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

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

what would the return on capital be?

and its been a huge spread depending on where a landlord invested

If it were stoke-on-trent land registry shows most recent month as £43,652 for the average terrace and £26,207 was the price in Jan 1995.

That is a 66.5% increase over a period of 21 years. Houses in Stoke-On-Tent are cheaper in real terms (vs wages) than they were 21 years ago!

Prices went from ~1.95 x mean wage to ~1.75 x mean wage

westernpromise

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

Landlords in it to make an income is part of the problem. The system should have a long time ago only allowed long term investment in housing, I. E. Not income based. Property as many say is a safe investment, so let people and companies invest for the long term and not profit unfairly. If that was in place a long time ago house prices now would be more in line with wages.

To allow the biggest value commodity in peoples lives inflate well over wages for so long has been the evil side of capitalism and has unfortunately gone so far that unwinding it will take a lot of system changes all of that available investment money should have been encouraged by government into increasing the quality and robustness of the economy Not allowed to increase the indebtedness of the population, which is the drive of the current financial system.... more more debt....

It's nothing to do with capitalism. The problem is unfettered immigration on a scale not seen in this country in a thousand years.

Reverse that and the problem's solved. We have one poster here who wants homeowners expropriated to punish them for owning., Why not expropriate all immigrants since 1980 - and all their dependents - of their passports, instead? That would make the cause of the problem the solution to it.

westernpromise

mwpt wrote: »

77% of renters say they would prefer to own their own property.

I'd like to sleep with Monica Bellucci. I demand government action against those selfishly hogging Monica Bellucci for themselves. Several greedy individuals have slept with her already and then done so over and over again. They are immoral. I am entitled to sleep with Monica Bellucci.

JencParker

chucknorris wrote: »

I found this bit interesting:

Teacher Helen Kinsey, 50, recently had to leave her home in south London, after living there for 21 years, when her landlord demanded a 30% rent rise. "I think people feel this animosity towards landlords because there are so many stories like mine," she says. Greedy landlords and greedy developers and greedy agents are seeing an opportunity to keep pushing the rent up. So normal people like me are being pushed out.

Early this year we put the rent up on a 3 bed flat from £1,545 to £1,800 (16.5%), to be able to increase the rent by so much (not as much as her rent was increased), meant that we had previously been renting it well below the market rent (and for some time). What she seems to be oblivious to, is that she benefited from a rent 30% below the market value (probably for many years), yet her reaction is to call her landlord greedy, for wanting to charge the market rent, I think she is extremely ungrateful for the years she enjoyed renting below the market value.

There were a couple of reasons that we increased it so much:

1. The tenant had been there over 10 years and we tend to reward long staying tenants, he was the lead tenant in a flat shared, when someone left he would organise a replacement. When he gave notice we saw it as an opportunity to get nearer the market rent. But a couple of days ago I noted that another 3 bed flat in the same block is being marketed at a whopping £2,300/month (and a 4 bed at £2,708/month).

2. The recent tax changes drove us to seek to get nearer the market rent, so even if the tenant had not gave notice, we would have increased the rent above the rate of inflation. But it seems we are going to have to have another look, as rents are climbing again.

Of course it's greedy - the market it high due to a shortage so you are taking advantage of a housing shortage to make even more money.

chucknorris

JencParker wrote: »

Of course it's greedy - the market it high due to a shortage so you are taking advantage of a housing shortage to make even more money.

I don't charge the market rent and never have done, for almost 25 years:

chucknorris wrote: »

We've never charged the maximum rent, and that is over almost a 25 year period, and on a few properties (currently 8, but the average is probably about 5 to 6). It isn't anything to do with charity, there are a number of sound logical reasons:

1. At a change of tenancy work is created, so long staying tenants equate to less work (my longest tenant moved out a few months ago after over 12 years). Our tenants do tend to stay on for quite a few years, we still have two properties with tenants that have been with us over 5 years. Obviously if tenants consider that they are getting a good deal they tend to stay longer, our tenants tend to vacate due to moving in with partners, buying a property, changing job location etc.

2. If you charge the maximum rent your risk of a void is increased, we have never had a rental void, except when we instigate one between tenancies to do certain work (new kitchen, new bathroom suite, redecorate etc.).

3. If you charge below the market rent you have a wider choice of tenant, the landlord/tenant relationship is important, obviously you don't know them that well, but at least with a wider choice of tenant you can be more selective. A good relationship with a tenant tends to mean that the tenants look after the property and do help out by being in for gas safety checks etc. All of our properties are covered by British Gas's Homecare and the tenants tend to call BG themselves when they have a small problem like a sink blocked or a leak from a waste pipe etc.

Although we have recently increased some of our rents, we are still on average almost 10% below the market value, 40% of that 10% difference would be lost on tax anyway, 6% net is IMO a price worth paying.

HornetSaver

Landlords are the symptom of the real problem - the fact that substantial percentage of them are greedy parasites with minimal regard for the law and few redeeming features is an unfortunate coincidence for the rest of them.

The real scandal, excluding London and a handful of other major cities, is that there is more than enough land to resolve the supply and demand balance. Regrettably, the long-standing coalition of hippies, toffs, NIMBYs, closet racists and landowning politicians against sensible and sustainable development in suitable places is as strong as ever.

I'm not talking about mass deforestation, building on floodplains, building an artificial island in the Thames estuary, or similarly hairbrained ideas. Simply that a few large cottages with a nice paint job should not create a large building exclusion zone. It currently does. Simply that proposing a block of flats within three miles of any house with a driveway should not result in developers having their local reputations trashed to such an extent that to grant planning permission would amount to career suicide for the politician responsible.

michaels

JencParker wrote: »

Of course it's greedy - the market it high due to a shortage so you are taking advantage of a housing shortage to make even more money.

When there are food supply issues such as for chocolate or coffee or wheat then prices of related goods go up*. Food is obviously even more essential than shelter - you must really hate food retailers.

*Except in countries where they try and fix prices like the soviet union used to and Venezuela which by doing so ensure a plentiful supply at reasonable prices for all the comrades. All those pictures of empty shelves and all day queues are just western propaganda.

mwpt

michaels wrote: »

When there are food supply issues such as for chocolate or coffee or wheat then prices of related goods go up*. Food is obviously even more essential than shelter - you must really hate food retailers.

This argument comes up again and again and I'm stumped as to why a seemingly intelligent bunch of people can't see how stupid it is.

Please come back to us when food prices start to increase by multiples of wages, when the teacher who lives next door to you takes out debt to buy up the food stock then hands it to you at higher prices. Then I will express sufficient outrage.

ukcarper

mwpt wrote: »

This argument comes up again and again and I'm stumped as to why a seemingly intelligent bunch of people can't see how stupid it is.

Please come back to us when food prices start to increase by multiples of wages, when the teacher who lives next door to you takes out debt to buy up the food stock then hands it to you at higher prices. Then I will express sufficient outrage.

I'm not sure what you ar getting at in terms of earning house prices are 60% more that the long term average, I'm sure when there is a shortgage of certain food stuff their price increase by that amount or more.

mwpt

ukcarper wrote: »

I'm not sure what you ar getting at in terms of earning house prices are 60% more that the long term average, I'm sure when there is a shortgage of certain food stuff their price increase by that amount or more.

So why do people keep comparing supermarkets to landlords? They situation is completely incomparable.