No Fault Evictions

[paulrbarnard]

But there is a housing crisis and the private landlord system could be seen as exploiting this and becoming a burden on their tenants.
It's not their fault as such, nor the tenants, the system is "broken" as they say.
One unfortunate detail is the idea of "social" or "affordable" housing as distinct from housing as a whole. It implies a dual system for the haves and the have nots. All housing is "social" housing serving society, and the lack of "affordable" housing is down to unrestrained free market economics leading to the housing bubble.

Jacob you finally make a valid point but the issue private landlords have is tenants who abuse the system. The system is broken when abusive tenants are given rights above the property owner. The system is already biased to the tenant and the latest move takes it too far. There is always going to be a grey area between bad tenants and bad landlords but legislating in favour of one over the other, at the expense of the majority, is not democracy.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob you finally make a valid point but the issue private landlords have is tenants who abuse the system. The system is broken when abusive tenants are given rights above the property owner.

The main problem is that most of the rights are given to property owners.

The system is already biased to the tenant and the latest move takes it too far. There is always going to be a grey area between bad tenants and bad landlords but legislating in favour of one over the other, at the expense of the majority, is not democracy.

How would you deal with problem tenants; put them in prison? Ditto problem landlords?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-67914836

 

[Jacob]

Forgot to add - my experience of landlordism is through my 3 kids who all were renting as students. They were all ripped off with high rents, unreturned deposits and all the usual other probs.
My advice to them, intended as a joke I hasten to add, was to torch the place when they leave. Needless to say they didn't take it!

 

[mark w]

"They must know that the homes we provide will not be available in the future"

Why? Will they be knocked down? The homes you provide will still be there, just owned by someone else. You make it sound as though you are providing a service for your community, in fact its an investment for you, it goes something like this, you buy a house, rent it out to cover the mortgage plus a bit more, the house rises in value and at some point you sell it making a profit, or keep renting it out making a profit.
You aren't providing affordable housing and you aren't adding additional housing in your area.

 

[Agent_zed]

But there is a housing crisis and the private landlord system could be seen as exploiting this and becoming a burden on their tenants.
It's not their fault as such, nor the tenants, the system is "broken" as they say.
One unfortunate detail is the idea of "social" or "affordable" housing as distinct from housing as a whole. It implies a dual system for the haves and the have nots. All housing is "social" housing serving society, and the lack of "affordable" housing is down to unrestrained free market economics leading to the housing bubble.

Most of the increase in house prices can from when women went to work. (I don't have anything against women working etc etc). It's simple economics. 1 household income could afford 4x salary. Some households had 2 incomes and could afford to push the price they could pay on the house they wanted, beating out the 1 income household.

There was a sweetspot where 2 income houses could buy what they wanted as there wasn't enough 2 income households to affect the market. As more and more households had 2 incomes it became necessary to have 2 incomes as houses became 8x the household income (some additional factors also have increase it beyond that). Subsequently rather than women choosing to go to work, now they mostly have no choice.

There is no simple way back as far as I can see. Houses aren't suddenly going to drop back to 4x a single salary as that would leave 2 income houses with 2x as much as they need and they will be able to bid up the houses again. Unless you had some state imposed maximum price put on the house there is no way to stop this, people will take as much money as they can get for their house.

As for landlords exploiting tenants by providing housing, there are many benefits to not owning a house. A huge amount of people move around for jobs and only want to rent for a year or so, an lot of people dont' want to deal with the hassle of a house and would rather someone just turn up and fix whatever is broken from 1 call to the landlord. If a tenant can't pay it is often the landlord that loses out. If a homeowner can't pay the mortgage company repossesses the house and recoups their investment and costs.

 

[Agent_zed]

my experience of landlordism is through my 3 kids who all were renting as students.

So instead your kids should have bought a house each? Which they can't let (rent) any of the rooms to other students as that would be exploitation.

 

[deema]

There are plenty of places where houses are very affordable, The hype that a typical house is too expensive is clearly false. If you want a house, move to where you can afford one! Now, that may not be where you want to live, and if you want to live in a highly desirable place, your going to have to pay for it, because a lot of people also want to live there too! Now, I know there is a magic tree that can produce 65 million houses on Park Lane in London, but until it happens, living on Park Lane is going to be unaffordable to just about anyone.
So, from Zoopla the 10 most affordable places to buy a house in England, Scotland and Wales. All less than 1.5 times average wages.

 

[Jacob]

So instead your kids should have bought a house each?

No, they should have had tightly controlled landlords

Which they can't let (rent) any of the rooms to other students as that would be exploitation.

They were in rooms in shared houses.

 

[deema]

In the second qtr of 2023 there were 720540 houses for sale. In the sane period there were approximately 500K families in need of social housing. So, sufficient houses for sale to ensure everyone in need had a home? It’s back to, where you want to live versus where you can afford to live. Major cities are magnets for everyone, and there is only so much land to build on in a city centre. So inevitably house prices will continue to increase whilst the population increases and the desirability to live there increases.

 

[Cooper]

Why? Will they be knocked down? The homes you provide will still be there, just owned by someone else. You make it sound as though you are providing a service for your community, in fact its an investment for you, it goes something like this, you buy a house, rent it out to cover the mortgage plus a bit more, the house rises in value and at some point you sell it making a profit, or keep renting it out making a profit.
You aren't providing affordable housing and you aren't adding additional housing in your area.

Because we will sell them.

We are providing a service.
Until the law is changed to permit local authorities to control the planning and building of homes to rent, someone needs to supply homes. The culture in this country is to regard home ownership as the ideal, until politicians don’t pander to that notion and permit the land speculators euphemistically described as builders control the supply, private landlords will be one of the vital providers of homes.

 

[deema]

Let’s assume, that private landlords are banned. The government nationalises all private rental properties. Now, the government manages the rents, so, it’s only a certain percentage of the national minimum wage. Great, problem solved? No, because if you can now live in a major city centre near to all the amenities for an. ‘Affordable rent’ why wouldn’t everyone take up the option? Why would you buy a house? There simply would never be sufficient stock! The whole concept is completely flawed and totally impossible to make a reality. It makes great headlines to suggest we build more houses, provide affordable housing, social engineered low rents, the reality is that it’s a problem without a solution. Just recall what happened when school league tables first started to be published. House prices near. good schools shy rocketed.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

An easy way of providing loads of social housing - means test it. I had an acquantance for decades who lived in a council house I was subsidising through my taxes, he was earning threetimes what I earned. He should have moved on, or if he chose to stay there at least paid a market rent giving the councul money to spend on more housing. I also know people earning decent money who had council housing bequeathed by their parents, I don't know whether that still happens but that was plainly wrong.

 

[Jacob]

Because we will sell them.

Glad to hear it! The more get offered for sale the lower the price.

We are providing a service.
Until the law is changed to permit local authorities to control the planning and building of homes to rent, someone needs to supply homes.

But most landlords don't. They buy and exploit existing homes.

.... private landlords will be one of the vital providers of homes.

As mentioned - most don't provide homes. They are redundant, nobody needs them.

 

[deema]

An easy way of providing loads of social housing - means test it. I had an acquantance for decades who lived in a council house I was subsidising through my taxes, he was earning threetimes what I earned. He should have moved on, or if he chose to stay there at least paid a market rent giving the councul money to spend on more housing. I also know people earning decent money who had council housing bequeathed by their parents, I don't know whether that still happens but that was plainly wrong.

I actually hope Labour bring all of their planned rules in for private landlords. I hope they make it so ridiculous for private landlords that they all sell up. What will be the outcome of this populist socialist plan? Mass homelessness. If that’s what it takes to convince the left of the their complete lack of understanding so be it. We have been there before under a socialist government when rent control was introduced.
Low rents, labour costs and material costs rising means either you don’t maintain properties or lose money. Typical returns on rental properties is 5~8%. That’s before maintenance costs, rental costs (insurance, estate agents, gas / electric checks etc etc) where as you can pop your cash in the bank and attain the same net return for no hassle,

 

[JackEasy]

Build more houses where people want to live? Well, what happens when they all want to live in the same place? London is big, commuting is hard and takes a lot of time, but you can get cities the size of UK counties, ie Shanghai is about the same size as Devon. It will take less time to commute around Devon than it does in Shanghai! What point am I making? Well it’s Simple, there is only so much land that is highly desirable to live on, and you can’t build houses for everyone in it. The argument for more housing where people want it defies logic and physics.

The population of Scotland between 1991 and 2021 has only increased by 353600 people, so about 11,700 per year. In 2023 Scotland built 20,992 houses a reduction of 11% compared to the previous year. It would suggest there is an abundance of housing, and yet, in the major cities in Scotland house price keep rising! Everyone would like to live as close to work, schools, doctors, shops, theatres, etc etc. but you can’t so, areas are more desirable and prices rise. Whether houses are rented or owned, it won’t allow 66 million people to live within walking distance of what people want, so, house prices will rise as the population size increases. If you want to reduce house prices, decrease the population……a good war for instance, bit drastic, but its very effective.

Seems you have never been to Shanghai. One housing community likely has the same population As most Scottish towns and it takes significantly less time commuting from one side if Shanghai to the other than it does to do the same in Devon.
Shanghai has one of the best public transport systems in the world.
If everyone wants to live in London, the British population needs to adapt to living vertically in skyscrapers like they do in China, Singapore, Hong Kong. These apartments can be more comfortable to live than your standard semi-detached.
The future is up, not out.

 

[ey_tony]

House prices/rents is likely to be the biggest strain on the disadvantaged whoever they are and however it came about. Ordinary working people on low wages are also "impossible to help" when rents are too high, as they are around the UK especially in big cities..
There is a massive housing problem.

I'm not a landlord, maybe this is a question you should ask yourself - you are in the game!

I'm not in the 'game' as you put it.
The major problem has been the 'greed' of ordinary house purchasers thinking that buying a property was a sure way of making a fast buck so to speak which created the housing bubbles going back to 1988.
They're responsible for the strain as you put it on the disadvantaged.
That together with irresponsible lending is a recipe for disaster.
Irresponsible borrowing plus irresponsible lending coupled with greed and you have the perfect combination of ingredients for housing price rises probably 40% above the true value of the property's worth.
It was estimated that after the 2008 financial crash, if the government had put up interest rates, then up to three million home owners couldn't have serviced their mortgages so irresponsible borrowers put a tin hat on the interest on savings that would have been a helping hand to those in retirement.
The responsible thing for government to have done at the time was allow interest rates to rise but no government would have wanted to oversee the loss of homes of up to three million families.
The worst part was that many borrowed the entire amount and so put absolutely nothing financially in the form of deposit into the properties they bought and all it did was push up prices.

The only thing that has kept the housing market from collapsing has been the shortage of houses.

 

[JackEasy]

Build more houses where people want to live? Well, what happens when they all want to live in the same place? London is big, commuting is hard and takes a lot of time, but you can get cities the size of UK counties, ie Shanghai is about the same size as Devon. It will take less time to commute around Devon than it does in Shanghai! What point am I making? Well it’s Simple, there is only so much land that is highly desirable to live on, and you can’t build houses for everyone in it. The argument for more housing where people want it defies logic and physics.

The population of Scotland between 1991 and 2021 has only increased by 353600 people, so about 11,700 per year. In 2023 Scotland built 20,992 houses a reduction of 11% compared to the previous year. It would suggest there is an abundance of housing, and yet, in the major cities in Scotland house price keep rising! Everyone would like to live as close to work, schools, doctors, shops, theatres, etc etc. but you can’t so, areas are more desirable and prices rise. Whether houses are rented or owned, it won’t allow 66 million people to live within walking distance of what people want, so, house prices will rise as the population size increases. If you want to reduce house prices, decrease the population……a good war for instance, bit drastic, but its very effective.

You’ve obviously not been to Shanghai where they have one of the best public transport systems in the world. Where they invented shared bicycles to fix the last km issue.
Also, one of the apartment communities in Shanghai likely has the same population as most Scottish towns.
The answer is easy. We need to build up, not out.

 

[niemeyjt]

I actually hope Labour bring all of their planned rules in for private landlords. I hope they make it so ridiculous for private landlords that they all sell up. What will be the outcome of this populist socialist plan? Mass homelessness. If that’s what it takes to convince the left of the their complete lack of understanding so be it. We have been there before under a socialist government when rent control was introduced.
Low rents, labour costs and material costs rising means either you don’t maintain properties or lose money. Typical returns on rental properties is 5~8%. That’s before maintenance costs, rental costs (insurance, estate agents, gas / electric checks etc etc) where as you can pop your cash in the bank and attain the same net return for no hassle,

They don't need to - the SNP has already done it in Scotland and as a result totally messed up the housing market north of the border.

Remember - there is no situation that a politician cannot make worse.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The seemingly inexorable rise in house prices creates housing shortages in places like Cornwall. Buy a little bungalow in fairly decent area for £150,000, use it for a week or two's holiday once a year paying £15,000 council tax over ten years then sell it for for £300,000. That's happen nearby. If you've the money what's not to like?

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Increasing house prices may have rather more to do with interest rates which govern affordability.

In 1990 the average mortgage interest rate was ~10%. On a £100k 25 year mortgage the monthly repayments would be £908.

Interest rates then fell slowly until ~2010 when ~4% was the norm until very recently. Monthly repayments would be £527.

If repayments were the only driver of house prices, the price of housing would have increased by 72%.

In 1990 average house prices were a multiple of ~3.5 times salary. Currently they are ~9 times salary.

The conclusion - house prices are driven largely, but not only by monthly mortgage repayments. The 2nd family income may be some explanation - but I suspect that in recent years the deficit of housebuilding vs demand (in large part from net migration) is responsible.