101 Things that get on our tits but don't actually matter in the slightest.
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davyK wrote:We seem to be heading toward generations of folk with no assets. A huge step back.
Not quite. It’s generations where only a select few own all the assets and continually increase their wealth gap by using those assets to extract tithes from the rest.
We’re going feudal. -
**Before I start I will say I have no interest in becoming a landlord and do recognise that things have to change.**
Halving or even cutting by a third or a quarter is too circumstantial really and assumes what percentage of the rent can be turn into cold profit.
I looked up the estimated rental fee of my flat. I don't think I would break even.
At least a third would be taken up by ground rent, insurances currently being paid and additional insurances.
The other two thirds (and likely more as landlord mortgages are more expensive) would be the mortgage.
That doesn't allow for big things going wrong like a tenant not paying, the property sitting empty in between tenants or expensive things going like boilers and white goods.
If rent froze I would only ever make money on the mortgage lowering as there would less to put interest on. That would then be taxed and really it wouldn't be worth it.
I can play the long game but upkeep on such a property would never make me a rich man, plus in probably the next 15 years it will need the lease renewing which is probably over £20k.
The single property portfolio landlord as I would be aren't really the issue but would be priced out of the market.
The real issue is big and often foreign investors who can pay cash, profit on what someone like me would pay on a mortgage and sit on enough property of value to make the whole thing worthwhile. Sometimes with that property vacant because it is easier than dealing with people. Then probably not pay tax on it.
Halving rent would attract more of these people and kill off small time landlords who tend to be better and more personal.
Personally I think the limitations should be on how many additional properties or additional value in properties can be held by individuals or companies of certain sizes. As well as stipulations that prevent properties from being left empty, particularly in high demand areas. Destroy the market for big time investors. -
As you say, not profit for the single property landlord, plus I believe you live in one of the more expensive areas of the country. I'm pretty certain that if I got a decent contact soon I could pay rent here in Kingston and a mortgage in the Midlands without much huge impact on my lifestyle"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B -
Tax the shit out of multiple property landlords.
One to five rental properties: Normal income tax.
Five to 10: Double.
10 to 50: 75% tax.
50+: 90% tax.
(Dunno if this numbers are even remotely realistic, just pulling them out of thin air. The high level might even need to be 99% taxation in order to actually put off the big boys.)
That should encourage a return to state-owned council housing, as the state wouldn’t need to pay tax to itself.
Reasons why this doesn’t happen? Property values would drop. Which would be great for society in general but bad for all of us who already own homes. So … it’s selfishness really. Which is what can drive people to vote Conservative in the long run. -
I would agree, in my opinion any entity that owns more than 5 residences has to be treated as a business and had to provide 2 of those residences for social housing at a lower (but guaranteed) rent
Liv I think you may have been misled a little, you aren't supposed to make profit on a property you don't own, that's ridiculous, you will finish the tenancy with something to show for investment, a capital asset with greater equity than before. That in and of itself is now than enough to offset the lack of income against the property"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B -
Selling off public housing is a major part of why we're in this mess. I was too young to understand it at the time, but looking back on it, it was always going to be a disaster of a policy in the long term.davyK wrote:As batty as Mrs. Thatcher was, and as divisive as she still is......her belief in home ownership was sound. I can only speak for over here, but hordes of people I know own their own homes because of the policy of Council Houses being sold to long term tenants. My own parents being one example. Sadly it is unravelling as most privately owned homes are now falling into landlord ownership (one of my best friends being one of them). The more cynical of Thatcher's haters might think that was the plan all along. Shrugs. We seem to be heading toward generations of folk with no assets. A huge step back.
The country is desperate for some public housing now, and how many of those ex-council houses have been bought up and demolished by property developers to build luxury accommodation? How much is the state paying in housing benefit to private landlords?
Great for those who benefitted at the time, but also incredibly short-sighted/negligent. -
davyK wrote:As batty as Mrs. Thatcher was, and as divisive as she still is......her belief in home ownership was sound.
I can only speak for over here, but hordes of people I know own their own homes because of the policy of Council Houses being sold to long term tenants.
My own parents being one example. Sadly it is unravelling as most privately owned homes are now falling into landlord ownership
This started a long time ago. Just over 2 years ago, it was revealed that 40% of homes purchased under Right To Buy are now owned by private landlords. Right to Buy combined with restrictions on what councils could borrow led to a virtual standstill in new council builds meaning stock has dwindled from 6.5 million to just 2 million, despite a growth in population.
I would stop it immediately, until councils can prove that they are at a minimum replacing what is lost, if not expanding stock. -
I guess I’m just generally against people getting paid to own stuff- particularly things people need. The more stuff they own and the more they get paid = the more I am against it. If you were theorising a society from scratch no sane person would tolerate this dynamic because it’s fundamentally parasitic. They’re lucky I’m not society’s boss because if I was they could all get boiled.
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I feel genuine shame that I have been coerced into giving more than 0 fucks about a partner’s earning potential. I don’t want to be one of those people and never thought I would be.
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Diluted Dante wrote:You certainly won't read it in any British outlet. Property as investment is so ingrained, it would be like a cut to the heart for them.
If I was rich though, I'd buy up a load of houses from these slumlord cunts and do just that.
I'd thought about doing exactly the same thing. And add in a right to buy clause, where a tenant would have a discount applied to the asking price, which would be multiplied by the length of time they had lived there. -
That could be a policy actually. If you own more than 5 (arbitrary number for sake of argument) properties, you are required to offer right to buy, with a length of occupancy discount.
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equinox_code wrote:I guess I’m just generally against people getting paid to own stuff- particularly things people need. The more stuff they own and the more they get paid = the more I am against it. If you were theorising a society from scratch no sane person would tolerate this dynamic because it’s fundamentally parasitic. They’re lucky I’m not society’s boss because if I was they could all get boiled.
It's not a bad way to feel, please don;t feel guilty for it. We are in a weord situation the last few decades where capital earns more money than labour. That's a shit way for us to be"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B -
It is odd and it is broken and trust me it doesn't necessarily get a whole lot better when you have a mortgage.
I have literally just been to see a mortgage broker this afternoon to renew my mortgage. Turns out I can renew for the same amount but if I was to move I cant borrow as much as I am currently borrowing despite never missing a payment.
This is because my earnings in 2017/18 were lower than than when I originally got my mortgage in early 2016. This is because our country fucked itself 6 months after that. -
That I earnt less money and it has fucked the mortgage calculator. No not really.
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Ah, but the effect is that you will be staying put, and therefore becoming part of a community.
With some careful planning the Tories will soon be able to re-introduce rationing, imagine the camaraderie then! -
The Tories don't believe in community or society.
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Diluted Dante wrote:Ah, but the effect is that you will be staying put, and therefore becoming part of a community. With some careful planning the Tories will soon be able to re-introduce rationing, imagine the camaraderie then!
I want out, the place is only 150 votes away from being a Tory area.
In fact I think the Labour leadership carnival was doing the rounds end of this week here. It was in town though and town requires bringing a bug out bag and a long pointy stick. -
Back on this housing subject, the BBC have published their Housing Briefing today, so the matter is in the press again.
Their stats say that the UK is over a million homes short of how many are needed to provide decent housing for everyone. And that in a best-case scenario of the Government pushing for more affordable housing, it would take 15 years to close that gap. -
poprock wrote:Back on this housing subject, the BBC have published their Housing Briefing today, so the matter is in the press again.
Their stats say that the UK is over a million homes short of how many are needed to provide decent housing for everyone. And that in a best-case scenario of the Government pushing for more affordable housing, it would take 15 years to close that gap.
Just in time for the next Labour gov. -
I don’t see how we can be a million homes short when every stat I ever saw indicated we had far more empty homes than homeless people. That seems to show a problem with distribution, not supply, no?
I’d be interested to hear exactly how many new homes would supposedly have to be built before house prices and rents became as affordable as they were to my parents generation -
‘Affordable housing’ solutions fuck me off too, because apparently just building smaller and shitter units is a sustainable strategy. Ffs
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It's not just that horrible definition of affordable housing, either.
These houses, when built by private companies, need to maximise profits. Other than the aforementioned cutting of corners (literally), the big problem for these vast cheap (to build) housing estates is that they are not planned with any kind of community in mind. There's a huge new development in my home town of Chippenham - thousands of houses. But
- no new transport infrastructure
- no new schools
- no new hospitals of even GP offices (recognise that as semi-private enterprises that's more up to market demand but still)
- no planning of public spaces (no pubs, restaurants, cafes, parks, play areas, community spaces, culture spaces, etc etc etc)
The issue is these places become commuter dead zones, where few know their neighbours and roots are shallow. I think this must lead to unhappy communities, unwelcoming communities (if they can even be called communities!). It's just horrible.
I fundamentally disagree with Davy's post about asset ownership. There should be no need to own houses in order to feel secure, prosperous, and take pride in one's home. The fact that bricks and mortar have become so massively overvalued is a direct result of Thatcher's policies, and has directly led to giant house builders like Persimmon being allowed (encouraged!) to build such shoddy environments as modern housing estates.
Profiting from land ownership, and being able to pass that value down to your family with very few penalties (from April 2020, it'll be up to £1M before ANY inheritance tax is paid in certain, common, circumstances!) is the absolute definition of feudalism and is a terrible skewed way to look at living. -
equinox_code wrote:I don’t see how we can be a million homes short when every stat I ever saw indicated we had far more empty homes than homeless people.
Empty homes may not be ones that are actually for sale, let alone at an affordable price. They also may not be ‘decent’ – which is officially defined as ‘reasonable standard of repair, modern facilities/services, and with effective insulation/heating’.
From the BBC Housing Report: “Some housing experts believe there are about one million unoccupied homes in the UK but they are in the wrong place, derelict or sub-standard, belong to absentee owners, or are awaiting sale.” -
Funkstain wrote:The issue is these places become commuter dead zones, where few know their neighbours and roots are shallow. I think this must lead to unhappy communities, unwelcoming communities (if they can even be called communities!). It's just horrible.
It’s as though nobody learned anything at all from the failure of ‘new towns’, isn’t it? -
At least those were planned (badly, but still) to have communal areas and supported by infrastructure!
I remember an enlightening doco on the rise of high rises, how at first they were seen as such positive developments, with whole building communities formed around plentiful, safe public spaces. People who moved in were so happy to have warm places to live, with indoor toilets and safe spaces and loads of children running around...
Then lack of investment and upkeep and rapacious landlords ruined it for everyone, again -
There was a lot of resentment at the time of mass high-rise building. While it looked great on paper, forcibly relocating entire communities is never a recipe for joy. In Glasgow it was particularly well documented. Gaining modern plumbing and an indoor toilet was not seen as adequate compensation for being moved away from the city, and it’s cultural and economic benefits.
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Diluted Dante wrote:
This started a long time ago. Just over 2 years ago, it was revealed that 40% of homes purchased under Right To Buy are now owned by private landlords. Right to Buy combined with restrictions on what councils could borrow led to a virtual standstill in new council builds meaning stock has dwindled from 6.5 million to just 2 million, despite a growth in population. I would stop it immediately, until councils can prove that they are at a minimum replacing what is lost, if not expanding stock.davyK wrote:As batty as Mrs. Thatcher was, and as divisive as she still is......her belief in home ownership was sound. I can only speak for over here, but hordes of people I know own their own homes because of the policy of Council Houses being sold to long term tenants. My own parents being one example. Sadly it is unravelling as most privately owned homes are now falling into landlord ownership
I agree that the policy should have been "build one council house for every one that becomes privately owned" or least have some sort of ratio of replacement based on various economic measures. But hey ho. Back to Dickens.Holding the wrong end of the stick since 2009. -
poprock wrote:There was a lot of resentment at the time of mass high-rise building. While it looked great on paper, forcibly relocating entire communities is never a recipe for joy. In Glasgow it was particularly well documented. Gaining modern plumbing and an indoor toilet was not seen as adequate compensation for being moved away from the city, and it’s cultural and economic benefits.
Tbf the doc was about one particular high rise and not the Glasgow ones, which always seemed more about clearing the “slums” than about providing decent community housing
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