"Rent Freedom Day"

thequant

If you rent from a private landlord, you’re probably under pressure. You spend on average two days wages every week on rent, you have a one in three chance of living in squalor and "you have very little protection if the landlord wants their property back.

The good news is you’re in good company. There are now ten million private renters in Britain and for the first time we have enough votes to decide the next election. Politicians can no longer ignore us.

That’s why on Wednesday 4th February, Generation Rent is hosting Rent Freedom Day. A day for ordinary private renters and their allies to hammer home the message to Westminster – that we are angry, organised and ready to evict any MP who doesn’t tackle the serious issues facing private renters today."

http://www.rentfreedomday.org/


The great unwashed think they can swing the election result

ruggedtoast

It must be hard being a short termist venal politician. No sooner do they guarantee that the Boomers are in bed with them thanks to a manufactured housing shortage and a generous raft of unaffordable state benefits the country cannot afford, when all the people who have been shafted by this get uppity and start demanding things for themselves.

God speed these renters. I hope someone in Whitehall can be made to listen, even if by now it is far too obvious that none of them can be made to care.

hpifever

thequant wrote: »

The great unwashed think they can swing the election result

This is why we need to regulate btl because of parasites like this.

PasturesNew

A proper Rent Free Day would see every renter across the country reducing their monthly rent by one day's amount. Just the once. Not enough for a S8, but enough of a chill...

Generali

This is one of the things that makes BTL a risky proposition IMO. It is very vulnerable to changes in Government policy.

The more people rent, the more likely that the Government is going to do something stupid like introduce rent controls.

Unfortunately for the OP, everyone gets a vote, not just the middle classes. If the 'great unwashed' want something enough then they'll get it.

michaels

Rent controls just being a different and more arbitrary means of rationing limited supply, with the added benefit of reducing supply / stopping supply from increasing because suppliers potential returns are restricted - great news for those with a rented property who never want to move, bad news for anyone else who ever wants to rent.

Luckily the consequences of a populist policy do not matter at all to those who champion it.

(For example why are gas prices not falling with wholesale prices? That would be because after the election there is a good chance that a 2 year price freeze will be imposed and suppliers can not risk being bankrupted by having current low prices locked in. Thanks Ed and Ed for making gas prices higher than they would otherwise have been )

tkane

Generali wrote: »

This is one of the things that makes BTL a risky proposition IMO. It is very vulnerable to changes in Government policy.

The more people rent, the more likely that the Government is going to do something stupid like introduce rent controls.

Unfortunately for the OP, everyone gets a vote, not just the middle classes. If the 'great unwashed' want something enough then they'll get it.

But a third of our MP's are BTLers, they're not going to do anything which is against their own interests

Generali

tkane wrote: »

But a third of our MP's our BTLers, they're not going to do anything which is against their own interests

Maybe, we'll see.

As the number of renters increases so will the shrill voice that 'something must be done'. They're right although I strongly suspect that the wrong thing will be done.

PasturesNew

One of my old online friends lived in a Rent Control flat in New York. He was paying about $450/month for it - but new entrants were paying about $1000. He also had the right to sublet, it's quite common there for rent control flats to be rented out at much higher prices.

There are annual increases written into the deal.

As I see it, if the LL could make a profit when he moved in, then they can still make a profit from his rent in 10 years' time. A LL buying a flat 5-10 years later will have paid a higher price, so the new rental charge reflects that.

There's been too much releasing equity in BTL, to stick down on another one, then up the rents to pay for it all in this country imho.

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

One of my old online friends lived in a Rent Control flat in New York. He was paying about $450/month for it - but new entrants were paying about $1000. He also had the right to sublet, it's quite common there for rent control flats to be rented out at much higher prices.

There are annual increases written into the deal.

As I see it, if the LL could make a profit when he moved in, then they can still make a profit from his rent in 10 years' time. A LL buying a flat 5-10 years later will have paid a higher price, so the new rental charge reflects that.

There's been too much releasing equity in BTL, to stick down on another one, then up the rents to pay for it all in this country imho.

Fundamentally, the problem the UK housing market has is too few houses. A problem of a shortage isn't going to be solved by rent controls.

Let builders build and prices will come down to more affordable levels.

ruggedtoast

Renters have been made to feel like third class citizens for too long.

They are angry and change is coming.