Rent prices rise for ninth month in a row

Cleaver

Generali wrote: »

If prices rise and your income doesn't then you don't think, "Oooh, inflation is at 4.5%", you think, "Hell, bananas are up 10%" or "Best have a pint rather than a glass of wine at these prices". What happens is that your lifestyle slowly gets squeezed.

Indeed. I think that's why economics is a bit of a frustrating subject as well as quite fascinating. It's basically millions of people, all doing invididual things and making individual decisions, which you have to sum up in a simple way. Difficult.

Generali wrote: »

I was a tutor, not a lecturer. I'm not qualified to lecture.

I've often wondered whether any of the lecturers I had at Uni were ever qualified to lecture. A lot of them knew their subject inside and out but couldn't engage the class for toffee.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

depending on whether you believe a bunch of landlords or a bunch of statisticians. .

Do you know how RPI calculates rent? Does it include only private rentals or does it include council houses and housing association rents too?

Also, LSL sponsor the Acadametrics house price index. Do you know if Acadametrics also do their rental index, or is it done in-house?

And finally, LSL presumably only report on the price of rent for new lettings, is this also the case for RPI or do you think they include existing lets where leases were signed at a level lower than the market rent today would be?

It is entirely possible that there is no discrepancy, if they are reporting two different things..... The average rent including existing leases, versus the average rent for new leases only.

Cleaver

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Do you know how RPI calculates rent? Does it include only private rentals or does it include council houses and housing association rents too?

Also, LSL sponsor the Acadametrics house price index. Do you know if Acadametrics also do their rental index, or is it done in-house?

And finally, LSL presumably only report on the price of rent for new lettings, is this also the case for RPI or do you think they include existing lets where leases were signed at a level lower than the market rent today would be?

I think I speak for us all when I say that these questions are obviously on the lips of pretty much 99% of the general public out there.

Generali

Cleaver wrote: »

Indeed. I think that's why economics is a bit of a frustrating subject as well as quite fascinating. It's basically millions of people, all doing invididual things and making individual decisions, which you have to sum up in a simple way. Difficult.

In that way, Thatcher was right when she said, "There is no such thing as society. There are individuals and families and something or other...."

Lots of proper economists (not amateurs like me) seem to forget that the economy is just a sum of each individual decision.

Cleaver wrote: »

I've often wondered whether any of the lecturers I had at Uni were ever qualified to lecture. A lot of them knew their subject inside and out but couldn't engage the class for toffee.

The minimum qualification to lecture is having a Masters. In reality though, these days you need to be nearing the end of your PhD.

RenovationMan

Blacklight wrote: »

You've been trolled mate. There's a lot of them about. Typical signs include an offensive signature removed by the forum mods and 95% of posts thanked by rewired.

Why would people lie on these forums, what's the point? They just end up making fools of themselves when there found out. Its pretty depressing when you think of how dull their lives must be if they have to create an alternate 'successful' life on a forum.

I can understand now why the details of my signature was first questioned when I started posting on this board, in fact I was called an outright liar by one person, hence why I posted scans of my mortgage statements on my MFW blog. No wonder though, they must have been fatigued by all the lying that seems to go on in here.

As I said, its really depressing that people feel they have to lie in order to 'fit it' or to push their argument or to make themselves feel superior. What a crappy world we live in

IveSeenTheLight

Generali wrote: »

So in other words rents, after adjusting for inflation, are either flat or falling depending on whether you believe a bunch of landlords or a bunch of statisticians.

I increased the rent on one of my properties this year.
The other I've maintained yet again as I have had 4 good years from this tenants and am keen to maintain their no rent increases.

So while you infer that "real term" rents are just stagnating the important thing to factor in is the rent against the debt.

The debt is secured and not likely to be increasing, therefore any rent increase, increases the yield against the secured debt.

Add to that the benefits of low interests at the moment and rental income is well up in "real terms"

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Do you know how RPI calculates rent? Does it include only private rentals or does it include council houses and housing association rents too?

All rents will be included in that figure on a weighted basis. Eg if 10% of people renting live in council houses, 20% live in HA and 70% in private rentals, the change in the rental index would be:

(0.1 x change in council rents) + (0.2 x change in HA rents) + (0.7 x change in private rents)

It's a little more complex than that but that's the basics. The RPI uses current rents.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Also, LSL sponsor the Acadametrics house price index. Do you know if Acadametrics also do their rental index, or is it done in-house?

And finally, LSL presumably only report on the price of rent for new lettings, is this also the case for RPI or do you think they include existing lets where leases were signed at a level lower than the market rent today would be?

I have no idea who does the LSL rental index. LSL is pretty coy and Acadametrics don't list the rental index, only the house prices index.

My guess would be that LSL only measure private rents as I can't see why they'd measure the others.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

My guess would be that LSL only measure private rents as I can't see why they'd measure the others.

So it's entirely possible that there is no discrepancy, if they are reporting two different things.....

The average rent including existing leases and including council and private rented, versus the average rent for new private rented leases only.

If RPI find their average via survey, for example, it will include all existing leases at lower amounts. Just as if you did the same thing for owners, it would find the average is skewed down by those who bought at a lower price in the past.

However that doesn't tell us what it would cost to rent a house today. The LSL index presumably does....

Just as the house price indices do the same.

Including historical data doesn't seem a rational way of measuring the state of the market today.

So I would argue LSL is more relevant than RPI if you're trying to establish current market rents, and debate the trend.

abaxas

Generali wrote: »

The minimum qualification to lecture is having a Masters. In reality though, these days you need to be nearing the end of your PhD.

Ermmm,

So you don't need any qualifications to be a lecturer? Ie a uni can 'give' you a masters and you're ready to go?

Cleaver

abaxas wrote: »

Ermmm,

So you don't need any qualifications to be a lecturer? Ie a uni can 'give' you a masters and you're ready to go?

I believe Generali said 'minimum'. I guess like any job there will be an appointment process to check that you can do the job, and most people aren't 'given' MAs, they work for them.