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Priced out generation fights back
Comments
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I think this article, in conjunction with Hamish's thread about the people in the village near where he grew up, raises a question for me.
I understand that HP have got so high because of increased demand and lack of supply. Increased demand is easy to understand - there are more households than there used to be (increasing population, decreasing average number of people per household) and increased ability to pay because of historically minuscule IRs. But what about lack of supply?
Hamish puts lack of supply almost entirely down to failure to build enough houses (both social and private housing). That's real and relevant, and the "Priced Out" people agree on that. But they also put a big emphasis on the way in which the system makes it too easy for BTL investors compared with FTBs trying to buy a home. So just how big a part of the jigsaw do people think that is?
My background is as follows:
I've been a tenant in private rented houses for most of my adult life, apart from 5 years in a tied house that came with my then husband's job. 6 month ASTs that become rolling after the 6 months are all I know. I've always been lucky and had good LLs and good LAs and it's been fine, really. I've never questioned whether the current AST rules were reasonable until fairly recently.
My family own a house that was split into flats decades ago and has been let out for as long as I can remember. I've no idea who originally bought it or why, or whether they ever lived in it, but it's been in the family since before the war, and is owned outright. The ownership is complicated, being shared between two people in different branches of the family, one of whom doesn't live in this country any more, and the other of whom is old and ill and doesn't want the hassle of being a LL any more. We've been trying to sell it for a long time now, but it's almost impossible because one flat has a protected tenant from before the rent act of whenever it was.
It's only as I've been getting my head round this that I've learnt what tenants' rights used to be. At first I was incredulous - how could anyone think it was fair to give LLs so little right to decide what to do with a property they owned? But obviously there was a time when those ideas seemed reasonable to lots of people, or it wouldn't have made it onto the statute book.
I'm not recommending a return to those rules - I still think they are ridiculous, actually. But they have made me question whether the acceptability of the current AST system is as self-evident as I had assumed it was. Also, I think it is clear that any significant swing in the balance of advantages towards the tenant and away from the landlord would probably bring HP down and open up the possibility of owning a house to a lot more people - which would be a good thing, IMO.
I have no personal axe to grind here. I'm buying (as most of you know) under rather unusual circumstances that aren't like most FTBs, and my part of the family seem to be finally selling our share the flats to someone on the other side of the family. In a few months, it probably won't make any difference to me what HP do, or rents, or LLs' responsibilities, or tenants' rights, or any of the rest of it. But it intrigues me.
What do people think?
Interesting - but my experience as a tenant is certainly different from yours. I've had some truly appalling, immoral, grasping landlords. The kind to whom the health and safety of their tenants is as nothing compared to saving a few extra quid. Even if it is manifestly breaking the law. The kind to whom annual gas checks were an unnecessary luxury extra, rather than an essential precaution mandated by law; who sent out non-Corgi registered mates to fiddle with the gas because it was cheaper, the sort who left their tenants without any heating or hot water for 2 weeks in the winter (OK, they were trying to get it fixed, but lending portable heaters wouldn't have been impossible...).
I could go on and on.
And my experiences are very, very far from the worst - some of the horror stories I've read on the other housing board make my blood simultaneously turn cold, and boil. :eek:
I think we desperately need a return to equal rights for tenants and landlords.
That said, I have no sympathy at all with bad tenants; I think those who damage the property, are anti-social or fail to pay their rent should have less rights, not more.
One thing the website in the OP doesn't stress so much is the need for a proper register of landlords, as has been mooted but kicked into the long grass. I think that would go some way towards solving the worst of the problems, and at least rescue us from the current situation, where, in housing terms we're positively Victorian, in terms of looking the other way. Bit like the modern equivalent of child labour - we all know it's horrific, but it's easier to pretend it doesn't really happen/it's not that bad.0 -
IveSeenTheLight wrote: »Sloppy jounalism and reflective that thhey believe their own little area is reflective throughout the UK.
Simple facts show as you have pointed out that FTBers are still in the market.
I don't think it's sloppy at all - the fact that the numbers are so low should be a cause for concern. It doesn't concern you, obviously, ISTL, because you stand to make money off the back of it.
Quelle surprise.0 -
No - FTB levels are astonishingly low compared to traditional levels - what are the latest figures? One recent month had I think something like 11% of purchases by FTBs, versus the more normal ratio of c 50% in the 80s/90s.
Let us not forget that this impacts on EVERYONE - there is a reason that FTBs are called the 'lifeblood of the market'. No FTBs = no-one at the bottom of the chains.
Exactly, without FTB or BTL returning there is no foundation to support a higher transactional market. I think we need to get used to transaction numbers at the current level for a significant period of time.
If the 11% is correct that is a worrying statistic. I read the other day (can't remember the source) that 75% of first time buyers are now reliant on help from family to buy. So if that is correct then only about 3% of current purchases are from self sufficient FTB which on the face of it feels incredibly low.0 -
IveSeenTheLight wrote: »Sloppy jounalism and reflective that thhey believe their own little area is reflective throughout the UK.
Simple facts show as you have pointed out that FTBers are still in the market.
I'm guessing that the generation they are talking about are those who are trying to do things by their own means. This is pretty darn hard, if not impossible in some cases, unless you have the perfect setup, i.e. a couple both with rather large incomes.
For others, being a FTB isn't that much of an issue, as parental help comes into play. Bit like a friend of mine, simply chose a house, and said "I'll have that one" and he had it. He was a FTB, but didn't have a penny to his name, but like his brother, his parents simply put a very large deposit down for him after he chose the house.
So depends which end of the spectrum you come from I guess. I'd guess most of those on that site are trying to do things by their own means.....as in the real world, a LOT of people have to do this.0 -
Let us not forget that this impacts on EVERYONE - there is a reason that FTBs are called the 'lifeblood of the market'. No FTBs = no-one at the bottom of the chains.
I blieve this may be a historcial veiwpoint and not considering the current market influences.
It seems easy to think that FTBers are the "lifeblood of the market" in an expanding market, however it was posted elsewhere that the restriction in supply has meant that the typical properties previously bought by FTBers are being bought be downsizers
http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/media/press/2571
This CML link for January, in which FTBers were attributed to be lower due to the stamp duty re-introduction shows that there were 11,300 loans to FTBers out of 32,000 loans for house purchase loans.
This reflects 35.3% of the market in January.
Given the above information, it will be interesting to see the impact on the removal of stamp duty up to £250,000 for FTBers
:wall:
What we've got here is....... failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach.
:wall:0 -
Personally, I am glad that the government are helping FTBs out by eliminating stamp duty. Its already resulted in a nice little jump in viewings according to an EA mate of mine from the golf club0
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Graham_Devon wrote: »I'm guessing that the generation they are talking about are those who are trying to do things by their own means. This is pretty darn hard, if not impossible in some cases, unless you have the perfect setup, i.e. a couple both with rather large incomes.
For others, being a FTB isn't that much of an issue, as parental help comes into play. Bit like a friend of mine, simply chose a house, and said "I'll have that one" and he had it. He was a FTB, but didn't have a penny to his name, but like his brother, his parents simply put a very large deposit down for him after he chose the house.
So depends which end of the spectrum you come from I guess. I'd guess most of those on that site are trying to do things by their own means.....as in the real world, a LOT of people have to do this.
I again think you are looking at this from your own local location rather than as the UK wide spectrum.
I can understand that your area may be difficult, however there are a lot of areas in the UK where this is now the case and people can do it on their own.
As for parents helping out their children, what parent will not help out where they can?
This however does not resolve the root cause of why house prices are high in your area, if anything it contributes to it by keeping the demand higher than it possibly would be otherwise.
It getting a bit like a broken record saying this, but to resolve the perceived house price issue, you have to resolve the supply and demand ratio:wall:
What we've got here is....... failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach.
:wall:0 -
It's only as I've been getting my head round this that I've learnt what tenants' rights used to be. At first I was incredulous - how could anyone think it was fair to give LLs so little right to decide what to do with a property they owned? But obviously there was a time when those ideas seemed reasonable to lots of people, or it wouldn't have made it onto the statute book. not recommending a return to those rules - I still think they are ridiculous, actually. But they have made me question whether the acceptability of the current AST system is as self-evident as I had assumed it was. Also, I think it is clear that any significant swing in the balance of advantages towards the tenant and away from the landlord would probably bring HP down and open up the possibility of owning a house to a lot more people - which would be a good thing, IMO.
What do people think?
You my wish to read this because it was the catalyst for legislation.
Peter Rachman became known as Britain’s most notorious landlord. He acquired many slum properties in the north London suburbs, particularly around the Notting Hill area, which in the 50s and 60s did not have the hip and trendy image portrayed today. His policy was to acquire tenanted buildings. He used violence to evict sitting tenants so he could fill squalid properties with immigrant families from the West Indies who, without anywhere else to go, were crammed into tiny flats at extortionate rents because of the colour bar, which prevented them from renting anywhere else
Rachman’s name is so synonymous with bad housing that is included in English dictionaries: Rachmanism: ’Landlords buying up slums to fill with immigrants at extortionate rents; named after Peter Rachman, a notorious racketeering landlord in Notting Hill in the 1950s and 1960s’.
http://notting-hill.london.myvillage.com/article/peter-rachman'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
nollag2006 wrote: »Personally, I am glad that the government are helping FTBs out by eliminating stamp duty. Its already resulted in a nice little jump in viewings according to an EA mate of mine from the golf club
It'd be alot more help to FTBers if house prices were half what they are now. With BTL concessions the government is favouring worthless speculators over hard-working tax-paying people.0
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