Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

so fred, you think i am the only one who thinks as i do here and in the much wider sphere of uk? ......
i would hazard, though it is virtually no bet, that it is you in your ivory tower who heads up the decided minority

truly spiffing thought of yours to open up the borders to every impecunious rag, tag and bobtail who fancies coming over and to hell with the rights of all who already live here ..... no doubt you'ld also champion their rights to free housing and all the other benefits purely because "oh dear; these poor dears are homeless ... of course we should give them priority"

The Private Rental Sector Is Out of Control And The Solution is Obvious
Posted on June 2, 2014

landlordsFor millions of the UK’s poorest people, the biggest weekly expense by far is the cost of buying someone much richer than them a house. Almost 4 million people now rent privately and many will live their entire lives without ever knowing what it is like to have a secure home. The gradual demolition of the social housing sector combined with buy-to-let vultures gobbling up low cost houses will only entrench this monstrous future.

No-one was ever asked whether this is a future anyone wants. Instead it is presented as inevitable – this is just something the free-market is doing to us that we have no control over. This is neo-liberal ideology at its most insidious. The only ones who benefit from the majority of the population living in insecure private rented housing are landlords and property investers. Therefore no alternative can even be imagined. It is a done deal and so the rich get richer and our lives get shitter.

This illusion is constantly re-enforced by those who benefit. Landlords will pull out of the market if tenants are given more rights they shrilly proclaim – as if buy-to-letters are all going to start paying their own mortages for a change. To back this up new laws are created, such as the ban on squatting in abandoned residential properties. If this law was removed then landlords leaving thousands of homes empty would almost certainly lead to the kind of squatting movement that was seen both after the second world war and in the 1970s when entire streets were squatted by homeless families. That is why no major political party opposed the squatting ban, the free-market must be protected with laws as well as lies.

The Labour Party is happy with this consensus. Ed Milliband talks about flimsy rights for private tenants, but never council houses for everyone that needs one. That even these wet proposals were met with howls of outrage from landlords reveal a private rented sector that is now out of control. Buy-to-let landlords even complain that the money they make from rents barely even allows them to make a decent profit, nimbly forgetting that they are not only also being bought a property, but that someone is paying them to live in it and look after it for them. These parasites seem to think that houses are free, probably because they are if you’re rich and immoral enough to convince a bank to give you a buy-to-let mortgage.

In truth nothing shows up the failure of the free-market run rampant then the private rental sector. Rents are now so high that the tax payer spends billions each year topping up the rent of even those in work via Housing Benefit. We are paying a fortune to keep landlords rich, whilst thousands still go homeless. The idea that a competitive market leads to the best for consumers is rendered laughable by the private rental sector. It is the customer, the tenant, who has to compete, jumping through endless hoops and shelling out a fortune just to get a roof over their heads. Landlords don’t increase profits by improving the service they offer, but by failing to carry out repairs, hiking rents and evicting anyone who complains. On some of the many internet forums devoted to landlords the contempt they hold for their tenants is staggeringly apparent, especially if they happen to rent to people on benefits. No other business would dare treat their customers this way.

Landlords discriminate at will. The vile No Blacks No Irish No Dogs of the past has been replaced with No DSS, which in practice means no lone parents, no disabled people, no unemployed people, or put more simply no-one poor. This is probably illegal, but no-one seems to care how landlords behave. A survey carried out by the government in 2010 found that almost half of private sector housing failed to meet the Decent Homes Standards. Many did not even meet the minimum health and safety standards required for housing. Don’t expect the Government to do anything about this, they believe that ‘peer pressure’ is better than regulation to manage private sector landlords.

From shortly after the second world war up until 1980 millions of council houses were built in England, Scotland and Wales. The answer to the housing crisis is boringly obvious. But instead of low cost secure social housing we get offered hugely expensive ‘affordable rents’ that no-one can afford. The so-called Living Wage isn’t even enough to pay Affordable Rents in many parts of the UK where they can run as high as several hundred pounds a week. The situation would be laughable if it wasn’t such a fucking disgrace and didn’t cause such acute suffering.

And yet not one of the politicians who claims to represent us will even consider any alternative to this profit-crazed exploitation of our most basic human need – a safe, secure and genuinely affordable home. This is hardly surprising. Around a third of MPs are landlords themselves. They really are all fucking in it together.

shame on you sticky, for we all know you're a landlord too (as am i but in a much smaller way)

of course there are rotten and exploitative landlords, but that has been so throughout history
but equally, as you will know far better than me, there are many truly dreadful tenants

Manuel,

"so fred, you think i am the only one who thinks as i do here and in the much wider sphere of uk? ......"




Thankfully, I am not responsible for the company you keep.

Much of your diatribes would wash well with the BNP, UKIP and the disconnected Right winger of the "said" present tory party!

Those who depend on fragmentation of society to gain their own acceptance.

As far as voluble populists, similar to yourself, are concerned, blaming everybody else for their problems is the juvenile level that they operate and Cameron and Osborne rhetoric appeals to them.

My guess is, that at the next General Election much of what is being spouted at the moment, by loony isolationists, yourself included, will be dismissed by those who vote and there will be a coalition of the moderate and left central political parties.

The tories in their present clothes will be rejected and UKIP will have less following that they expect.

We will see!

But be careful who you associate with. You may end up more tarred than you already are!

GF.

I await the G/E with interest and expect Labour and other parties (Greens) will at that time itemise the failures and U-turns of this appalling period of tory government.

Also, I hope they expose the privatisation of public services and corrupt deals which have occurred with private contractors.

Cyners........IM NOT A RENT TO BUY LANDLORD.

Again you havent read the article properly.

Theirs nothing wrong with Responsible Landlords, this article isnt about Responsible Housing.

as usual i haven't bothered to read yet another diatribe thoroughly, for its tribal parentage is immediately apparent

out of genuine curiosity .... if you are not a "buy-to-let landlord", how would you describe yourself for i know you have a fair number of properties which you then rent out?

A B/W Cynic selfy.

Here here Fred, more and more people are now realising what a cruel and corrupt government we have.

The Lib/Dems have paid dearly the torries are next, you can count on that.

Stan, he he ha ha, brilliant............ fair tickled me.

Stan, he he ha ha, brilliant............ fair tickled me.

i too find it humorous, not least because i certainly do not see myself as being particularly right wing though relative to you ersatz socialists, perhaps i am

"not least because i certainly do not see myself as being right wing"

.. He's a laugh a minute isn't he? -):

As opposed to the socialists, who have no sense of humour!

Cyners the capital I place in new lettings comes from my personal savings pot. Its all organic pyramid capital growth.

Not one penny do I borrow to finance my growing property empire. Its all internaly funded, I cant say that for 2 of our 7 synndicate. I do know they borrow from the bank some of their investment. But its certainly not the bespoke buy to let funding the article points to.

I also rent out on usual at about 10% lower than the max rent payable as laid down by the local council/quango fair market rent policy.

Im now on my 5th high flat development which is not the norm for tennants more short term business men with short stay, the top few floors going to hign nett wealthy individuals.

Im certainly not the rent to buy landlord as described in that article and you seem to have mistaken the whole point of the authors negative take on the rental housing market.

No sense of humour, -uck me that coming from you Hays as made my day.

Maybe my humour is too subtle for you,

The words subtle and Haystack do not compute.

Maybe your humours non existent you mean.

Anyway you dont have to have a sense of humour to be interesting.

Just look at past cases eg, Steve Davies.

provided you are a good and fair landlord, what does it matter if you borrow to buy-to-let ..... indeed, there is surely a strong argument that by leveraging, you actually help those who need to rent

i don't bother to read rabid rantings from whichever quarter they emanate


stan - i have a picture of you in my mind's eye as something of an andy capp :-)