BTL'ers are not evil are they??

wotsthat

Jason74 wrote: »

BTL landlords are in themselves simply doing the best for themselves that they can, and operating in an environment permitted by law. But in doing so, they are creating a significant and growing social problem. Do nothing, and the problem continues to grow. Act to intervene, and some fairly key principles around property rights are potentially impacted. In themselves, neither are desirable.

IMO there's a confusion between correlation and causation.

It seems to become clearer by the day that the cause of any problems is a fundamental lack of supply. There are many ways to make BTL a less attractive option - doesn't seem the most sensible thing to do when people are increasingly reliant on the private rented sector for their housing needs.

An increase in the ratio of houses to people is required. If planners stop requiring builders to pay bribes for planning permission and new home buyers aren't required to pay an unfair proportion towards social housing as well as their own place new builds will become a more attractive option.

ukcarper

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

The horse has bolted now, but it should never have been allowed for buy to let purchasers to compete with people wanting and able to buy a home to live in. Years of this free market housing has partly lead to pressure pushing prices higher. It has now got to the stage where many people cannot buy a home to live in due to house price increases much higher than wage increases.

The amount of housing stock needed for renting? When people don't buy a house to live in it then it is needed for renting, or not needed at all. I'll mention again, the housing market should never have been allowed to be a free market commodity, it is partly due to the competition between buy to let and buy to live over many years that has pumped the housing market to very high level it is now, and we can't allow it to rise above wage increases.

In the interest of slowing house increases and allowing people to buy their home for social prosperity, houses should not be available for buy to let when they are first put on the market, and only opened for buy to let after a set period of time, maybe 3mths.

If you check my posts I have never claimed to know everything, I am here to debate, but unfortunately I have only recently realised who I am mainly engaging with on here... and most people on the forum are buy to let landlords! Strangely.... Those who are not buy to let landlords, tend to agree with me.

The idea above might be one that allows the landlord'ism to continue, but at a much more controlled and less socially devisive level.

I'm not a BTL landlord and I don't agree with you BTL is not the evil thing you paint it to be. With the demise of social housing (which I agree is a bad thing) no one other than BTL landlords have entered the property rental business although there has been nothing preventing others to do so, if they did that in itself would make BTL less attractive but I see no sign of that happening. Although BTL has an effect on HPI it is not as great as people imply prices have boomed in the past without BTL and with higher levels of social housing. The only real solution is to build more houses and make mortgages with reasonable deposits available to those who want to buy them, I think you will find that a lot of people who agree with you would be against that.

LydiaJ

chucky wrote: »

You are totally right.

People are buying property close to good schools and close to good transport links this means that house prices will increase.

If you're against house prices increasing you are against children getting a good education at good schools and people living close to good transport links.

There are too many factors influencing house price increases to point the finger at one or two factors. Most frothers on here can't see it unfortunately.

You appear to be replying as if Jason and others and I have said that BTL is bad for society solely because it pushes house prices up. In fact, none of us has said anything like that. It is the growth in the number of people who are living long term in privately rented accommodation that is the problem.

Privately rented accommodation is expensive indefinitely, social housing is cheap indefinitely, and owner-occupied housing is expensive until you've paid it off, and then it's free.

Privately rented accommodation gives appalling lack of security of tenure. Owning and social housing give permanence for as long as you want it.

Privately rented housing places restrictions on redecorating, owning pets, putting up pictures etc. Owning and social housing don't usually.

Privately rented housing usually subjects tenants to having their home inspected every 3-4 months, which is intrusive, and to many people inconvenient. Owning doesn't. Afraid I've no idea about social housing in this regard.

In short, private renting is great if you're a student or a young adult not ready to settle down yet, or if you've moved to a new area and want to get to know the place before deciding where to buy, etc etc. Basically, it can be an excellent option in the short term. Private renting for life, OTOH, is the worst option on every point I've listed, and frankly it sucks.

I don't really care what house prices do, as such. Whatever they do won't make much difference to the number of households who have homes to live in - only building more houses can do that. I do have serious misgivings about the effect on society of more and more people living long term with the disadvantages that I have described.

So your comparison with good schools and transport links, which push up prices within the catchment while depressing them a bit outside the catchment, is quite irrelevant. Good schools and transport links do not leave people in the kind of predicament I have outlined.

Jason74

Thanks Lydia, you've saved me having to do a long post to address Chucky's vey fair points. You've put it in a far better and less boring way than me too :-)

CLAPTON

LydiaJ wrote: »

You appear to be replying as if Jason and others and I have said the BTL is bad for society solely because it pushes house prices up. In fact, none of us has said anything like that. It is the growth in the number of people who are living long term in privately rented accommodation that is the problem.

Privately rented accommodation is expensive indefinitely, social housing is cheap indefinitely, and owner-occupied housing is expensive until you've paid it off, and then it's free.

Privately rented accommodation gives appalling lack of security of tenure. Owning and social housing give permanence for as long as you want it.

Privately rented housing places restrictions on redecorating, owning pets, putting up pictures etc. Owning and social housing don't usually.

Privately rented housing usually subjects tenants to having their home inspected every 3-4 months, which is intrusive, and to many people inconvenient. Owning doesn't. Afraid I've no idea about social housing in this regard.

In short, private renting is great if you're a student or a young adult not ready to settle down yet, or if you've moved to a new area and want to get to know the place before deciding where to buy, etc etc. Basically, it can be an excellent option in the short term. Private renting for life, OTOH, is the worst option on every point I've listed, and frankly it sucks.

I don't really care what house prices do, as such. Whatever they do won't make much difference to the number of households who have homes to live in - only building more houses can do that. I do have serious misgivings about the effect on society of more and more people living long term with the disadvantages that I have described.

So your comparison with good schools and transport links, which push up prices within the catchment while depressing them a bit outside the catchment, is quite irrelevant. Good schools and transport links do not leave people in the kind of predicament I have outlined.

It does seem that except for a couple of odd posters most of us agree that the solution to the shortage of housing is to build more.


There seems less agreement about the role that small landlords should play before the nirvana of 100% owner occupation/social housing is reached.


However, if anyone knows I would be interested to know

-what is the growth in long term private renting?

-do private rental companies restrict pet ownership or redecorating?

-do social housing providers allow keeping of pets and decorating


presumably the real problem with long term renting is (relative) poverty?
so is it sufficient to build more houses? will that enable the poor to ever buy a house.
perhaps the solution is to give a house to people who have rented for say 25 years?

LydiaJ

CLAPTON wrote: »

It does seem that except for a couple of odd posters most of us agree that the solution to the shortage of housing is to build more.

There seems less agreement about the role that small landlords should play before the nirvana of 100% owner occupation/social housing is reached.

However, if anyone knows I would be interested to know

-what is the growth in long term private renting?

-do private rental companies restrict pet ownership or redecorating?

-do social housing providers allow keeping of pets and decorating

presumably the real problem with long term renting is (relative) poverty?
so is it sufficient to build more houses? will that enable the poor to ever buy a house.
perhaps the solution is to give a house to people who have rented for say 25 years?

I agree - the answers to those questions would be very interesting. I only have a little information, and most of it's anecdotal, but FWIW here it is:

1) The graph suggests that private renting increased by about 60-70% between 2000 and 2010. It's unlikely that that could happen without a significant increase in average length of time in private rented before buying or getting a council property, but we don't know how many of those renters are long term ones, though, or how long they are renting for. In fact, they may not know themselves yet. Some of them may have hopes to buy in the next few years that won't actually materialise. Others may be like I was - seeing no way of being able to buy for decades, and then having a change of circumstance out of the blue and being able to own outright.

2) Letting agents usually have "no pets" in their standard contract. If you insist that they ask the actual landlord whether they mind, a minority of landlords will agree, usually (and reasonably) asking for an increased deposit and extra clauses about cleaning when vacating the property.

3) The council where I live advertises social housing on a website with little symbols for pets allowed and pets not allowed. Most allow pets, but a significant minority don't. Other councils may vary, of course.

CLAPTON

LydiaJ wrote: »

I agree - the answers to those questions would be very interesting. I only have a little information, and most of it's anecdotal, but FWIW here it is:

1) The graph suggests that private renting increased by about 60-70% between 2000 and 2010. It's unlikely that that could happen without a significant increase in average length of time in private rented before buying or getting a council property, but we don't know how many of those renters are long term ones, though, or how long they are renting for. In fact, they may not know themselves yet. Some of them may have hopes to buy in the next few years that won't actually materialise. Others may be like I was - seeing no way of being able to buy for decades, and then having a change of circumstance out of the blue and being able to own outright.

2) Letting agents usually have "no pets" in their standard contract. If you insist that they ask the actual landlord whether they mind, a minority of landlords will agree, usually (and reasonably) asking for an increased deposit and extra clauses about cleaning when vacating the property.

3) The council where I live advertises social housing on a website with little symbols for pets allowed and pets not allowed. Most allow pets, but a significant minority don't. Other councils may vary, of course.

interesting points

of course the period 2000 - 2010 was a period of unprecendated
immigration, of mainly young people with an extra million in London alone.
these would have been natural renters at least in the first few years of their stay in the UK

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

interesting points

of course the period 2000 - 2010 was a period of unprecendated
immigration, of mainly young people with an extra million in London alone.
these would have been natural renters at least in the first few years of their stay in the UK

Also the decline the crash and subsequent restriction on lending had an impact on home ownership.


Some interesting reading here http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/a-century-of-home-ownership-and-renting-in-england-and-wales/short-story-on-housing.html it looks like private renting overtook social in 2011.

TickersPlaysPop

CLAPTON wrote: »

It does seem that except for a couple of odd posters most of us agree that the solution to the shortage of housing is to build more.

There seems less agreement about the role that small landlords should play before the nirvana of 100% owner occupation/social housing is

presumably the real problem with long term renting is (relative) poverty?
so is it sufficient to build more houses? will that enable the poor to ever buy a house.
perhaps the solution is to give a house to people who have rented for say 25 years?

I respect everybody on here and my posts are for debate, as the sign off on my posts says, "I'm here to learn"

I don't like to disagree, but I am trying to learn and validate my thoughts for my own sanity :-) .......

To me it seems that if more houses are built now, with buy to let buyers having an advantage over buy to live, BTL as an entity within the market will increase, it will push the house prices higher due to the demand from both types of buyer. I think we all agree it is not in the interests of our society for more and more people to be trapped in the private rent market?

The solution to this situation is surely not as simple as building more houses because that plays into the hands of BTL?

Surely there needs to be a change in the rules and regs to enable people that deserve, want and are able to buy a house to do so before it is snapped up by BTL buyers? Also, we don't want the housing market to increase yet further at the rate it is, it needs either a period of no change or slow growth at or just below wage increases?

The idea of having very long term rules and regs such as allowing people to buy the property after renting for 25 yrs makes me nervous. Rules and regs can be changed and I think a 'promise' such as that is too far away to be trusted? Example, look at pension reforms.

My ultimate fear..... if nothing is done about this situation now and the market increases beyond wage increases for many more yrs to come, we will be in an even worse state. In that future, not only will many more people be trapped in private renting, many will be trapped by very long term mortgages, example is japan where they have terrifying inter generational mortgages. In that scenario, it is only the banks that benefit and the power that they have over things in general, makes me wonder if this whole situation has been engineered by them over the yrs.

As I've said before, it has been reported that the banks have been starving the building sector of credit.

This all smells to me like social control, which sounds like a liberal lefty mad conspiratorial nut job comment lol but.... actions speak louder than words.... And what has been done over the yrs to do anything to acknowledge this is a problem by press or government? And has anything been done with law, rules or regs to stop it.... I think to the contrary.... With BTL incentivised so far?

TickersPlaysPop

.....and I'm not saying I want or think we need 100% owner occupiers.... I've never said that! Surely it is healthy and needed to have a certain % of private rental in the market, in some places more than others.... But it's a debatable % for sure!