First Time Buyers Hit By Record Rents

Generali

Road_Hog wrote: »

I too am a landlord.

What tenant that is living in rented accommodation is going to want to risk being evicted? Which is what happens when you stop paying the rent.

I think the idea is that enough tenants get together to stop paying rent that there is no longer a rental market so eviction becomes pointless too.

It seems pretty unlikely to me but then people vote in Labour Governments against all the available evidence so I guess anything is possible.

dtsazza

Generali wrote: »

I think the idea is that enough tenants get together to stop paying rent that there is no longer a rental market so eviction becomes pointless too.

I think that would only work for as long as the protesters were prepared to stay homeless.

As soon as they actually want to stay in a place - lo and behold, the demand for housing is back where it was previously, so landlords can price rents at the same levels.

It would undoubtedly cause a bit of disruption (and media coverage), but I don't think you can really "fool" market forces like that in the medium-long term. Either they're in or they're out, and the only way to cause rents to drop permanently would be to permanently remove themselves from the market.

Pimperne1

I was thinking that the Government might intervene. Perhaps they could have that old system where someone visits and determines a "fair" rent (although that might only be for DSS tenants).

I am certainly not proposing this, its just that irresponsible and greedy landlords could shoot themselves in the foot.

IveSeenTheLight

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

There are times when I miss the rolleyes smiley.

This would be one of them.;)

Use this one

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

..
A couple I used to know raised their kid for a couple of years in a 'bender' (a European yurt I guess) in the woods because he couldn't afford rent, didn't want to claim dole and didn't want a council house. Maybe that's the way forward.

I misread that as "blender" for a moment.

Now that would be a risky place to live.

Eton_Rifle

I'm a landlord in the UK but it's not me who is setting the rental amount - it's the tenants themselves.

I rent in the US and in my area, rental prices have boomed in the last few years. It's sobering to compare what the same money would have got you just three years ago.

I grit my teeth and try to console myself that it's because a further house price crash is coming so demand for rentals is abnormally high but I'm losing the faith ...

ruggedtoast

The sad thing is that there is no reason for there to be a housing shortage in the UK. A fraction of the sums spent bailing out banks and invading other countries could have been spent on regenerating and building housing stock.

It would have been the one act of profligate public spending that Gordon Brown could have prosecuted in his miserable tenure as Prime Minister that would have genuinely moved us towards a fairer and happier Britain. It would have created jobs, homes, communities, infrastructure, hope for people who despite buying into the system wholesale will never know anything other than 6 month ASTs, both parents working and top up benefit claims to try and make ends meet.

I would also challenge the assertion that nothing has happened, we have had students rioting, the inner cities looting and rioting, mass demonstrations elsewhere, and it is only going to get worse as the cuts bite.

There is one, fundamental thing, that capitalism must offer people if they are to buy into it and that is the certainty that they can accumulate a better standard of living by working harder.

The extraordinary lengths two successive governments have gone to to make property ownership the exclusive preserve of one ageing strata of society is a cancer that is eating away at this country.

At the very least tenancy laws must be amended, the AST is completely inadequate for anyone looking for a secure place to live.

Eton_Rifle

If the banking system had been allowed to fail, those riots would have been every day for every one of us ever since.

geneer

Pimperne1 wrote: »

As a landlord I take no satisfaction from this.

There is little that could crash the BtL market in my view but one thing which might would be a co-ordinated refusal to pay increases in rent for a protracted period. A small number of tenants couldn't swing this but a campaign by a large number of disaffected tenants could (and they would probably have widespread public support if landlords were seen to be profiteering).

Anyway, up for discussion.

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/first-time-buyers-hit-by-record-rents/6517296.article

Uh-oh. Rents are a few quid more than they were in summer 2008.


And the butcher tells us we should be buying sausages.

Eton_Rifle

For one house I'm getting £750 a month more than 2008
For another, it's £200 more.
The third is £25 up from last year.

Of course, maintenance costs and VAT have increased in that timeframe too ....