Why can't you blame BTL landlords for studentification? When those twats off Location, Location, Location did a BTL thing that was specifically their advice - to target towns where there were a lot of students because the properties didn't need to be in such good repair, you could cram more into a house and thus get more rent, and they were mostly in a short-term situation where it was impossible to avoid renting, thus keeping the rental prices up. I don't suppose they are the first to think of this, judging by what's happening to the areas around me in Cambridge.
Guardian: The 'buy to let' locusts!
- Thread starter treelover
- Start date
Gromit
International Man of Misery
jæd said:
Thats why I got into it. That and the fact I'm a government employee and can't afford the things my private sector peers can (such as a car worth more than £300 and nice holidays).
It’s a hard one to balance. On the one hand I see no problem with people providing a service to a real need. In other words landlords renting out property to people who for whatever reason (and there can be many) prefer to rent rather than buy. In my case I was targeting the student market.
The problem comes when people are buying property despite their being no real local need for temporary accommodation and the need is in fact created mainly by inflated house prices rather than preference.
The rules regarding maintenance are fair in my opinion. The landlord is responsible for all external repairs and important stuff such as electrics and gas. Whilst the tenant is responsible for internal maintenance. Why is the last bit fair? Well if they weren’t responsible for it lets be honest most tenants will wreck the place with the excuse, what do I care, its not coming out of my pocket! It’s a common human attitude unfortunately.
In fact my first tenants made a shit-hole out of my property, despite the fact it was made clear from the start they were responsible for internal maintenance, despite the fact they had small children living there (and so you’d want to clean for hygiene’s sake alone) and despite the fact the mother wasn’t working and had plenty of time to clean, more time than I did to clean my flat. By the time I’d paid for all the repairs and clean up I made no money from renting to them and quite rightly should have kept their bond. As I’d been renting to mate on hard times via the DSS I was a softie and let them have it back but I wish I’d never rented to them.
Fruitloop said:
Cos Im a Socialist and i believe in self interest.
If people see it in their interest in becoming buy to let landlords they will.
Just like people get higher education degrees cos they see it in their self interest.
As a Socialist i would argue that laws need to be cahnged so that people dont have such advantages in housing wealth or education.
But till then blaming anybody for being a buy to let landlord or a Higher Education student is pointless.
But this is cack, isn't it? Even if I had the money I wouldn't buy up housing in w/c areas like Salford etc where I would never live in a million years and rent them back to the local community at twice the price (as the LLL folks suggested), because that's the actions of a cunt. You have bought into the capitalist notion that whatever is in my interests is justifiable, which is no surprise as IMO you wouldn't recognise socialism if you fell over it.
Homelessness is probably the most effective penalty in the capitalist arsenal for those who refuse to sell their labour, so it's no surpise that home-owning should be seen as not just the right but almost the duty of every good wage-slave, and also that homelessness is the ultimate indication of failure.
There's a big difference between saying that socialism is in my personal interest (which it is, otherwise why bother unless you think it's gonna get you into heaven or some such shit), and saying that because it's in my personal interest I'm also going to act exculsively in my own interests under capitalism, no matter how big a cunt that makes me. The one does not follow from the other.
Fruitloop said:
Your taking a bit of jump there fruitloop.
You could argue that your lovely landlord is acting in your interests. Or you could call them erm whatever you like.....
But why is a landlord any worse than someone who writes for the Guardian both are exploiting what they have.
girasol
Addicted to handstands!
I was on the council waiting list for over 10 years to get a council flat and it never happened. So what did I do in the end? I bough an ex-council flat, because that was all I could afford and the housing association I was with was evicting its tenants because the council was selling its housing stock 
Now I'm in a position where I can't sell this flat (I got a fixed rate mortgage, so if I was to sell it would cost me thousands in penalties), although I've moved out, so instead I'm going to rent it to a friend for about £400 less than the market price for the area.
I'm thinking I'm going to keep the flat forever, I reckon that if I sold it it would go to a real 'but to let' individual who'd end up charging £900pcm for a poxy 1-bed flat... So unintentionally, I've became a 'landlady', something I sort of despise, but there you go... I also have a feelling that if I do sell it, my son will never be able to aford to buy his own place when he gets older...
Now I'm in a position where I can't sell this flat (I got a fixed rate mortgage, so if I was to sell it would cost me thousands in penalties), although I've moved out, so instead I'm going to rent it to a friend for about £400 less than the market price for the area.
I'm thinking I'm going to keep the flat forever, I reckon that if I sold it it would go to a real 'but to let' individual who'd end up charging £900pcm for a poxy 1-bed flat... So unintentionally, I've became a 'landlady', something I sort of despise, but there you go... I also have a feelling that if I do sell it, my son will never be able to aford to buy his own place when he gets older...
Prince Rhyus
Spokesman of King Antonio
Has anyone thought about dropping an email to the Department for Communities and Local Government?
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1159207
It might be worth asking them if they have any comment to make on the Guardian's report, and if there are any plans to deal with the issue, whether it's via ASBOs on the tennants, greater responsibilities put on landlords and property management companies or some other means.
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1159207
It might be worth asking them if they have any comment to make on the Guardian's report, and if there are any plans to deal with the issue, whether it's via ASBOs on the tennants, greater responsibilities put on landlords and property management companies or some other means.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Belushi said:
He thinks "altruism" is a swearword.
He also doesn't seem to have cottoned that "self-interest" in ones' class is different from self-interest per se.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
tbaldwin said:
Here's the difference:
One (the journo) is exploiting a talent that they've usually put quite a bit of effort into honing. Without that talent they probably wouldn't have become a journo.
The other (the landlord) is exploiting an asset, external to any talents or abilities of the exploiter has.
I don't know. First you defend "right to buy", now you're playing (a biased) devil's advocate for "buy to let".
Makes you think...
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
treelover said:
Don't you get it?
WE DON'T MATTER.
ViolentPanda said:
The landlord has a talent for making money and so does the journalist.
Without the talent to make money and spend it the landlord would probably not have a property to let.
Journalists normally show a talent for working in a way that advertisers will approve on and within those constraints.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Wrong.tbaldwin said:
A landlord needs no talent to exploit his asset. In fact many landlords, cognisant of the absence of talent on their part, delegate the money-making to agents.
I'm sure that some do. I'm equally sure that some don't, and that the fact that some do is irrelevant to the point I made, which was about having a talent.
Similar threads
