Why do people resent buy-to-letters so much?

mwpt

The article sums it up quite nicely I think. I try not to blame the player, I blame the game. So landlords should not take it personally but of course a lot of people do direct what should be anger at the system, at landlords. The article mentions IO mortgages but fails to mention gearing and rental cover as additional measures that allows landlords to outbid OOs. It also fails to mention means of repayment, in that a landlord can be for e.g. a pair of teachers (*) who lucked into the beginning of the HPI boom, geared massively and now can control 1000 houses getting rich off the rental, while a person of the same means can't buy just one.

(*) My partner is a teacher, so this isn't a go at teachers, I'm just using the disproportionate salary vs command of houses as an example.

But I do reserve some anger directly for landlords, and that is at the immoral ones. The ones who instead of viewing their properties as homes for people, instead use their tenants as military cover. They threaten mass evictions with the intention of dissuading government of the tax changes, in order that they may keep making more of a profit. That alone shows me that the lowest common denominator means we need to regulate the sector more.

[Deleted User]

Carl31 wrote: »

The other factor of course is the the fairly UK centric view that you HAVE to buy a house, else you have failed in life (generally spouted in this forum for example) - anything preventing this is obviously evil

I would have agreed with you until I've seen the experience of friends of ours - nearly 60 who have always rented (for all sorts of reasons). They are now paying out £700 pcm in rent for a flat whereas other friends who have bought their houses have mainly paid off their mortgages and are really feeling the benefit. Unless your income is so small that your rent is paid for you (via housing benefit) then it's going to continue to be a real drain on income. They're really panicking about it now.

chucknorris

mwpt wrote: »

(*) My partner is a teacher, so this isn't a go at teachers

Sorry for the change of subject. Has she purchased 'additional pension' in the TPS? I previously bought the maximum allowed a couple of years ago. But when I join the new scheme in 2020 (if I am still working, which I might be, because I withdrew my notice of taking early retirement this week) I can buy the maximum in the new scheme which is £6,500 (that is £6,500 of paid annual pension), which I fully intend to do. Have a look at it, IMO it is exceptionally good value.

Graham_Devon

As I said on another thread, this bit of the article summed it up for me...

But behind the economics, there is probably something more basic - our need for a home. And when someone appears to be exploiting that need, it causes widespread anger.

Anyone or anything using a shortage of any basic need for their own personal gain isn't going to be the most popular person around. As a BTL landlord himself on that article suggests, the behaviour of other BTL landlords exasperates him....and he's not the only one to have come forward and said that sort of thing. It simply got ruined by all out greed.

We've seen it before with water shortages where people sell water at £5 a bottle. The anger it causes leads to violence.

mwpt

michaels wrote: »

I would have thought food shops should generate much more hatred

And yet they don't. So the sensible thing to do is check your reasoning, rather than tell everyone they're wrong. When the Tories were voted in, a mass hysteria by the left on social media started saying all voters had been duped and were stupid, instead of perhaps doing some self reflection and asking why people wanted something they didn't.

Food shops provide food in abundance at reasonable prices.

Houses become increasingly unaffordable to regular people, while landlords are still able to buy and hoard them (I'm talking about the SE, where I live, I can't speak for up north).

mwpt

chucknorris wrote: »

Sorry for the change of subject. Has she purchased 'additional pension' in the TPS? I previously bought the maximum allowed a couple of years ago. But when I join the new scheme in 2020 (if I am still working, which I might be, because I withdrew my notice of taking early retirement this week) I can buy the maximum in the new scheme, which I fully intend to do. Have a look at it, IMO it is exceptionally good value.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll have a chat with her.

kinger101

Corona wrote: »

Perhaps because BTLs are in direct competition with those trying to buy their first house - as they often go for small, cheap, easy to rent and easy to maintain houses? Another demand just pushes prices up, so that first time buyers are often priced out of the market. I know someone in his 50's who has just bought a small terraced house for cash (and so outbid the first time buyer who also wanted it but couldn't top his price) and plans to let it out "for my pension". When I asked him why he didn't just invest the money, he pointed out that renting it out (even after putting money aside for maintenance, etc) would yield about 5% on the money; the most he could get my investing it would have been 2.5% so, over a number of years, the difference was huge, in terms of his retirement income. With final salary pensions disappearing and very low interest rates, it's not surprising that people are choosing this route rather than putting their money into pensions. Sad for first time buyers though.

The last property I rented was from someone who'd done just this (he had two or three properties I believe). I guess it looks good on paper compared to other options (annuity, drawdown, high-dividend shares). He's sold them all up now. While the one I rented probably gave him a decent return, the others required a lot of repairs due to bad tenants, and in hindsight, he'd have probably have done something else. There's a considerable risk if you have only one or two properties that something unexpected might eat all your income. I certainly wouldn't put all my pension pot in one if it would be my only source of income (other than state pension).

chucknorris

kinger101 wrote: »

The last property I rented was from someone who'd done just this (he had two or three properties I believe). I guess it looks good on paper compared to other options (annuity, drawdown, high-dividend shares). He's sold them all up now. While the one I rented probably gave him a decent return, the others required a lot of repairs due to bad tenants, and in hindsight, he'd have probably have done something else. There's a considerable risk if you have only one or two properties that something unexpected might eat all your income. I certainly wouldn't put all my pension pot in one if it would be my only source of income (other than state pension).

My parents bought a flat to rent out, and they had a few bad (but not absolute nightmare) tenants, but luckily in the 5 years that they owned it, they made decent capital gain. They wouldn't buy another one as they have now seen the downside, even though they did quite well out if it, but only because they were lucky enough to have owned it for the right 5 years, when prices happened to have shot up in the North East, it could so easily have been a different story if the timing had been different.

bearcat16

The sad fact is, it's a good investment no matter how you look at it.

I've rented most of my adult life, always from 'amateur' landlords who just ended up with a spare house after getting married etc.
It's been okay, and I preferred it to agencies.

Now I own my house and am considering buying one to rent out.

I do understand the argument that this makes it harder for others to afford their own house, especially having been on the receiving end of that for years.

But what should you do? Refuse to invest in property for the good of would-be home owners and then be worse off?

kinger101

mwpt wrote: »

And yet they don't. So the sensible thing to do is check your reasoning, rather than tell everyone they're wrong. When the Tories were voted in, a mass hysteria by the left on social media started saying all voters had been duped and were stupid, instead of perhaps doing some self reflection and asking why people wanted something they didn't.

Food shops provide food in abundance at reasonable prices.

Houses become increasingly unaffordable to regular people, while landlords are still able to buy and hoard them (I'm talking about the SE, where I live, I can't speak for up north).

In a nutshell, when people don't have what they want, they want to blame someone. Home ownership has only started to decline over the last decade, and is still higher than it was in the 70s and 80s;

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

So there's a very long history of the countries housing stock being owned by private landlords, and the increases over the last two decades have incurred on large part due to the public sector's diminished role in this.

House prices are high because there is a shortage of homes. Because we're not building enough at a time when the UK population is increasing, and is shifting toward the SE. Owner-occupied houses also tend to have fewer inhabitants now than historically. Prices are also high because we have low interest rates.