Not a time to be a buy-to-let landlord

JackLeach

Conrad wrote: »

A Landlord is akin to the person that kills and butchers their own meat, rather than leaving the dirty work to a third party. Those with equity investments leave the dirty work to a third party.

How the worm has turned, it seems everybody is against the greedy landlords after the term was said in parliament

The trend is clear for all to see, more taxs and harder life for greedy LLs, and more rights and help for the poor tenants who now outnumber the LL's and votes is all that matters to these people.......

mwpt

westernpromise wrote: »

Osborne’s changes have made entry to this market uneconomic

I doubt that, and even if he has, it's not uneconomic because of the taxes, it is uneconomic because asset (home) prices are too high. This phrase seems to be a blasphemy in most of England, and especially here at this forum.

mwpt

wotsthat wrote: »

If you want to employ capital and 'farm' the labour of your tenants it's not much different to employing the capital by buying shares and farming the labour of the employees. I've got shares in BT - good luck finding me up a telegraph pole.

Companies don't exist to enrich our lives - their sole aim is to make a return for the owners by supplying goods and services people want to buy.

The only difference is the tenuous 'houses are different' moral argument clumsily applied.

Companies achieve progress in technology and means of production. Our lives are enriched by their economic activities. We don't need to anthropomorphise the argument. Investing in this for a return is so obviously different to commandeering a scarce resource and renting it back. That you do not see a difference doesn't make one of us better than the other but it does show that our view of the world is not aligned.

cells

mwpt wrote: »

Companies achieve progress in technology and means of production. Our lives are enriched by their economic activities. We don't need to anthropomorphise the argument. Investing in this for a return is so obviously different to commandeering a scarce resource and renting it back. That you do not see a difference doesn't make one of us better than the other but it does show that our view of the world is not aligned.

Everything is capital that we rent out. Homes are capital that is rented out for money

Every business is capital that rents out its machines/staff/buildings/patents/IP via the products and services it makes

Even humans are capital that rent out their time for money

Overall about 70% of the economy is wages (aka human capital) while the other 30% is capital (stored human capital)

wotsthat

mwpt wrote: »

Companies achieve progress in technology and means of production. Our lives are enriched by their economic activities. We don't need to anthropomorphise the argument. Investing in this for a return is so obviously different to commandeering a scarce resource and renting it back. That you do not see a difference doesn't make one of us better than the other but it does show that our view of the world is not aligned.

If our lives are enriched by their economic activity that's a happy by-product.

You don't believe your own arguments to be honest because you've already highlighted tobacco and arms. I think tobacco has been a blight on mankind and, despite the nice yields, I won't invest in it. You can if you like and I won't be questioning your morals but simply realise that our morals are different and mine don't trump yours.

mwpt

There are degrees of things and my view is that borrow to let landlords have had an easy ride in a relative non productive investment for quite some time. I would prefer capital be allocated to what I perceive as better places for it, leaving ordinary people able to better afford their own homes. You guys don't see it that way and will not, so I'll drop it for now.

buglawton

According to this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/buy-to-let/11660188/Buy-to-let-tycoon-Fergus-Wilson-I-sold-50-Ashford-semis-to-a-Chinese-estate-agent.html
A job lot of 50 Kent BTL houses was sold to a group of Chinese buyers. The same couple plan to sell the rest (another 900) off to foreign consortia.

Disappointing that the Osborne chose to target small BTL investors. The above seems to show that more BTL incomes will be flowing abroad in future. With much less tax being raised inside the UK that way. Unintended consequences, eh?

MFW_ASAP

Landlords are history's greatest monsters

BananaRepublic

BTL has a serious downside. By competing with others it pushes house prices up, forcing many to rent and never own. A home is the most efficient way to save money. Those who rent will on retirement probably have modest savings, and require state benefits to pay their rent for the rest of their lives. Owner occupiers on retirement will have a huge fund, and can downsize to release capital, or stay put without paying rent. I have nothing against landlords but why oh why should we give them generous tax benefits, which allows them to avoid paying huge sums of money, whilst encouraging dependency, and significantly increasing the benefits bill?

The idea that BTL is akin to a business is spurious.

But we need more housing stock, lots of small but decent flats would solve many problems, and interest free loans for coppers, nurses etc.

buglawton

Due to soaring house prices in the SE (I moved from the North 15 years ago) I have never been able to pay down my mortgage and gone interest only. Been effectively renting half of it from the building society, albeit with improving equity due again to those increasingly soaring prices. No scope to downsize though as anything I could downsize to keeps rising too.

So those who think that all people with their names on the Land Registry have it all sorted for retirement, had better check their facts first.