Should we also not then make food, gas, water, electricity and public transport all not for profit or run at losses too?
Asda makes 10 million times what the average landlord does. Yet I don't see any outrage at them providing food which we require to survive on a daily basis.
Imagine if a significant amount of people in this country were priced out of buying food. Actually you don't need to imagine currently do you. See the outrage over food banks and the rate at which people are being forced to beg for food to feed their children in this country. Sad, in the UK, we've reduced our citizens to begging for help from charitable people, to feed their kids. What a world.
Anyway back to houses... there should be *more* outcry that a significant % of people are paying up to 75% of their income as rent. And no, that does not apply just to London. Cornish people too typically pay between 55% and 75% of their wages on rent.
And in any case, I'm absolutely not against people buying houses, doing them up and then flipping them for a profit. So you can make a profit if you add some value. That's how the world should work. Add value, make money. Build an extension, put in a new kitchen, redecorate, flip, make some profit. All of these add value and are completely fine in my book.
Completely different from BTL tho. The "value" in BTL - as it is allowed to operate in this country - is very disputable. Esp for those landlords who insist on buying up all the basic starter housing they can lay their hands on, and thus forcing people out of ever entering the property market in the first place.
You can blame everybody else in this equation if you like. Blame employers, blame the govt, blame the workers.
But the fact remains - if landlords didn't insist on buying as much basic housing as they could get their hands on (which they do because it's profitable) then charge rents that are multiples of their mortgage, then people wouldn't be bled dry to the point that they will never be able to afford a deposit.
Question: Does paying 2x the average mortgage on rent (to you and others like you) help people to save for a deposit?
Do you actually care if the answer is "No, it keeps them down whilst I profit."
One thing absolutely cannot be disputed: landlords directly benefit when people are locked out of home ownership and locked into renting.
The more people locked out of home ownership the more landlords can be sustained and the greater the rents they can charge.
It would be nice if BTL landlords wouldn't pretend that their interests are not diametrically opposed to the interests of renters who aspire to be home owners.