The joy of being a landlord
- Thread starter Quartz
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This is the thing, the maths are off now because of interest rates but up to the pandemic the government could have literally bought, not built a home for everyone on housing benefit paid off the cost in less than 15 years and the savings would be enough to drop the basic rate of income tax 2p at the end of it.
no government would ever do it, for various reasons
yes the government is the root of the problem but if you got on the train don't cry if people have no sympathy for you that's all.
That's not correct: you have to allow for Capital Gains Tax when you sell, maintenance costs, agency fees, and much, much more. And if you're a private landlord you get taxed on your rental income before paying the mortgage. And your asset - the property - is not readily fungible: it can take a long time to sell.
So what you are saying is really its a crap and difficult business proposition and that a lot of smalltime landlords have overstretched beyond their means and this added risk cost is passed onto the renters.
A lot of private landlords are simply landlords because they move out of a property, or a relative dies & they can't sell it without giving it away.
I'm stuck with a house I can't offload (wifes from before we met), nobody wants to buy it but stick it on FB marketplace for rent & people are falling over each other for a go at it. We tried to sell several years ago, it was up for 3 months, not a sausage. Put it on FB marketplace & within 24 hours we'd got 5 people wanting to look, it was occupied within a week. The problem is, for the reasons previously mentioned, the people that actually want it can't get a deposit yet they drive a 70 plate 3 series on finance, have two kids & a low paid job.
My niece is the same, moved out of a house & couldn't sell it so ended up renting it out, in this case to a family member.
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you do you, it's not illegal, just don't complain about how people view you.
I've said before I view hobbyist landlords on the same level as GPU scalpers during the pandemic, they provided a service too you didn't have to keep hitting refresh at work.
that doesn't mean selling GPUs is immoral in itself, just like land lording doesn't have to be.
Have you thought that maybe if you were getting no interest in selling it that you were asking too much money for it?
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Peak landlord brain: it would be terrible to let someone else buy an affordable house.
We were asking for £30k below it's £90k value, should we just give it away?
£60k is affordable, nobody wanted it, the person in there now prefers his 70 plate BMW to buying a house.
You think i should give it to him?
Everybody wants everything handed to them nowadays. Maybe i should give him my car too whilst i'm at it, although my 65 plate likely won't be good enough for him.
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Soldato
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Renters don't suddenly become buyers, there is a shortage in both markets. My current tenants were living 4 people in one room when we moved to another country and rented out our family home.
You have 50 houses and 60 families who want a home. 20 of those families don't have a deposit so can't get a mortgage, 10 landlords want to sell so there's another 10 less houses available to rent.
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Soldato
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Hah wish I had had that option. Moved out in my early 20s (rent), moved back when my landlord sold the house, and then permanently in my mid-20s with my now wife. I always paid my parents rent whenever I lived there from the point I started working, and I'm talking hundreds a month, not pittance rate.
It's doable, just not if you're spending everything on drink/cigarettes and the like.
We admittedly got lucky on a shared ownership, but it proves there are routes to do it, albeit rising rates/rent make it much harder to do now than 10 years ago.
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Caporegime
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What is it, a run down crack house?
Of course they do. If a house changes from a rental property to someones home then somewhere, someone has changed from being a tenant to an owner in most cases. Its very oversimplified but ultimately it works out that way. Pointing at a tiny number of edge cases doesn't make it untrue.
Very, very few people are moving abroad and renting out their house in the grand scheme of UK housing.
Well if no-one is prepared to pay £90k, has it occurred to you that it's not worth that much?
Mine was hundreds too.
With the restrictions of having to live. By parents rules, distance to jobs etc and limited jobs, it just wasn't worth it.
Caporegime
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Sounds like it's 60K.
Soldato
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You've selectively quoted to prove a non point. My house if I sold it could absolutely not be bought by e.g. my renters. My house would most likely be bought by someone who already owns a house and my renters would then be homeless, or would have to go back to renting 1 room for a family of 4 instead of a 4 bed house.
Not all renters can buy houses, so a reduction in rental stock absolutely drives up prices of rents as renters are fighting over the property (my current tenants offered over asking to secure the property but I told them no they can have it at asking).
If you think landlords selling up isn't causing issues with higher rents then I don't know what planet you're living on.
It's not "edge cases", most renters don't have a deposit or have other situations meaning they can't get a mortgage.
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I find this very hard to believe. Even at todays interest rates and a 5% downpayment that would only be £350 a month. Do you rent it out for less than £350 a month?
I pointed this out on the Keir thread, Its crazy how so many people dont get it, there seems to be an assumption that the only issue that is people cant buy homes easily enough, solve that and then suddenly there is no rental crisis, when thats not the case at all.
I would say its the other way round, there is a shortage of properties to rent, which has led to BTL booming, and this in turn has affected the buyers market.
Teleport in 5 million social homes tomorrow, and boom everything changes.
Thats why I have tried to point as well, doing things like adding taxes and costs to letting, only hurts the victims the tenants, as they just get passed on and as you said if LL's leave the market it further upsets supply/demand in the renters market. But sadly I think anyone not renting privately just doesnt care about this, its not recognised as a social problem.
Also that bizarrely many people think renting is just a short temporary thing and everyone is an owner by the time they 30.
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Of the 6 people I know who recently brought a house. They all had significant help and didnt manage it by themselves.
First, purchased by parents, then brought from parents with no deposit and heavily discounted, Same with second and third, Fourth parents paid the entire deposit, Fifth and Sixth had houses gifted to them completely free from parents.
I dont actually know anyone who just saved up entirely to pay their deposit, everyone I know who didnt have mum and dad stepping in is just renting, I wonder how common it is.
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Osborne added a change to tax relief which was designed to "cool the market", and it has led to very consistent large rent inflation, I fear moving forward there will be moves to reduce BTL supply so is more empty homes for buyers, but this will in turn cause disaster for renters as there is no plans to build social housing stock for rent.
Also on renters reform, Labour have dropped it as a policy, so if it doesnt make legislation in the next 12 months, S21 will be staying around (assuming we have a change of government).
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