Something to cheer the renters up

carolt

kazd, you don't seem to really get why your post has provoked such strong feelings. It's nothing personal - but try and see it from the other point of view.

Like you, I also have 3 children. Mine are slightly younger than yours; my eldest is 8. And so I am probably a bit younger than you. Like you, I work damn hard to keep us all financially afloat.

But because I'm a little bit younger than you - my eldest was born just as property prices shot up after years of stagnation/falls (in the 3 months between going abroad to work and coming back pregnant, the price of the flat I had been planning to buy went up by 65%) - instead of being able to buy a family home, I had no choice but to rent. As fast as our incomes rose, property prices rose faster.

So 8 years on, I'm still renting. If you had said that you were struggling to pay your own mortgage, then you could reasonably expect sympathy. But I do find it hard to feel real sympathy that you are finding it hard to afford 3 EXTRA houses for your (still young) children when many young families - every bit as hard working and deserving as you, just younger - cannot afford to buy ONE house for themselves and their 3 children to live in, because they've been priced out by all the people wanting THREE.

Your children don't need those houses now - they're too young. I appreciate you want them not to have to stress over housing costs when they're older; but as has been pointed out above, if house prices crash and fall back into line with earnings, they shouldn't need to struggle; so don't worry about it on their account.

On your own account, you're clearly in a pickle, though not one that you couldn't have foreseen; presumably you're old enough to remember the last crash and realise that prices can fall as well as rise.

If I were you, I'd sell, count it as a lesson learned, and put the money saved into a safer investment vehicle for my children.

At least you don't stand to lose your own home (or not unless you hang onto this BTL and have some other financial difficulties). Be very thankful that you have your own home and three wonderful children (not necessarily in that order!) - not everyone else is so fortunate.

Pobby

Cells you prat!!!!!! Even a load of HPC people think you have lost the plot. HPC is a great website with some highly intelligent people that post. Shame you ain`t one of them. You are sounding as bonkers as Bruno!!!!!

tbs624

carolt wrote: »

kazd, you don't seem to really get why your post has provoked such strong feelings. It's nothing personal - but try and see it from the other point of view..

Carol - I think you make some valid points, and I think anyone posting on a public forum would understand others having a different view to theirs when they are expressed in the way your posting was.

What has been grim is to see the level of personal abuse that has been aimed at Kazd, much of which seems to come from those who are probably barely post-pubescent boys in need of some fresh air and a real purpose in life..........

kazd

carolt wrote: »

kazd, you don't seem to really get why your post has provoked such strong feelings. It's nothing personal - but try and see it from the other point of view.

Like you, I also have 3 children. Mine are slightly younger than yours; my eldest is 8. And so I am probably a bit younger than you. Like you, I work damn hard to keep us all financially afloat.

But because I'm a little bit younger than you - my eldest was born just as property prices shot up after years of stagnation/falls (in the 3 months between going abroad to work and coming back pregnant, the price of the flat I had been planning to buy went up by 65%) - instead of being able to buy a family home, I had no choice but to rent. As fast as our incomes rose, property prices rose faster.

So 8 years on, I'm still renting. If you had said that you were struggling to pay your own mortgage, then you could reasonably expect sympathy. But I do find it hard to feel real sympathy that you are finding it hard to afford 3 EXTRA houses for your (still young) children when many young families - every bit as hard working and deserving as you, just younger - cannot afford to buy ONE house for themselves and their 3 children to live in, because they've been priced out by all the people wanting THREE.

Your children don't need those houses now - they're too young. I appreciate you want them not to have to stress over housing costs when they're older; but as has been pointed out above, if house prices crash and fall back into line with earnings, they shouldn't need to struggle; so don't worry about it on their account.

On your own account, you're clearly in a pickle, though not one that you couldn't have foreseen; presumably you're old enough to remember the last crash and realise that prices can fall as well as rise.

If I were you, I'd sell, count it as a lesson learned, and put the money saved into a safer investment vehicle for my children.

At least you don't stand to lose your own home (or not unless you hang onto this BTL and have some other financial difficulties). Be very thankful that you have your own home and three wonderful children (not necessarily in that order!) - not everyone else is so fortunate.

Can I just point out we do not have 3 x btl but 1 x btl, we had aspired to purchase three with the view to helping our kids. However, we realised in the first three weeks of owning the house what a nightmare situation we had got into. This was when the first complaints came in about the original tenants came in.

Were we in this to make money, we certainly did not buy the house with a view to throwing £5k a year down the drain which is what it has cost us so far. At the same time we did not buy it to make a fast buck for a nice holiday or new car.

I agree that the price of houses is out of control, first time buyers are in an awful situation which is why we wanted to help our own children. What parent wouldn't but at the same time I can appreciate that kids do need to stand on their own two feet. Unfortuantely in this corrupt time that we live in this is harder to do than you realise especially those of you without children.

We do everything in our power to give our kids a good education, we always talk of them going to uni, maybe they won't all go but we would like them to go. It certainly won't do them any harm and a degree can be helpful in obtaining a good job in other countries as well as this. Common sense of course always helps.

Never in a million years would I recommend the btl market to anyone. We have an aquaintance who's parents have many btl an she said it was a potential minefield. However, you do only tend to hear the horror stories, as I said our current tenants are fine.

My husband and I have spent many years trying to think of ways of increasing our income. I have just recently taken a new job and the salary I am earning is the same as it was when I gave up work 14 years ago to have kids but the cost of everything is ridiculous. For eg our petrol bill has gone up from £1600 in 2005 to £3600 in 2007.

My choice is definitely to get rid, I don't believe there is any equity in the house and if we sold quickly would probably need to take at least a £10k hit on top of what we have already paid out. Thats £10k of the mortgage, so a loss of £30k over the original cost of the house.

However, the problem remains that we have tenants which I think would make the house difficult to sell and I for one would feel awful about turfing them out. Which is why I am also thinking that we should take the hit for at least the next year.

ianian99

sell it now and what you will loose now you will gain when the house prices drop and you buy another house or maybe even 3 if the prices drop enough

fc123

Hi Kazd, just a quicky (what a scary thread too)......don't get attached or feel too responsible for your tenants beyond doing a good job as a Landlord and providing the best accomodation for the price.
Tenants know the deal...at any time one can get notice. Thats the horrid bit of renting.

We relocated, rented out family home and rent in new location.

I want our house back now so we can proceed with our Life Plan but I've felt terrible about giving them notice. They love it, they want to stay, they have a baby.......We've dithered and, in the end, it took a good friend to list out the pros and cons taking out all emotion.
The tenants are tenants, strangers who we provided a service to for 2 and half years.
Same as our Landlady....if she wants to sell, she will give us notice, just like that.

I would make your decision based only on the sums....lots of advice in the thread amongst all the HPC neurotics.

Upping the rent by 5% a year isn't unreasonable at all and, on your figures, you need to maximise what's coming in.

Good luck.
There are loads of nice people on this board too and I avoid the scary threads. Just ignore them.

cells

kazd wrote: »

Were we in this to make money, we certainly did not buy the house with a view to throwing £5k a year down the drain which is what it has cost us so far. At the same time we did not buy it to make a fast buck for a nice holiday or new car.

ahh the truth apeareth
you where in it for a buck, even if it was a buck for the kids it is for a buck!

kazd wrote: »

My husband and I have spent many years trying to think of ways of increasing our income. I have just recently taken a new job and the salary I am earning is the same as it was when I gave up work 14 years ago to have kids but the cost of everything is ridiculous. For eg our petrol bill has gone up from £1600 in 2005 to £3600 in 2007.

try driving less! at 2007 prices and in a normal car @ 45MPG you must have done 32,000 miles in the year.

kazd wrote: »

My choice is definitely to get rid, I don't believe there is any equity in the house and if we sold quickly would probably need to take at least a £10k hit on top of what we have already paid out. Thats £10k of the mortgage, so a loss of £30k over the original cost of the house.

I think would make the house difficult to sell and I for one would feel awful about turfing them out. Which is why I am also thinking that we should take the hit for at least the next year.

OMG? what about the childrens BTL future university swap home??

offer the current tenants the change to buy it, give them that "10K quick sale" discount. you will also save the estate agent fees via this method.

i dont know what your property is worth, but just going from rental. a BTL-er would not pay more than £90-100,000 for a house with £550pcm rent in this marekt. can you realisticly sell for that?

dopester

Pobby wrote: »

Cells you prat!!!!!! Even a load of HPC people think you have lost the plot. HPC is a great website with some highly intelligent people that post. Shame you ain`t one of them. You are sounding as bonkers as Bruno!!!!!

They're all individuals over there at HPC. Not some big political group with one voice.

I'm fully in agreement with Cells in his principles of saying it's greed - but maybe not for pointing it out in the way he has. Although I notice she's still talking about where her kids will go to Uni, if in the UK or the USA?

Over at HPC there are too many people saying this woman, and all the masses like her with their BTLs, and people who've MEW-ed their own homes for fancy lifestyles, should forget all about their personal responsibility for borrowing vast sums of multiples of money, and instead direct their anger at the "system".

The system presumably the banks and government for allowing people to make free choice decisions to borrow money at dangerous multiples to buy overvalued property.

If you get too many people believing such a dangerous position, many HPC-ers won't be buying houses at all when people who've suffered financially in a house price crash, or lost their homes, are trying to bring down the system.

The "system" can not be entirely blamed for reckless borrowing decisions of individuals who borrowed vast sums at stupid multiples to get in to BTL in the hope of perpetual HPI, nor those who MEW-ed big-time with their own properties for a better lifestyle. You can't protect everyone from their own reckless or badly informed choices and actions.

And HPC-ers are hypocritical at times. The same people saying to blame the system wouldn't think twice about snapping up her BTL to make it their own home at 50% or more if it was to their taste, without any sadness for who owned it before.

the_bread_baron

kazd wrote: »

This was not a greedy lets get rich scheme. We wanted to buy three houses, one for each of our children to enable them to get on the property ladder, idea being we could sell when they go to Uni and they could buy close to uni and rent out rooms to friends to cover mortgage..

at the end of the day, you selfishly loaded up on housing when you thought you would make money. (kids is an excuse.) now your losing your own cash its kinda like crying milk tears.

im sad that you are going to lose money, but im also sad for the 3 families you also priced out. its a case of comes around-goes around. this bust is going to hurt a lot of uk citizens. the real money people either got in before the rush at the right price, or got out before the rush to sell. you did neither. your certainly a victim in some ways, but its your baby.

theres no easy answer. do you sell now, cut your losses ? or hang on,
get into even more debt and hope the housing market suddenly bounces back without any reason or logic.

it short. you lost. id get out, unless you see something on the house market horizon i dont.
and dont believe the same media that talked you into btl to tell you a turn around is just round the corner.

its not. its over. deal with it.

eco-friendly_2

And HPC-ers are hypocritical at times. The same people saying to blame the system wouldn't think twice about snapping up her BTL to make it their own home at 50% or more if it was to their taste, without any sadness for who owned it before.

Dog eat Dog!

dopester, am I detecting a little bit of humanity from you?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, too late to hit the 'EDIT' button now,


HPC-ers of course would buy a re-possessed property at 'half price', toys and teddys included hmm, and so would I.


Kazd who has bought ONE property has had some really sad responses, particularly from the 'village idiot' and may ultimately pay a heavy price, for her investment.


Imagine! if the HPC-ers got their wish and all Landlords {around 1,000,000} went burst.