labour's proposed rent reforms

[ska invita]

I was trying to find a graph for rent prices in leeds over time, but only found this - shocking really:

"According to figures from Easyroommate.co.uk, the cost of renting in Leeds has rocketed. In 2010 Leeds featured in the list of the top 10 most expensive cities in the world in which to live, alongside the big guns such as London, and outside of the UK, Milan, Rome and Paris. At £621 a month, Milan came out on top as the most expensive city for property rental in the world, though who’d want to live in the bustling and cultured second-largest city in Italy? Beautiful Leeds, however, wasn’t far behind costly Milan."

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't even know if there's a need to build more, in Leeds, when you see the vast amount of empty office and industrial units that could be converted into housing. Why this doesn't happen I don't know.

They may well get converted into housing, under the planning changes etc that Jabba the Pickles has pushed through.
Problem is, if it is converted, it'll be converted into private housing, not social housing.

 

[ViolentPanda]

They're never going to be converted into council housing. Not ever.

Exactly.

 

[_angel_]

I was trying to find a graph for rent prices in leeds over time, but only found this - shocking really:

"According to figures from Easyroommate.co.uk, the cost of renting in Leeds has rocketed. In 2010 Leeds featured in the list of the top 10 most expensive cities in the world in which to live, alongside the big guns such as London, and outside of the UK, Milan, Rome and Paris. At £621 a month, Milan came out on top as the most expensive city for property rental in the world, though who’d want to live in the bustling and cultured second-largest city in Italy? Beautiful Leeds, however, wasn’t far behind costly Milan."

Where? It's not expensive at all in Bramley.

 

[ska invita]

Where? It's not expensive at all in Bramley.

ive no idea, ive never been to leeds. Maybe Easyroommate.co.uk isnt the best source.

 

[Dogsauce]

Students probably. A constant stream of young, moneyed and not particularly worldly-wise customers has fed a particularly cynical class of landlord on the east bank of the river.

A toothless student press has for decades failed to blow too loud a trumpet about the misdemeanours of their biggest advertisers. Both parties still feed the rumour that houses run out if you don't start queuing up outside their shiny offices in mid-January and hand over thousands in deposit, despite supply outstripping demand considerably.

 

[tufty79]

rooms in shared houses seem to be around the £70/week mark, in Hyde park/woodhouse at least. my neck of the woods is similar..
i'd guess it's going to be the new build flats/apartments that'd be on the pricier end of the scale?

i've vague memories of everything getting more expensive the closer you get to July 1st (aka Hyde park Christmas)

 

[J Ed]

Students probably. A constant stream of young, moneyed and not particularly worldly-wise customers has fed a particularly cynical class of landlord on the east bank of the river.

A toothless student press has for decades failed to blow too loud a trumpet about the misdemeanours of their biggest advertisers. Both parties still feed the rumour that houses run out if you don't start queuing up outside their shiny offices in mid-January and hand over thousands in deposit, despite supply outstripping demand considerably.

Students and the financial industry, surely?

 

[weltweit]

Why are houses viewed so much as an investment? (I know - because they are!) but everyone has to live somewhere! It seems to bias the whole policy area because policy makers can't risk people's investments.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Why are houses viewed so much as an investment? (I know - because they are!) but everyone has to live somewhere! It seems to bias the whole policy area because policy makers can't risk people's investments.

More like they don't want to risk their own investments or those of the people who fund their party.

 

[Wolveryeti]

Why are houses viewed so much as an investment?

Because it's hugely profitable compared with other asset classes.

'The report by Paragon Mortgages to mark the 18th birthday – or "coming of age" – of buy to let, predicts that landlords will continue to make an average of 11% a year for the next decade.

It found that since 1996, £1,000 invested in a buy-to-let property has turned into £13,048, an annual rate of return of 16.3% a year, buoyed by fast-rising house prices and rents. Over the same period shares would have earned investors 6.8% a year, bonds 6.5% and savings in the bank 4%.'
source: http://www.theguardian.com/business...-buy-to-let-landlords-dwarf-other-investments

Buy-to-letters can also claim tax relief on mortgage interest payments, and after 20-30 years of other people paying the mortgage on the property they have a nice free asset worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

 

[weltweit]

Yes Wolveryeti certainly the buy to let people are in it for the profit, I was kind of meaning ordinary householders who have normal mortgages. Is it right that they expect to make far more than inflation for just living in a house, as after all everyone has to live somewhere. Yet house price rises just make it harder for first time buyers to get a foot on the ladder or for those who are renting to move to buying!

 

[Wolveryeti]

Yes Wolveryeti certainly the buy to let people are in it for the profit, I was kind of meaning ordinary householders who have normal mortgages. Is it right that they expect to make far more than inflation for just living in a house, as after all everyone has to live somewhere. Yet house price rises just make it harder for first time buyers to get a foot on the ladder or for those who are renting to move to buying!

Well it's true that even home ownership is very tax efficient - we're talking things like not having to pay CGT on your own home, having it disregarded as 'wealth' for the purpose of pensioner means tests etc.

Perhaps more subtle is the tax benefit of owning an asset that means you don't have to pay rent. This is equivalent to having a tax-free income in kind, as renting the same would mean needing to earn the rental payment+tax in order to afford it. An interesting idea which was kicked around in 80s academia was that of taxing homeowners based on the value of this 'imputed' income. I think the consensus is that a majority of citizens would have been cash gainers, but politically it was toxic.

 

[Gramsci]

Listening to radio 4 news they had interview with a German who had lived in UK so could compare the two countries.

In Germany tenants have a lot more rights. Tenants groups have a larger say.

She said that in UK its all profit driven. In Germany housing is not seen as way to make a quick buck. She also said that the German model of rented property works quite well.

I had friend who moved to Germany who said its much better there for private renters. He previously had lived in London.

Its interesting that the Right go on about Venezuela. They do not say that this is a move towards German style housing.

 

[Gramsci]

Why are houses viewed so much as an investment? (I know - because they are!) but everyone has to live somewhere! It seems to bias the whole policy area because policy makers can't risk people's investments.

Its not like investing in an government bonds where there is guarantee of a return.

Under free market ideology an investment is a risk. If you invest you might make big profit or you might not. At moment house owners in some areas like London and South East are seeing their investment go up a lot as compared to other investment areas.

However things might change and house prices come down. Thats how the free market works.

Housing is about putting a roof over people heads. Not about making a big profit. Policy makers should look at the bigger picture of how to house all people in good quality housing. Policy makers should not be looking at how to give people a high return on buying a property.

The trouble is the idea the investment is a risk does not seem to apply to housing.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The trouble is the idea the investment is a risk does not seem to apply to housing.

It's not investment in the same sense as investing in a business that's gonna produce something and employ people either. Your returns aren't coming from increased economic activity, they're simply being sucked out of other parts of the economy where people might otherwise be spending the money that they spend on rent or mortgage payments.

Even if you own a property that's doubled in value in the past decade, it hasn't really because it's the same the same house as it was before. You haven't turned it into two houses. The extra money someone might need to spend to buy it from you is money that's being taken out of the wider economy.

Ah, but the bloke who has made all the money flipping the house will then spend it and voila, economic activity. The circle of life. Except he wouldn't have bought an 'investment' property if he didn't already have enough money to buy whatever he wants. The only thing his new wealth is gonna do is sit there in the bank with his old wealth, or be used to 'invest' in more houses to suck more money out of the people who are contributing to the economy by spending money and doing actual work to get it in the first place.

Now I hate reducing things to economic arguments, economics is a shit way to decide how to run a society, and I may have got this all wrong but it really annoys me when the rich and powerful use a particular argument or ideology to justify certain behaviours and yet their justification doesn't even hold up within the internal logic of that ideology.

 

[pinkmonkey]

ive no idea, ive never been to leeds. Maybe Easyroommate.co.uk isnt the best source.

I know both places well and I'd agree that the rents are similar going on what friends who live in both places tell me. Milan isn't that big a place, really, the city centres are about the same size, the population, think Milan is a bit bigger. My friend just bought a flat in Milan and I'd say it would compare with prices in Leeds.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Listening to radio 4 news they had interview with a German who had lived in UK so could compare the two countries.

In Germany tenants have a lot more rights. Tenants groups have a larger say.

She said that in UK its all profit driven. In Germany housing is not seen as way to make a quick buck. She also said that the German model of rented property works quite well.

I had friend who moved to Germany who said its much better there for private renters. He previously had lived in London.

I think the difference between here and Germany is that you can live in a german rental for life, you can do your own renovations, new kitchen etc, whereas over here you find yourself having to constantly move as landlords juggle and sell their investments. I've been forced to move twice when renting, one time because the owner of the house (who was in a care home) had died and the family sold it, the other time because I lived in an area that was being gentrified ( Ladbroke Grove in the early 90's) and the landlord said, 'I'm going to do it up, get some yuppies in, charge more money.' I've not rented for 10 years now, I've gone for the canal boat option, but I've got friends who still do and the evictions seem to be a common thing. It's really bad for you, moving is one of the worst stresses anyone can face.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I was trying to find a graph for rent prices in leeds over time, but only found this - shocking really:

"According to figures from Easyroommate.co.uk, the cost of renting in Leeds has rocketed. In 2010 Leeds featured in the list of the top 10 most expensive cities in the world in which to live, alongside the big guns such as London, and outside of the UK, Milan, Rome and Paris. At £621 a month, Milan came out on top as the most expensive city for property rental in the world, though who’d want to live in the bustling and cultured second-largest city in Italy? Beautiful Leeds, however, wasn’t far behind costly Milan."

But then it claims the cost has dropped between 2010 and 2013 to £325 a month, behind London at £547 a month (ha!). I don't know much about the cost of living in Leeds but I doubt rental prices have nearly halved. Looks to me like they're just chucking out the data from their website without giving much thought to what it represents.

 

[Quartz]

And then, one built, use the rent to employ local people to maintain them

So you're voting UKIP?

 

[Dogsauce]

It's really bad for you, moving is one of the worst stresses anyone can face.

It's also damaging on a societal level – 'communities' never really get going if people don't stay in the same place for long enough to form bonds with neighbours, local pubs etc. This has a cost too, it can lead to greater isolation (less support) and therefore fuel mental health problems, more crime (easier for criminals to come and go or operate if nobody knows whether they should be there or not).

Landlording also causes loss of amenity - in the student bit of Leeds where I used to rent it's now normal for landlords to concrete gardens or cover them in stone chippings to save on maintenance costs. Over about three years (as landlords started moving into buying the two bed properties and converting them to four/five beds, having bought up all the larger properties) I watched the street I lived on stripped bare of vegetation. At one a time I was thinking of buying there, but it's so bleak and barren now. On moving out the landlord I rented from took down the tree in the small front garden and replaced the lawn with gravel. Nobody is there long enough to grow anything in pots or anything like that.

 

[nino_savatte]

It's a step in the right direction, but Miliband's ideas don't go far enough. There's no mention of building social housing and he's shied away from rent controls. That should tell you all you need to know about 'One Nation' Labour's plans to deal with this chronic housing crisis.

 

[pinkmonkey]

It's a disaster zone it really is, we have lots of third world shanty encampments in this area, I passed a new one last weekend, small campsite, several small buildings made of doors, in a small thicket, right next to the North Circular in Edmonton, absolutely stinks because of course there is no sanitation. No water either, there must have been upwards of 500 discarded Tesco Value mineral water bottles, I had to get off my bike and literally wade through them as they were all over the cycle path.

 

[_angel_]

Thought this thread needed this, you don't see it often.

 

[Dogsauce]

'No professionals please'. Can I claim an intersectionality point now for being oppressed?

 

[treelover]

Because it's hugely profitable compared with other asset classes.

'The report by Paragon Mortgages to mark the 18th birthday – or "coming of age" – of buy to let, predicts that landlords will continue to make an average of 11% a year for the next decade.

It found that since 1996, £1,000 invested in a buy-to-let property has turned into £13,048, an annual rate of return of 16.3% a year, buoyed by fast-rising house prices and rents. Over the same period shares would have earned investors 6.8% a year, bonds 6.5% and savings in the bank 4%.'
source: http://www.theguardian.com/business...-buy-to-let-landlords-dwarf-other-investments

Buy-to-letters can also claim tax relief on mortgage interest payments, and after 20-30 years of other people paying the mortgage on the property they have a nice free asset worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Unbelievable, no wonder its booming and of course it creates a political dynamic, who will vote for a party that threatens to scale back the party!

 

[treelover]

Listening to radio 4 news they had interview with a German who had lived in UK so could compare the two countries.

In Germany tenants have a lot more rights. Tenants groups have a larger say.

She said that in UK its all profit driven. In Germany housing is not seen as way to make a quick buck. She also said that the German model of rented property works quite well.

I had friend who moved to Germany who said its much better there for private renters. He previously had lived in London.

Its interesting that the Right go on about Venezuela. They do not say that this is a move towards German style housing.

If you are on benefits though, you are allocated housing by the metre and its not a generous allowance.

 

[treelover]

Thought this thread needed this, you don't see it often.

I wonder if that's a spoof, might try the number.

 

[treelover]

But then it claims the cost has dropped between 2010 and 2013 to £325 a month, behind London at £547 a month (ha!). I don't know much about the cost of living in Leeds but I doubt rental prices have nearly halved. Looks to me like they're just chucking out the data from their website without giving much thought to what it represents.

there was a study, can't find the link yet, by a housing campaign group in Leeds a couple of years back which suggested at least 25% of the new build flats there were 'dark' eg unsold/unlived in.

 

[pinkmonkey]

These flats were originally sold to noob, gullible investors weren't they? At overinflated prices?
I've heard that developers are ripping off Chinese investors in much same way with out of London developments. They're not building homes are they? They're building and selling a 'box' to someone who will never visit, with a vague promise that the magic box will grow money.