Scumlord slumlord due for bankruptcy - Joyous times

BTL was only possible though because the demand to rent was there, it can't happen the other way around as the people borrowing in order to let needed to have someone in the house to cover the costs of the debt.

 

Most of europe manages fine with much larger rental markets and far fewer house owners, there's nothing dysfunctional about BTL and landlords existing within the system.

I agree the demand was created by first time buyer’s inability to compete for houses that were rising by 20% a year. If they couldn’t buy they had no choice but to rent, in affect buy to let created their own market by forcing prices out of the reach on first time buyers.

People like me that owned an house saw easy money from property speculation, my ability to borrow money was better than a first time buyers ability to borrow money, the banks saw this and favoured buy to let. This changed the start of the housing chain, historically the first buyer in a chain was a first time buyer and they were replaced by buy to let. Although buy to let didn’t cause the situation, they did contribute to it. Without them there would have no one to by the first house in the chain, the chain would collapse and house prices wouldn’t have risen out of control.

I agree we do need a private rental market but one that gives tenants much better security and one which builds houses to rent instead of buying houses that are historically the house the younger generation can afford as their first home.

The price increases started before BTL became (more) popular though, driven by lax credit.

You'd expect though that since no one is buying BTL and FTB are finding it difficult to buy that prices would have fallen again, but instead they seem to have stagnated. The housing market is a very difficult one to understand or predict.

The price increases started before BTL became (more) popular though, driven by lax credit.

 

You'd expect though that since no one is buying BTL and FTB are finding it difficult to buy that prices would have fallen again, but instead they seem to have stagnated. The housing market is a very difficult one to understand or predict.

I agree and looking at the data, transactions are well down on previous years, and first time buyers are at a record low, many people that would normally be entering the housing market are now staying with mum and dad for much longer. I have some experience of this my two are going now where.

My feeling is they will stagnate for years and maybe drop very slightly each year, the big question is would it have been better to allow them to crash.

This simply isn't supported by the evidence though is it.

A 1% increase in BTL ownership does not entirely replace 1st time buyers in the market as you are suggesting. It's a minor increase. FTB still exist and are still buying and more importantly they were part of the problem that drove up house prices as banks were falling over themselves to lend FTB more and more money.

Cheap and unregulated finance caused the bubble, that included FTB and BTL, but it wasn't exclusive to either.

Have you got any evidence to show that this actually happened?

The financial market was the primary reason, the government did nothing to stop it but that doesn't make it directly responsible.

Since the Council of Mortgage lenders started collecting records on BTL mortgages in 1998, there were 28 700 mortgages, in 2010 that figures stands at 1.3million. The value of these mortgages is a nominal £151 billion as of 2010. That is a staggering amount. Equivalent to over 10% of 2010 GDP (£1.4trillion).

In 2001 there were 568 000 first time buyers, the amount of first time buyers then began to decline, and decline rapidly, falling to 360 000 in 2007, when the housing bubble finally burst. From 2001 to 2007 the BTL market exploded. People who would have been traditionally housed by the state began to be housed by private landlords (subsidised housing for low wage workers had gone long before then!), the housing benefit bill increased massively, and the proportion of it going to private landlords increased even further (it doubled throughout the period). From Nov 08 to Nov 10, the amount of housing benefit paid to private landlords increased a further 41%.

Since the Council of Mortgage lenders started collecting records on BTL mortgages in 1998, there were 28 700 mortgages, in 2010 that figures stands at 1.3million. The value of these mortgages is a nominal £151 billion as of 2010. That is a staggering amount. Equivalent to over 10% of 2010 GDP (£1.4trillion).

 

In 2001 there were 568 000 first time buyers, the amount of first time buyers then began to decline, and decline rapidly, falling to 360 000 in 2007, when the housing bubble finally burst. From 2001 to 2007 the BTL market exploded. People who would have been traditionally housed by the state began to be housed by private landlords (subsidised housing for low wage workers had gone long before then!), the housing benefit bill increased massively, and the proportion of it going to private landlords increased even further (it doubled throughout the period). From Nov 08 to Nov 10, the amount of housing benefit paid to private landlords increased a further 41%.

Many of these people would have been first time buyers and wouldn't have considered renting even in council houses, if the property bubble hadn't priced them out of the market.

Many of these people would have been first time buyers and wouldn't have considered renting even in council houses, if the property bubble hadn't priced them out of the market.

I suppose so, but the position we are now in is akin to that of the late 20s, and with such high housing costs these people can no longer afford to house themselves.

A combination of private and public sector building is the way forward, with the public sector housing allowing people to save up before buying a new private sector house.

Can we replicate the boom of 33-39? Let's hope so.

Personally I'd like things to go differently and for a surplus of state housing to be built, but I do not think there is the political will for such a thing, yet.

I suppose so, but the position we are now in is akin to that of the late 20s, and with such high housing costs these people can no longer afford to house themselves.

 

A combination of private and public sector building is the way forward, with the public sector housing allowing people to save up before buying a new private sector house.

 

Can we replicate the boom of 33-39? Let's hope so.

 

Personally I'd like things to go differently and for a surplus of state housing to be built, but I do not think there is the political will for such a thing, yet.

A slow reduction of the UK population and small increase in social and private housing will solve the problem.

A slow reduction of the UK population and small increase in social and private housing will solve the problem.

Demographics are in our favour for that to occur, however, with birth rates below replacement level and growing burden of pensioners, the government is allowing immigration in order to reduce the amount of pensioners relative to the amount of people of working age.

For such a reduction to take place we must halt immigration, but with the growing pensioner burden this is highly unlikely. Income inequality could be reduced, and that is quite possibly the thing most likely to happen. Other scenarios that could play out are food shortages leading to starvation, or more likely, medicine shortages and a cold winter leading to a spike in the amount of deaths of the elderly.

Far better to build I think, we have plenty of surplus labour, in the 30s it took less than 1000 hours to build a house, we could do it even more efficiently now if we wished to do. But whilst providing a lot of labour in the short term, it would lead to unemployment among construction workers in the long term, unless of course we then upgraded other infrastructure.

Demographics are in our favour for that to occur, however, with birth rates below replacement level and growing burden of pensioners, the government is allowing immigration in order to reduce the amount of pensioners relative to the amount of people of working age.

 

For such a reduction to take place we must halt immigration, but with the growing pensioner burden this is highly unlikely. Income inequality could be reduced, and that is quite possibly the thing most likely to happen. Other scenarios that could play out are food shortages leading to starvation, or more likely, medicine shortages and a cold winter leading to a spike in the amount of deaths of the elderly.

 

Far better to build I think, we have plenty of surplus labour, in the 30s it took less than 1000 hours to build a house, we could do it even more efficiently now if we wished to do. But whilst providing a lot of labour in the short term, it would lead to unemployment among construction workers in the long term, unless of course we then upgraded other infrastructure.

The pension problem isn't going to go away and will need dealing with sooner or later, we can't just keep increasing the population to support pensioners, and eventually it will just make a bad situation worse. We already have a massive surplus of labour that can support pensions but at the moment they are also a drain on the country, reduce the population and get that lot into work.

The pension problem isn't going to go away and will need dealing with sooner or later, we can't just keep increasing the population to support pensioners, and eventually it will just make a bad situation worse. We already have a massive surplus of labour that can support pensions but at the moment they are also a drain on the country, reduce the population and get that lot into work.

carrousel perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_%28film%29

carrousel perhaps?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_%28film%29

Better to deal with it now befor we get to that point.