Guardian: The 'buy to let' locusts!

[ViolentPanda]

No i think that people who see themselves as altruistic are a bit bonkers though.

I suspect that few people "see themselves" as altruistic. I know that some people ACT altruistically.

And i believe that you have 2 levels of self interest narrow and wider.

Which begs the question of why your contributions on this thread seem to fall under the remit of "narrow" when you make such a fuss about being a socialist.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oh, it's *pimping* you're in favour of.

With balders wearing the mink and carrying the silver-tipped cane.

 

[ViolentPanda]

BTL should be a priority campaigning wise .. it is shit simple as .. it sums up our pathetic teenage society ...

No, it sums up how thoroughly the whole of society has been penetrated by the values of Capital, and the problem is insoluble because even "socialists", who make claim to knowing better than the average run of moneygrubber, feel that it is their right to exercise a "right to buy" the social housing they live in to secure their future, either ignoring or ignorant of the fact that their individual actions make the collectivity weaker.
So it's an easy step for most people, that step to landlord status. Why care about other people when most of the examples that politicans and the media give you tell you not to give a fuck, to go ahead and fill your boots?

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Why can't you blame BTL landlords for studentification?

BTL landlords aren't actually to blame for studentification, they're just taking advantage of it.

A couple of decades ago student numbers were far fewer than they are today. Is it the BTL landlords' fault that there are more students requiring private sector accommodation? Did the BTL landlords think: Hey, I know, I'll buy a house in a city with a few universities and then students will enrol in courses and move to this city to fill them?

Of course not, it was the other way around: the universities expanded their courses and student numbers at a rapid rate and didn't increase university owned accommodation at the same rate. So there was a shortfall.

Since there weren't enough places in halls (the fault of the universities and by extension government), BTL landlord stepped into the breach. But they weren't really that new a phenomenon. For years wealthy parents have been buying their offspring houses in university towns, so that their darlings have somewhere to live. They probably used to sell up when their children left uni, but now they're probably likely to keep the house and buy some more.

 

[chymaera]

BTL landlords aren't actually to blame for studentification, they're just taking advantage of it.

Anyone letting to students should be forced by law to live with students.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Anyone letting to students should be forced by law to live with students.

Mmmm, shaping the punishment to fit the crime. I like it.

 

[durruti02]

No, it sums up how thoroughly the whole of society has been penetrated by the values of Capital, and the problem is insoluble because even "socialists", who make claim to knowing better than the average run of moneygrubber, feel that it is their right to exercise a "right to buy" the social housing they live in to secure their future, either ignoring or ignorant of the fact that their individual actions make the collectivity weaker.
So it's an easy step for most people, that step to landlord status. Why care about other people when most of the examples that politicans and the media give you tell you not to give a fuck, to go ahead and fill your boots?

what you have written shows precisely why it should be a major campaign!

 

[Giles]

Anyone letting to students should be forced by law to live with students.

If students behave badly, that is hardly the fault of the person whose house they are renting, is it?

Everyone seems to think having nearly 50% of 18 year olds going into higher education.

Students want to live near their place of study.

They also tend to like living around other students, hence you get what has been termed "studentification".

Obviously some residents in an area don't like it when the social make-up changes to people "not like them", but hey, things don't stay the same, do they?

Giles..

 

[Fruitloop]

Without the talent to make money and spend it the landlord would probably not have a property to let.

You've got to be kidding, right? This is the lamest excuse for the way capital generates more capital (i.e. extracts it from the proletariat) going - the sort of thing I'd expect from the type of middle-class sub-Randian that signs up and thrashes around on P&P for a few days before realising how completely out of their depth they are and retreating to the sunnier climes of the cocks'n'kittens parts of the board.

Will your socialism reward people who have a talent for possessing capital? 'Cos if so I think it should go by another name.

 

[Fruitloop]

BTL landlords aren't actually to blame for studentification, they're just taking advantage of it.

A couple of decades ago student numbers were far fewer than they are today. Is it the BTL landlords' fault that there are more students requiring private sector accommodation? Did the BTL landlords think: Hey, I know, I'll buy a house in a city with a few universities and then students will enrol in courses and move to this city to fill them?

Of course not, it was the other way around: the universities expanded their courses and student numbers at a rapid rate and didn't increase university owned accommodation at the same rate. So there was a shortfall.

Since there weren't enough places in halls (the fault of the universities and by extension government), BTL landlord stepped into the breach. But they weren't really that new a phenomenon. For years wealthy parents have been buying their offspring houses in university towns, so that their darlings have somewhere to live. They probably used to sell up when their children left uni, but now they're probably likely to keep the house and buy some more.

It's the landlordism that is the problem, not the students per se.

 

[Giles]

It's the landlordism that is the problem, not the students per se.

If the government expand student numbers hugely and suddenly, then where are all the students supposed to live, if halls of residence are not provided?

On a more general note, both of the articles in the Guardian go on about "tax breaks for landlords" as if there are special ones. There are not, really.

It is a business, like any other, so you pay tax on the profit you make.

If I own a shop, and "make" £50,000 worth of sales in a year, I don't pay tax on £50,000. Because my profit is £50,000 less the cost of my stock, any wages I pay, the rent or loan interest on my shop, insurance, etc etc.

If I buy a flat and rent it out, it is exactly the same: I pay tax on the money I make, not the gross rental income. My extra income from this is the rent less the loan interest, cost of repairs and maintenance, suitable insurance premiums, advertising and letting agent fees, etc etc.

The article is itself stoking up resentment by the assertion that someone renting out a house gets some "special treatment" from the government, which they don't.

Giles..

 

[Fruitloop]

Studentification is a side-issue. The main issue is people buying houses that they have no intention of living in as an investment - this is landlordism pure and simple; they take advantage of the fact that they have capital to make money out of people that don't, with the undesirable knock-on effect that they also push the prices up in the area, making houses even less affordable for the people that live there and pushing more and more folks into the arms of landlords. The fact that in doing this they tend to aim for a market which is different to the community that already lives there (and is rather temporary, in the main) is just the 'insult to injury' part of it. And there's no doubt that they do target the student market: if you buy a house in a residential neighbourhood, don't maintain it, convert the living room into another bedroom and whack another hundred quid on the rent then it's pretty much 100% that you'll get students moving in.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You've got to be kidding, right? This is the lamest excuse for the way capital generates more capital (i.e. extracts it from the proletariat) going - the sort of thing I'd expect from the type of middle-class sub-Randian that signs up and thrashes around on P&P for a few days before realising how completely out of their depth they are and retreating to the sunnier climes of the cocks'n'kittens parts of the board.

Will your socialism reward people who have a talent for possessing capital? 'Cos if so I think it should go by another name.

It does.

 

[Giles]

Studentification is a side-issue. The main issue is people buying houses that they have no intention of living in as an investment - this is landlordism pure and simple; they take advantage of the fact that they have capital to make money out of people that don't, with the undesirable knock-on effect that they also push the prices up in the area, making houses even less affordable for the people that live there and pushing more and more folks into the arms of landlords. The fact that in doing this they tend to aim for a market which is different to the community that already lives there (and is rather temporary, in the main) is just the 'insult to injury' part of it. And there's no doubt that they do target the student market: if you buy a house in a residential neighbourhood, don't maintain it, convert the living room into another bedroom and whack another hundred quid on the rent then it's pretty much 100% that you'll get students moving in.

Of course people aim for the student market. If an area is conveniently close to a newly-expanded university, anyone advertising a house for rent will be inundated with calls from students wanting to live there. Should people not rent to students then, because their neighbours might not like them?

More generally, to what extent are landlords responsible for their tenants behaviour? The articles and letters in the Guardian, referred to by the OP include "horror stories" about "rough" people moving into an area, or "asylums", or "immigrant workers who managed to have the police out in force", drugs and excessive noise.

Surely whether a person owns his house, or rents it off someone else, they are responsible for their own behaviour to the same degree.

Or are tenants somehow not full adults, so that the landlord should go and tell them off as if they are noisy children?

Giles..

 

[Dissident Junk]

Fucking Gordon Brown, fucking baby boomers, fucking intergenerational theft. Oh, it gives me a fervour I haven't felt for years all this. Time to riot (only joking).

The situation around where I am is ridiculous. They are doing all these mill conversions, typical two bed places, and, of course, loads of people have btl without thinking who is going to live in them. Because around here, the numbers of young profs on the ground is rather thin and it is mostly families.

So what has happened?

Well, prices shot up and it has had a knock-on effect across the market. What was a lovely £80K 3-bed semi in 2003 is now a £180K 3-bed semi. What was a £40K two-bed terrace in 2000 is now worth £140K. And a good salary around here is about £19K.

Its the baby boomers that have done it. Some have so much money, it is insane. And they are just buying up properties left, right and centre. Even members of my family who come out with statements like: "we need at least 3K a month to survive in retirement" when my husband and I don't take home anywhere near that and we both work and we are in our 30s with little hope of earning more.

The expectations of these people are insane for the area. They drive around in their 4x4s and Mercs, go on two cruises a year, live in vast homes now worth over half a million, own two or more extra homes, including one in Spain and complain they don't have enough money! And isn't it a shame that young people can't afford a starter home!

I have to rent, but it pisses me off that my landlord bought two flats in our building and got them cheaper cos he bought two. And it pisses me off that I am expected to chase up faulty fixtures and fittings with the developer -- sort out his investment for him, while paying his mortgage as well.

And these people aren't rich bankers, or executives. They are old working class made good, people who had the advantage of free education, night classes, tuition, grants, right to buy, cheap homes, the 80s property boom, decent jobs on good contracts, final salary pensions and company cars. They are people who won't invest in the markets (which might create wealth and jobs for others) because it is "too risky", so they are going to fuck over younger people (like their own relatives) instead.

But it will come all falling down. The mill down my road has had twelve properties up for rent for the last 6 months. No takers. The one across from the station, 8 properties to rent. No takers. All in all, there are a significant number of empty properties that no one will rent -- possible about eighty or more within a mile radius (and I live in a rural village near some moorland in Yorkshire).

So people have started to sell, and the price is slowly going down. I reckon some people have lost 10 to 20 thousand already. And serves them bloody right.

There are flats that have been sold in Halifax, and never lived in because investors want to keep them pristine for resale. I hope they halve in value, I really do.

This government, under Blair and Brown, has been a government for baby boomers. It has made the wealthy wealthier; the rich, uber rich, and filled the capital with people that have ripped off their home countries billions. It is a scum government, a scab government, and yet the media insists on telling us Brown has been a good chancellor.

My arse.

 

[Giles]

Fucking Gordon Brown, fucking baby boomers, fucking intergenerational theft. Oh, it gives me a fervour I haven't felt for years all this. Time to riot (only joking).

The situation around where I am is ridiculous. They are doing all these mill conversions, typical two bed places, and, of course, loads of people have btl without thinking who is going to live in them. Because around here, the numbers of young profs on the ground is rather thin and it is mostly families.

So what has happened?

Well, prices shot up and it has had a knock-on effect across the market. What was a lovely £80K 3-bed semi in 2003 is now a £180K 3-bed semi. What was a £40K two-bed terrace in 2000 is now worth £140K. And a good salary around here is about £19K.

Its the baby boomers that have done it. Some have so much money, it is insane. And they are just buying up properties left, right and centre. Even members of my family who come out with statements like: "we need at least 3K a month to survive in retirement" when my husband and I don't take home anywhere near that and we both work and we are in our 30s with little hope of earning more.

The expectations of these people are insane for the area. They drive around in their 4x4s and Mercs, go on two cruises a year, live in vast homes now worth over half a million, own two or more extra homes, including one in Spain and complain they don't have enough money! And isn't it a shame that young people can't afford a starter home!

I have to rent, but it pisses me off that my landlord bought two flats in our building and got them cheaper cos he bought two. And it pisses me off that I am expected to chase up faulty fixtures and fittings with the developer -- sort out his investment for him, while paying his mortgage as well.

And these people aren't rich bankers, or executives. They are old working class made good, people who had the advantage of free education, night classes, tuition, grants, right to buy, cheap homes, the 80s property boom, decent jobs on good contracts, final salary pensions and company cars. They are people who won't invest in the markets (which might create wealth and jobs for others) because it is "too risky", so they are going to fuck over younger people (like their own relatives) instead.

But it will come all falling down. The mill down my road has had twelve properties up for rent for the last 6 months. No takers. The one across from the station, 8 properties to rent. No takers. All in all, there are a significant number of empty properties that no one will rent -- possible about eighty or more within a mile radius (and I live in a rural village near some moorland in Yorkshire).

So people have started to sell, and the price is slowly going down. I reckon some people have lost 10 to 20 thousand already. And serves them bloody right.

There are flats that have been sold in Halifax, and never lived in because investors want to keep them pristine for resale. I hope they halve in value, I really do.

This government, under Blair and Brown, has been a government for baby boomers. It has made the wealthy wealthier; the rich, uber rich, and filled the capital with people that have ripped off their home countries billions. It is a scum government, a scab government, and yet the media insists on telling us Brown has been a good chancellor.

My arse.

On one hand you criticise "these people" for having and making too much money, then you point out that they ARE NOT making money from these bad investments.

Surely if they are that stupid over their investments, they will lose their money, and as a result, others will win (by being able to buy their "investment" flats at knock-down prices)? So why complain?

People are going to invest in what they think is best. Given what has happened to a lot of pension schemes, and given the way that stock market investments can just evaporate in a day if things go wrong, I can see why people choose to invest in property.

What is "intergenerational theft" when its at home? Being mugged by a granny?

Giles..

 

[tbaldwin]

You've got to be kidding, right? This is the lamest excuse for the way capital generates more capital (i.e. extracts it from the proletariat) going - the sort of thing I'd expect from the type of middle-class sub-Randian that signs up and thrashes around on P&P for a few days before realising how completely out of their depth they are and retreating to the sunnier climes of the cocks'n'kittens parts of the board.

Will your socialism reward people who have a talent for possessing capital? 'Cos if so I think it should go by another name.

But if you accept that people should have educational advantages, why shouldnt people also have other advantages in life..Like more money,more houses,a yacht or 3....
It would at least be consistent.

 

[Dissident Junk]

Intergenerational theft:

The Great Generational Robbery

"High house prices are not creating wealth - they are merely redistributing it to the old and rich from the young and poor."

 

[Giles]

Intergenerational theft:

The Great Generational Robbery

"High house prices are not creating wealth - they are merely redistributing it to the old and rich from the young and poor."

I see.

Fortunately for some of the younger people, this transfer will reverse itself as the "baby boomers" die off - unless they cleverly invent eternal life in the next 10 to 20 years.

Giles..

 

[rich!]

I see.

Fortunately for some of the younger people, this transfer will reverse itself as the "baby boomers" die off - unless they cleverly invent eternal life in the next 10 to 20 years.

Giles..

Might get worse.

As the article points out, most of the money is being dissipated. However, the "bulge" bubble effect screws the economy for a long time...

In the mean time, the young are vastly poorer than in previous generations - which means lower life expectancy for them. The old are doing much better in terms of life expectancy.

One prediction is that by 2050 or so each working person will be supporting 4 older people through tax/NI/...

Which means there's little incentive to work - you're never going to get on the housing ladder, the older people never retire so all the senior jobs are eternally full, if you do work you pay punitive tax, ... might as well disappear into the black economy or out of the country...

 

[Fruitloop]

Intergenerational theft:

The Great Generational Robbery

"High house prices are not creating wealth - they are merely redistributing it to the old and rich from the young and poor."

Good article! Nice to see this issue finally make the mainstream.

 

[Fruitloop]

But if you accept that people should have educational advantages, why shouldnt people also have other advantages in life..Like more money,more houses,a yacht or 3....
It would at least be consistent.

You are ascribing to me beliefs that I do not hold. Again.

 

[nino_savatte]

But if you accept that people should have educational advantages, why shouldnt people also have other advantages in life..Like more money,more houses,a yacht or 3....
It would at least be consistent.

What is your problem with education, balders? I think you suffer from a form of inverted snobbery tbh.

 

[tbaldwin]

What is your problem with education, balders? I think you suffer from a form of inverted snobbery tbh.

To be honest.I think your lying again.

My problem with education as you put it....
Is that i think that its crucial that people are given more equal access to education,nationally and internationally.

I have little problem with Tories who think this is a bad idea....But people like you who claim to be left wing....Who depsite the fact that just a tiny minority of the worlds population has a H/E argue for more resources for H/E..

And even oppose pupils from private schools having to pay the full cost of their H/E....I really struggle with.....

To be honest...I think your a thoroughly mixed up snob.

 

[zoltan]

This pro / anti Landlord discussions are a diversion Comardes- the real enemy here is the smug,twee, up its own cunting arse Guardian.

 

[Giles]

To be honest.I think your lying again.

My problem with education as you put it....
Is that i think that its crucial that people are given more equal access to education,nationally and internationally.

I have little problem with Tories who think this is a bad idea....But people like you who claim to be left wing....Who depsite the fact that just a tiny minority of the worlds population has a H/E argue for more resources for H/E..

And even oppose pupils from private schools having to pay the full cost of their H/E....I really struggle with.....

To be honest...I think your a thoroughly mixed up snob.

Why do you have this thing about charging people who went to a private school more for university?

Specifically, are you just using their private education as an indicator of parental ability to pay more? If so, would you not also want to charge rich parents whose kids went to state schools more than average?

What about kids who have gained a scholarship to a private school, but whose parents are not necessarily rich at all? Or parents who scrimped and saved to send their kids to a fee-paying school?

Or do you feel that by paying for a better education than is provided for free, they have somehow "cheated the system" and that they should be financially punished for so doing?

Or some other reason?

I am genuinely interested in your reasoning on this.

Giles..

 

[nino_savatte]

To be honest.I think your lying again.

My problem with education as you put it....
Is that i think that its crucial that people are given more equal access to education,nationally and internationally.

I have little problem with Tories who think this is a bad idea....But people like you who claim to be left wing....Who depsite the fact that just a tiny minority of the worlds population has a H/E argue for more resources for H/E..

And even oppose pupils from private schools having to pay the full cost of their H/E....I really struggle with.....

To be honest...I think your a thoroughly mixed up snob.

How am I "lying"? I asked you what problem you had with education and suggested that you were an "inverted snob", how am I "lying"? Then you bring in the Tories...are you feeling well?

 

[_angel_]

Fucking Gordon Brown, fucking baby boomers, fucking intergenerational theft. Oh, it gives me a fervour I haven't felt for years all this. Time to riot (only joking).

The situation around where I am is ridiculous. They are doing all these mill conversions, typical two bed places, and, of course, loads of people have btl without thinking who is going to live in them. Because around here, the numbers of young profs on the ground is rather thin and it is mostly families.

So what has happened?

Well, prices shot up and it has had a knock-on effect across the market. What was a lovely £80K 3-bed semi in 2003 is now a £180K 3-bed semi. What was a £40K two-bed terrace in 2000 is now worth £140K. And a good salary around here is about £19K.

Its the baby boomers that have done it. Some have so much money, it is insane. And they are just buying up properties left, right and centre. Even members of my family who come out with statements like: "we need at least 3K a month to survive in retirement" when my husband and I don't take home anywhere near that and we both work and we are in our 30s with little hope of earning more.

The expectations of these people are insane for the area. They drive around in their 4x4s and Mercs, go on two cruises a year, live in vast homes now worth over half a million, own two or more extra homes, including one in Spain and complain they don't have enough money! And isn't it a shame that young people can't afford a starter home!

I have to rent, but it pisses me off that my landlord bought two flats in our building and got them cheaper cos he bought two. And it pisses me off that I am expected to chase up faulty fixtures and fittings with the developer -- sort out his investment for him, while paying his mortgage as well.

And these people aren't rich bankers, or executives. They are old working class made good, people who had the advantage of free education, night classes, tuition, grants, right to buy, cheap homes, the 80s property boom, decent jobs on good contracts, final salary pensions and company cars. They are people who won't invest in the markets (which might create wealth and jobs for others) because it is "too risky", so they are going to fuck over younger people (like their own relatives) instead.

But it will come all falling down. The mill down my road has had twelve properties up for rent for the last 6 months. No takers. The one across from the station, 8 properties to rent. No takers. All in all, there are a significant number of empty properties that no one will rent -- possible about eighty or more within a mile radius (and I live in a rural village near some moorland in Yorkshire).

So people have started to sell, and the price is slowly going down. I reckon some people have lost 10 to 20 thousand already. And serves them bloody right.

There are flats that have been sold in Halifax, and never lived in because investors want to keep them pristine for resale. I hope they halve in value, I really do.

This government, under Blair and Brown, has been a government for baby boomers. It has made the wealthy wealthier; the rich, uber rich, and filled the capital with people that have ripped off their home countries billions. It is a scum government, a scab government, and yet the media insists on telling us Brown has been a good chancellor.

My arse.

DJ You do have a point about the generation of Baby Boomers having access to far more social mobility than we see now and them drawing up the ladder behind them, so to speak.

 

[jæd]

Good article! Nice to see this issue finally make the mainstream.

Not really... The article assumes that the majority of pensioners aren't interested in providing for their children and assumes retirement age is not going to increase... Seem to be yet another "the-end-is-neigh" story...