Labour plans longer tenancies and rent control

KnightSmile

Paypeanuts wrote: »

If they could afford to buy their own house, why would they be looking to rent instead?

The point is not that actual house numbers will be reduced but the rented market supply will reduce?

if the rented market supply will reduce and the actual house numbers will remain the same then surely that means the proportion of home buyers looking to live in the property will increase?

Why is this a bad thing?

Running_Horse

Don't control rents.

Reduce the amount of taxpayers money used to subsidise the BTL industry.

Failing that, increase their taxes.

Generali

Better to solve the problem of too few houses by building more houses rather than distorting the market still further IMHO.

chewmylegoff

BobQ wrote: »

On the other had a good tenant signed up for three years with a reasonable mechanism to increase rent and a means of termination to sell is not that bad.

I imagine letting agents prevented from charging renewal fees will start charging for something else.

They will just charge landlords higher fees instead. I wonder who landlords will recover those costs from.

princeofpounds

Longer security of tenure is a good and necessary idea.

Controls on arbitrary fees is a good and necessary idea.

Rent caps are pointless or damaging depending on how they are implemented.

Agree with Generali that it still doesn't fix the structural problem in this country that it is far too hard to create accommodation.

Making BTL renting harder does not reduce the supply of accommodation unless you think many more properties will simply stand vacant. There is no motivation for a BTL landlord to have a vacant property as they are buying largely for that financial yield. What it does is decrease the implicit yield for landlords, reducing the marginal price at which they are incentivised to out-compete buyers who intend to occupy.

Encouraging BTL would only help build properties of the problem was a shortage of equity financing. Given the prices of houses, that is clearly not the problem these days and it hasn't been since the early 90s perhaps.

chewmylegoff

It appears that landlords will be able to get the tenant out if they want to sell or if they want the property for their own use. I'm sure those clauses wouldn't be abused and that the courts would effectively punish landlords who did abuse them.

Or not...

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

Councils already have a mechanism in place to administer existing mandated rents. They'd just need to expand that.

I said that this was a risk. It's such a big target and 'free'.

I think that (I would need to see all the details) I could live with this proposed scheme, especially the bit that allows landlords to evict if they want to sell the property, so you are not trapped in the market. Our tenants tend to stay for 3 or more years anyway. What would concern me though, is this the thin end of the wedge, with more to come.

Conrad

As ever the detail has been missed. Lenders do not allow longer than 12 months on an AST, as they need to be able to repossess in the event of default.

Secondly, ever since FSA lending was tightened in 2008 I've been on here and onto my MP about how this would cast would be buyers into the sickly embrace of us LLs.


I cannot believe the Guardian now refer to Ed as the saviour, it was his lot that took a sledge hammer to crack a nut.


Sure we have a few less repossessions but at what cost to would be buyers?

chucknorris

Conrad wrote: »

As ever the detail has been missed. Lenders do not allow longer than 12 months on an AST, as they need to be able to repossess in the event of default.

I was wondering about that, a lender would have to take a hit on the price if they repossessed and could only sell to an investor due to the property being tied into a tenancy for a couple of years.

wymondham

3 years is still pretty short though isn't it? What is it on the continent?