Should I LET My House?

Running_Horse

macaque wrote: »

Yes, I have a question. Do you think the country would be better off without the parasitic professions? When I say parasitic professions I am talking about estate agents, letting agents, solicitors, mortgage advisors, financial advisors, financial consultants, blackmailers and thieves.

Nobody is forcing anybody to use these people. If they didn't provide a service people wanted they would be unemployed. Why stop there? We could all dump our own rubbish, educate our children at home, and replace the police with mobs of torch carrying vigilantes.

liz545

To the OP - it may be worth having a chat with a local lettings agent to see what the rental market is like in your area. From the sounds of it, I doubt you'd make a profit; but that may not be your aim. Who do you think you'd let the property to - students/young families/single people etc? Depending on your target audience you may have more or less success - families are likely to want longer term lets as it's very difficult to move school age children at short notice, whereas students may be more attracted to a fixed-term let, but may incur more wear & tear to the property. Finally, do you have enough time to be a landlord? If your tenant is paying you every month to live in the property, they're entitled to expect you to be prompt with repairs and be available in case of emergency - if you've got a busy job or don't live close to the property it would make more sense to appoint a managing agent but this will (obv) cost more. HTH!

macaque_2

Running_Horse wrote: »

Nobody is forcing anybody to use these people. If they didn't provide a service people wanted they would be unemployed. Why stop there? We could all dump our own rubbish, educate our children at home, and replace the police with mobs of torch carrying vigilantes.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that the professions don't have a useful role to perform. What I am saying is that they have become very parasitic. I will give you some examples:

We have recently seen '£250K new build' properties selling at auction for £140K. How could the orginal buyer's advisors get it this wrong? The answer is that they either failed to give good advice or deliberately gave bad advice. Also, why didn't the 'professionals' raise an alarm when builders started subsidising the buyers deposits. The answer is that professionals put personal interest above professional integrity.

A person goes into mortgage adviser for a loan and comes out with an endowment policy. I even know of one case where a girl was turned down for a mortgage but was sold the endowment policy.

Financial advisors usually push products with the highest commission rather than the best products (I've been caught on this one myself).

A mortgage advisor gets a commission for selling a mortgage to someone who clearly will not be able to afford to keep up with payments.

A solicitor agrees to sell a house for £1,000 and delegates the work to an office junior. The solicitor then quietly doubles the price and tells the client that the original quote was just an estimate.

A surveyor misses important defects in a property and avoids liability by resorting to small print and/or weasel words. The client discovers that professional advice offers little by way of protection.

These are all examples of professional people acting as parasites rather than doing their jobs properly.

Running_Horse

You post up extreme examples as if they are the norm, and use that to justify calling several whole professions parasites?

Maybe the person who resold their £250,000 property for £140,000 did it all by themselves without any advice. Anybody going to a mortgage advisor for a loan and coming away with an endowment is an idiot. Your example is not something I have ever experienced from a solicitor. Most surveyors do a good job of pointing out potential problems; many problems are caused by buyers having basic valuations rather than proper surveys.

We could apply your logic to any profession. All football managers take bungs. All teachers are paedos. All taxi drivers take the long route. All journalists are liars. All coppers are bent. All black people have rhythm.

It must be true, I said so on the Internet.

jebervic

Without any hesitation - SELL SELL SELL

Letting out a property just isn't worth all the hassle !!!

IveSeenTheLight

macaque wrote: »

House prices will almost certainly go down over the next 10-25 years. .

What a load of caque.
Show me where in history has the UK house prices been lower than they were 10-25 years previously.

macaque wrote: »

At the moment they are at all time highs and way beyond the affordability of most people.

I can sort of agree here, but it really depends on where you are trying to buy.
Where I have property it is still affordable for people to buy property (3.5x gross income), obviously where you live it may not be the case.

There may be a dip / correction / stagantion etc etc etc, but I very much doubt that in 10 - 25 years the prices will still be lower than they are now

IveSeenTheLight

jebervic wrote: »

Without any hesitation - SELL SELL SELL

Letting out a property just isn't worth all the hassle !!!

I beg to differ.
I let out two properties and have not had any problems with either property or with my tenants.
In the last year alone, the tenants have paid the interest on both properties, insurance and paid of approx £11,000 of capital.
I have had next to zero maintenance issues this year, although I am always on top of anything that needs to get done. It should be noted that while I had no maintenance outgoings this year, I did refurbish both properties last year.
The only maintenance issue I had was covered by the property maintenance fee I pay for the flat (also covered by tenant in their rental fee)

So for the sake of one phone call, in which I arranged for another person to go and fix at 0 cost to me in a year where the tenants have paid all outgoing costs and £11,000 of capital, was definately worth the hassle

macaque_2

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

What a load of caque.
Show me where in history has the UK house prices been lower than they were 10-25 years previously.

In a way your response carries the clue to the problem. House prices have been rising for so long that people have started to believe that house price inflation is a rule rather than a trend. That is a very dangerous state of affairs.

If you compare UK property with other parts of the world or other times in our history, prices are completely out of touch with reality. Prices will have to be lower in 10-25 years time or our economy will be wiped out. We cannot go on trading properties at prices which are 2 and 3 times higher than those of our economic competitors. It completely distorts labour costs.

Japan had a time when they thought that house prices had no ceiling. Now they are starting to believe the opposite. For them, prices have been falling for 17 years.

fc123

macaque wrote: »

In a way your response carries the clue to the problem. House prices have been rising for so long that people have started to believe that house price inflation is a rule rather than a trend. That is a very dangerous state of affairs.

If you compare UK property with other parts of the world or other times in our history, prices are completely out of touch with reality. Prices will have to be lower in 10-25 years time or our economy will be wiped out. We cannot go on trading properties at prices which are 2 and 3 times higher than those of our economic competitors. It completely distorts labour costs.

Japan had a time when they thought that house prices had no ceiling. Now they are starting to believe the opposite. For them, prices have been falling for 17 years.

Hi Mcacaque..I potter around this forum for bits of wisdom and clues to help me decide what to do next...we have 2 critical mid-life decisions to face and we are terrified of taking the wrong fork.
I find your posts v. helpful and insightful....plus I need clues and help with our next commercial rent review.......so will post nearer the time..........but can I be rude and ask how old you are???

Just because we are early 40's and can remember the last downturn... but the advice from those who are older seems to hold more sense at the mo.....the post you did saying that small BTL would be wiped out by a corporate,travelodge type outfit in 2 decades really seemed spot on to me but no-one reacted???? Bit like Tescopoly...

Plus the recent post on high commercial rents making the nation un-competitive etc etc.... We are faced with the decision of closing down a profitable, popular small businesss after 20 years trading as the fixed overheads have risen way faster than our selling prices (we are in clothing; a deflationary product)....but if we shut down, it's not because we are rubbish or do not have a loyal customer base (we do) but neighbouring lets to Costa and Starbucks net the landlords more rent......so increasing ours.

Funny really as we are really busy and popular but our selling prices are the SAME as 15 years ago but we are now benchmarked by Primark prices(!!) so now people think we are expensive but 15 yrs back we were
cheap!! however.....same retail price points.:D

Anyhow, it's NYE and I have to go and partee....but I really need some sage advice at the mo...but am not sure if this forum is varied enough to provide it...........

macaque_2

FC123

Thanks for this response. I suspect many on this website have marked me down as a disgruntled buyer in waiting. This is not the case. I am a long term renter and very happy with this arrangement. As for age, I am one of the older contributers.

What concerns me is the effect of high land/house prices on the economy. UK companies are selling their factories for housing developments and using the money to build shiny new factories in other parts of the word. I am also deeply unimpressed by the way many younger people are being duped into paying unrealistic prices for homes.

We cannot have an economy where half the population sit around living off BTL and MEW whilst the other half work 18 hours a day trying to compete with the rest of the world. Some call this the 'post industrial economy' but it is nothing more than a fantasy. Within the next few years, unemployment will yet again become the UK government's biggest problem.

A decade ago Gordon Brown knew that high prices would be bad for the economy. In his 1997 budget speech he stated; "I will not allow house prices to get out of control". Instead of acting on his word, he made high house prices the central theme of new labour policy. To feed the monster he fostered BTL, loose money and mass immigration. House price inflation was the fuel for bribing voters, increasing the tax take and funding unsustainable private and public sector spending. We now have overpopulated island in a sea of debt and collapsing productivity.