Private landlords cash in on housing scandal

mayonnaise

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I'm struggling to find the recent post I made referencing that social housing should be made on a small footprint i.e. skyscraper's to increase efficiency and promote those that can afford to move on.
I wonder if the thread was deleted.

Here you go mate

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64288565&postcount=78

purch

I have never posted that you personally or any BTL LL would not support social housing.

My post referred to it receiving little support on this board.

Unless you are all the usernames on this board. :eek:

IveSeenTheLight

purch wrote: »

I have never posted that you personally or any BTL LL would not support social housing.

My post referred to it receiving little support on this board.

Unless you are all the usernames on this board. :eek:

Ok, ok, so you are being pedantic about how your post was unquantifiable.
Sheesh, don't get your knickers in a twist.

I'll run a poll. (First attempt)

JencParker

N1AK wrote: »

However you look at it, and I agree that subsidy isn't technically correct in this case, it makes no sense. If the government stopped offering below market rents on council housing then the additional revenue from people who earn enough not to need housing benefit could be used to build more houses, pay for more A&E staff etc.

What, like they did with the money they received from selling off council houses under right to buy, you mean?!!!

The reality is that market forces in both the property and job market require that more low cost housing is needed or rentals at market rates needs to be subsidised. There are many different ways of doing it, but I think the current model in both the private and council housing sector is wrong. I am happy to have the tax that I pay (and work hard for) to help those in need and the less advantaged, however, I don't want it going to make profits for BTL landlords whose sole motivation is making money for themselves. Neither do I see why someone should have low rent when they achieve high salaries, or that they can pass this privilege from generation to generation. However, I find it unacceptable that in a so called civilised society those on the lowest incomes, and often the most vulnerable, are the ones that are providing the profits for the more wealthy on something that is a basic requirement and not a choice.
In addition, I find it grossly unfair that those who have the least cannot enjoy the security of tenure that those better off home owners do. I have lived in the same house for 25 years. I cannot imagine the distress of having to move every year while raising a family.

Loughton_Monkey

JencParker wrote: »

.....If that property costs £121 and is rented for £121 then how is that subsidising it? For a start, from reading this board, landlords expect a profit of around 7-8% on their property, so you can wipe that amount off the cost in the first place.

On that basis, would you advocate that when two councils merged, and one town hall was surplus to requirements, that they should sell it for £3,300 because that's what it cost in 1879 when it was built?

Most of us expect councils and all public bodies to make efficient use of assets and if the 'market' rent is £212 than that should be the amount up for discussion [with or without the irrelevant 7% profit margins, which is incidental].

JencParker wrote: »

..While it may be a capitalist concept it is not a humanitarian or social one. It's a sad state of affairs that we live in a world where capitalism and profit take precedence over any other considerations. We may have made strides with technological progress but in humanitarian values, we are still very puny!

If you read what I and others are tending to say, it has nothing to do with 'humanitarianism'. This is because we are talking about subsidising people for ever based upon a fleeting moment of 'need', or even inheritance.

I am personally a good case in point. Raised in a council house, I went to university, got married, and never returned there to 'live'. Just imagine, for one moment, my first job had been in or near the village in which I was born. I could easily have found myself living in my dad's council house. He died a few years later. It would have passed on to me.

Leaving aside that I could have bought it, imagine I rented it. That would have been well over 30 years ago. Before I early retired (on a 6-figure salary) I could still have been renting that house at quite a low rent. It's not a bad house in any way.

I cannot believe why you would think that removing a significant subsidy to me would be "humane". It would be laughably stupid and an insult to the correct use of public funds. As would [incidentally] allowing me to buy it for half its market value so that I could extend it, live in it a few years, and then make oodles of money as a BTL landlord or just by taking the profit and selling it.

Many people qualify for some type of benefits when young. Over a 40 year career, one would expect a lot of these to become considerably wealthy. Why do you continue to support a significant subsidy for life based upon a personal financial state as one single point in one's early life?

purch

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

On that basis, would you advocate that when two councils merged, and one town hall was surplus to requirements, that they should sell it for £3,300 because that's what it cost in 1879 when it was built?

Most councillors would consider that good business (dependant on the size of the brown envelope)

JencParker

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

On that basis, would you advocate that when two councils merged, and one town hall was surplus to requirements, that they should sell it for £3,300 because that's what it cost in 1879 when it was built?

Most of us expect councils and all public bodies to make efficient use of assets and if the 'market' rent is £212 than that should be the amount up for discussion [with or without the irrelevant 7% profit margins, which is incidental].



If you read what I and others are tending to say, it has nothing to do with 'humanitarianism'.

Of course it doesn't because most on here do not consider the human factor, only the financial one.

This is because we are talking about subsidising people for ever based upon a fleeting moment of 'need', or even inheritance.

I am personally a good case in point. Raised in a council house, I went to university, got married, and never returned there to 'live'. Just imagine, for one moment, my first job had been in or near the village in which I was born. I could easily have found myself living in my dad's council house. He died a few years later. It would have passed on to me.

Leaving aside that I could have bought it, imagine I rented it. That would have been well over 30 years ago. Before I early retired (on a 6-figure salary) I could still have been renting that house at quite a low rent. It's not a bad house in any way.

I cannot believe why you would think that removing a significant subsidy to me would be "humane". It would be laughably stupid and an insult to the correct use of public funds. As would [incidentally] allowing me to buy it for half its market value so that I could extend it, live in it a few years, and then make oodles of money as a BTL landlord or just by taking the profit and selling it.

Many people qualify for some type of benefits when young. Over a 40 year career, one would expect a lot of these to become considerably wealthy. Why do you continue to support a significant subsidy for life based upon a personal financial state as one single point in one's early life?

I have never said I agree with the existing policy regarding social housing. To start with, I don't agree that council houses should be passed down from generation to generation, nor do I agree with the right to buy selling at significant discount and neither have I said that I support that a significant subsidy for life should be maintained just because they once qualified for it.

gazter

cepheus wrote: »

Loughton do you need to declare an interest just like the Tory MPs who bought up these flats as they became available on the private market? It's a tragedy that councils were not allowed to spend the cash on building more homes. This ensured that the private sector would make big profits out of this.

"councils were not allowed to spend cash on building more homes"

This is not true. A council could use the right to buy proceeds to build as many houses as they wished once their housing debts were cleared.

Graham_Devon

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Most of us expect councils and all public bodies to make efficient use of assets and if the 'market' rent is £212 than that should be the amount up for discussion [with or without the irrelevant 7% profit margins, which is incidental].

Efficiency is more than just money, to some at least.

I believe it's more efficient to house a family in a state built and owned house, than it is to give ever increasing amounts of housing benefits to private landlords.

On this thread, people keep assuming that market rent in the private sector is the "correct" rent. But remove £26bn worth of housing benefit each year, and market rents will drop off a cliff.

Council housing is a different service to private rental, essentially, and therefore the it's difficult to assume the cost of one is the correct cost for the other.

Secondly, I just cannot, for the life of me, figure out why all those who bang the drum of "it's cheaper to own than rent, you will pay rent forever" instantly turn their own argument on it's head and claim that it's much better to pay rent to landlords than build social housing.

It's outright hypocrisy in the name of protecting ones interest.

grizzly1911

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

IIRC, part of the reason to sell off social housing stock was that the government did not have the funds to maintain the social housing, thus the rents received (and covering those not paying for council house from personal funds) was because the rents received were insufficient.

Wasn't it simply used to keep the plates spinning and allow spending on other necessary things for which there was no government funds available?