Greedy landlords rub their hands with glee as Londoners queue in the cold to buy flats

[ViolentPanda]

Or a shortage of people earning enough money to rent them. What's the maximum housing benefit you can get in London for a single person in a one room flat?

Varies from borough to borough, and if you're under 35, all you get is the price of a room in a house-share, but either way you're mostly topping out at about £250 a week.

 

[ViolentPanda]

bluers, i was thinking in terms of london not ebola or whatnot. what about the bedroom tax which affects more than a few dozen londoners? the destruction of council rstates replsced by yuppie flats?

Quite. Your neck of the woods has lost 3 or 4 large estates to "redevelopment",IIRC, just over the last 10 years.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Varies from borough to borough, and if you're under 35, all you get is the price of a room in a house-share, but either way you're mostly topping out at about £250 a week.

That's about the most you can claim per month around here

And yet still none of the austerity advocates will call for rent controls, because heaven forbid landlords should have to tighten their belts like everyone else, even though their the biggest welfare parasites of all

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's about the most you can claim per month around here

Doesn't surprise me. London property prices bear no relation to reality (and before some joker bangs on about "the market" setting a "fair" price, that only works to mutual benefit if all other factors are equal, and "the market" isn't loaded or otherwise skewed, which it is), and haven't done for 15-20 years.

And yet still none of the austerity advocates will call for rent controls, because heaven forbid landlords should have to tighten their belts like everyone else, even though their the biggest welfare parasites of all

Well quite. Turkeys, especially fat Parliamentary turkeys (what with over half of them being property speculators of one sort or another), are vanishingly-unlikely to be stupid enough to vote for Christmas.

 

[kabbes]

Depends on the size of the mortgage, but probably upwards of £1,500 a month.

£1500 pm on a £400k flat would be a rental yield of about 4.5% p.a. before expenses (such as service costs), wear & tear and tax; (so probably 4% before wear & tear and tax). Mortgage rates are probably not too far off that, if you want to take those into account. So I'd say that's a bare minimum rent before it starts looking a bit shaky, like you say.

 

[equationgirl]

That's about the most you can claim per month around here

And yet still none of the austerity advocates will call for rent controls, because heaven forbid landlords should have to tighten their belts like everyone else, even though their the biggest welfare parasites of all

I had to leave my last place because although the landlord stated on the paperwork that they wanted to sell, it turned out (shocker!) that was a big fat lie and what they actually wanted to do was put the rent up by over 10% a month. They'd already put it up a year previously, which I'd agreed to reluctantly. I'm actually in a nicer flat now but at the time it was very painful to be at the mercy of someone that greedy when I'd done nothing wrong as a tenant other than report what needed fixing (the landlord hadn't done a stroke of maintenance in 5 years)

Plus it doesn't make sense as a landlord to keep putting rents up, certainly I've not asked my tenant for anything more in 4 years - he's a student who's moved onto postgrad study now. I'd rather he stayed put for longer.

 

[equationgirl]

£1500 pm on a £400k flat would be a rental yield of about 4.5% p.a. before expenses (such as service costs), wear & tear and tax; (so probably 4% before wear & tear and tax). Mortgage rates are probably not too far off that, if you want to take those into account. So I'd say that's a bare minimum rent before it starts looking a bit shaky, like you say.

Wear and tear is a flat rate 10% of rental income, so (0.1 x 1500 x 12) = 1800 per annum. I'd reckon 4% before tax, 2.4% after tax assuming a 40% tax rate.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Plus it doesn't make sense as a landlord to keep putting rents up

You don't have to be clever to be a landlord though, you don't have to be a shrewd businessman, you don't need a head for figures, you don't need people skills and you don't need qualifications. All you need is money.

I can see the argument that private enterprise generally encourages people to be better at what they do, I don't believe it by I can see that it makes some sense in the abstract at least. When it comes to housing though there is no motivation to provide people with a good service, or value for money. Landlords can demand references from prospective tennants but they don't provide references themselves, even though the tennant is putting a lot more on the line when they sign a contract.

 

[DotCommunist]

considered torching a place as I left once, thats how much of a cock the landlord was. In the end though, he's ensured, e place was terraced and didn't fancy a 12 stretch

on the subject of rent caps and mysterious fires, didn't that convenient plague of fire afflict new york in the 70s when rent caps were introduced

 

[Idris2002]

considered torching a place as I left once, thats how much of a cock the landlord was. In the end though, he's ensured, e place was terraced and didn't fancy a 12 stretch

on the subject of rent caps and mysterious fires, didn't that convenient plague of fire afflict new york in the 70s when rent caps were introduced

AIUI, rent controls were introduced in NY back in the 40s, to help soldiers coming back from the war. So the landlord arsonists were just being cunts.

 

[equationgirl]

You don't have to be clever to be a landlord though, you don't have to be a shrewd businessman, you don't need a head for figures, you don't need people skills and you don't need qualifications. All you need is money.

I can see the argument that private enterprise generally encourages people to be better at what they do, I don't believe it by I can see that it makes some sense in the abstract at least. When it comes to housing though there is no motivation to provide people with a good service, or value for money. Landlords can demand references from prospective tennants but they don't provide references themselves, even though the tennant is putting a lot more on the line when they sign a contract.

It's improving in Scotland with the registration scheme as various criteria have to be met- which reminds me, I have a letter to write to the registration people about my former landlord.

 

[JTG]

Your donkey has cockroaches on its arse?
(((((donkey)))))

jusali is from Bristol and has the pronunciation of the slang for one's posterior correct

 

[Dogsauce]

The growth of property as an 'investment vehicle' has brought us that other nest of cuntery - the letting agents/'property management' folks. Whereas back in my days as a student you'd generally be letting directly off the property owner who'd usually come round and see that stuff was fixed themselves and be easily accountable for problems, now there's no need for investors to ever dirty their hands in the game, a new set of middlemen with fees and rules and inflexibility, who fix stuff in the cheapest dirtiest way because it isn't their property (but charge the owner through the nose), tax the tenants for anything they can get away with and sit in shiny shitty shops with names like 'homez4U' when they're not out driving their dickhead Range Rover with personal plates.

 

[salem]

£1500 pm on a £400k flat would be a rental yield of about 4.5% p.a. before expenses (such as service costs), wear & tear and tax; (so probably 4% before wear & tear and tax). Mortgage rates are probably not too far off that, if you want to take those into account. So I'd say that's a bare minimum rent before it starts looking a bit shaky, like you say.

Good point but these guys will be assuming some silly property price rises on top of the rental yield.

I think (hope?) that the market will correct itself or at least stagnate because those rental prices are even less sustainable then the property prices.

 

[RedDragon]

In the short-term the buy-to-let market will be boosted by those who get early access to their pension pot thus putting more pressure on first-time buyers.

 

[kabbes]

Wear and tear is a flat rate 10% of rental income, so (0.1 x 1500 x 12) = 1800 per annum. I'd reckon 4% before tax, 2.4% after tax assuming a 40% tax rate.

No, that's what HMRC allow you for tax purposes, not what wear and tear actually costs you!

 

[ViolentPanda]

jusali is from Bristol and has the pronunciation of the slang for one's posterior correct

From Bristol?
(((((jusali)))))

 

[ViolentPanda]

The growth of property as an 'investment vehicle' has brought us that other nest of cuntery - the letting agents/'property management' folks. Whereas back in my days as a student you'd generally be letting directly off the property owner who'd usually come round and see that stuff was fixed themselves and be easily accountable for problems, now there's no need for investors to ever dirty their hands in the game, a new set of middlemen with fees and rules and inflexibility, who fix stuff in the cheapest dirtiest way because it isn't their property (but charge the owner through the nose), tax the tenants for anything they can get away with and sit in shiny shitty shops with names like 'homez4U' when they're not out driving their dickhead Range Rover with personal plates.

I take it that you don't approve of these parasitic fungi on the arse of humanity?

 

[Dogsauce]

I take it that you don't approve of these parasitic fungi on the arse of humanity?

That's with only limited experience, before the days when they started bringing in 'signing fees' and 're-signing fees' and shit like that. Even then (late 90s) the fuckers still stole a deposit from me, claiming a month's rent hadn't been paid when it had, didn't do the legally required gas safety checks leaving us without heating over Christmas, turned up drunk banging on the door in the early hours on a school night because they thought we should have moved out that day when we'd agreed another couple of months etc...

To be boiled in their own juices come the revolution. Slowly.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's with only limited experience, before the days when they started bringing in 'signing fees' and 're-signing fees' and shit like that. Even then (late 90s) the fuckers still stole a deposit from me, claiming a month's rent hadn't been paid when it had, didn't do the legally required gas safety checks leaving us without heating over Christmas, turned up drunk banging on the door in the early hours on a school night because they thought we should have moved out that day when we'd agreed another couple of months etc...

To be boiled in their own juices come the revolution. Slowly.

Sounds like my old cunt of a landlord (he managed his own "estate" of about 100 properties) in Streatham. Everything skimped, all repairs done badly and at the last minute. Expected the rent on the dot, though, or he'd come knocking like you'd nicked food from his mouth, the whiny pegleg cunt.

 

[sim667]

Fuck paying £400k for a flat.... My 3 bed house was nearly half that.

 

[Dogsauce]

Four bedrooms and one-seventh of the cost here!

I'm fucked if I want to live anywhere else mind.

 

[equationgirl]

No, that's what HMRC allow you for tax purposes, not what wear and tear actually costs you!

Depends on the property but I've not found that.

 

[kabbes]

You've not found what?

 

[equationgirl]

You've not found what?

I 've not found that wear and tear in a property costs more than a normal the tax allowance.

 

[Pickman's model]

Depends on the property but I've not found that.

you still haven't found what you're looking for?

 

[Spymaster]

"Dozens of Londoners queued overnight in sub-zero temperatures last night to buy a one bedroom flat in East London for £400,000."

400 grand for a one bed flat in Stratford! Everyone's losing their fucking marbles whilst the developers are shipping out the profits that they've stolen.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I am curious as to what proportion will be bought up by bemused overseas Bard fans

 

[Diamond]

Wouldn't a more accurate description be that, people wanting to push up values of properties for everyone else queue out all night so desperate are they in pursuing their own selfish ends.

Wow.

That is the most stupid comment that I have seen on urban in many a year.

When you entered into an agreement to rent or take on a mortgage to buy your property, did you consider the wider, local social implications because, if not (and certainly you were not nor should have been an under obligation to do so), you fell foul of your own tentative rule? Is that what you suggest?

Truly ludicrous.

 

[Diamond]

I'm afraid I'm too angry to put together a coherent comment here, but take a deep breath and read on:

Too angry sounds a hell of a lot like too lazy IMO.

There are good arguments to be made in favour of your opinion.

None are tremendously straightforward and all require a lot of hard work to be shown but the "throw your hands up in despair", "shaking of heads" and general "tutting" school of thought is extremely moronic and tends to characterise your attitude to London more and more.

Perhaps you are just getting old [edit: no real names, thanks] but it seems as if you are also getting more and more intolerant and resentful as you do so.