eyes, for example, Tesco have become far too large and are putting local businesses out of business. Is the best plan to just tax them more because I don't like this? I don't think so. I'd prefer to see sensible, attractive policies in place to support local businesses so that they can be on a level playing field with big business. In exactly the same way that FTBers should be on a level playing field with landlords (which numbers 2 to 4 support). Point 1 in bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Reading back I think that makes some sort of sense, but I would fully understand if you don't get it as I do waffle on...

Cleaver

lostinrates wrote: »

I sort of agree with this, but then if a house is an investment as well as a place to live then in theory we are all using them as some sort of financial vehicle.....

I think it's possible to have both, even for the same person.

I could live with my family in our family home that I plan to have until I die. In this case I couldn't two two hoots about it's market value or whether I ever make money from it. It never even enters my head that it is something to make money from.

At the same time I could own a house that I rent to someone. I would then check my sums very carefully to make sure that the rent covered the mortgage with some extra to give me profit. And I'd also want to treat the tenant very well so that I build a good reputation. Treat the whole thing as a business in other words.

Emy1501

The last 10-15 years have allowed everyone and anyone to make money out of property. People have needed little or no intelligence to do it. Its been easy money and many are relient on it for pensions and a living.

There is therefore little chance of any government regardless of lobbying doing anything to make property more affordable. Property will only become more affordable when the government can no longer afford to prop it up which I suspect will not be too longer now.

Cleaver

I've thought of a more simple way of putting this. We have a capitalist society where you can, in the simplest terms, make money out of anything. Food, water, shelter, health, basic utlities etc.

Government have a role to ensure that there are laws, policies and procedures in place to make certain that the population gets fair and equitable access (within reason) to basic necessities in life.

Businesses are then free to set up within this framework because, generally in our society, we believe that a free market system is the best way to get efficiency and quality.

The government then sets an identical tax rate for all the businesses at the end of the process.

Thus, charging landlords more tax at the end of the process is not the answer. The answer is to make sure that laws, polices and procedures at the beginning of the process means that there is a market where not every man and his dog can just set up as a landlord and be successful at it without actually being very good at it.

Is that a bit better?

Cleaver

I'm typing all this to myself really aren't I?

Ahh well, keeps me entertained.

Busy day at work tomorrow. Oh yes. Got an evening thing for work too, which is unusual really.

Quiet weekend though. Friend's of the missus are coming up, so might have a spot of lunch somewhere I guess.

Think I'll go to bed soon. In the office tomorrow, so have an early morning for once.

Quite peckish too actually. Might have some toast. Maybe with a cup of tea. Ooooh, that sounds nice.

Ho hum.