Sunday, Apr 19, 2009
Buy to Let Debate
Citywire: The Citywire Debate: Should we encourage buy-to-let?
In the first of a series of debates, our writers Lorna Bourke and Tony Bonsignore go head to head over whether we should encourage buy-to-let. Add your own comments in our blog, there is a link at the bottom of the article. YES, says Lorna Bourke NO, says Tony Bonsignore..............
Posted by jack c @ 10:50 AM (665 views) Add Comment
10 Comments
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1. sparky300 said...
These amature , get rich quick merchants have really ruined the housing market , pure greed , and no thought for the young people trying to get a house , I hope they all go bust and these house prices continue to fall at a fast pace , until we can buy a home
2. uncle tom said...
There is nothing wrong with the concept of private landlords, and nothing particularly virtuous about those who pursue it as a full time career as opposed to part time. There is nothing wrong if a person who inherits a house, and does not immediately need its cash value, elects to let it to tenants.
However, unless the supply of rental properties falls so far short of demand that the gross rental yield tops 7%, and looks set to stay there, then the concept of lending money to buy properties that will then be let to tenants should be kicked into the long grass.
It was abundantly obvious that the craze for taking out BTL mortgages, in pursuit of capital growth, would ultimately end in tears; yet the govt did nothing to stop it.
3. Btl_and_milking_it said...
Sparky300..
What a short sighted illiterate view. Do you not think the more prices fall, the higher the yield and so more investors and a new wave buy in. OPEN YOUR EYES its already happening. Seems the bulk of Citywire readers would suggest there's no problem with BTL either.
4. braindeed said...
I wrote to GB more than 5 years ago, to express my dismay at the distortion that the BTL scum were having on the market. I got a standard reply, to the effect that, Labour was 'committed' to a vibrant integrated housing market - with private tenancies playing a proportion part.
They understood nothing then, and the guff that was their reply, made me want to wretch.
Wish I still had a copy. If he knew what he was saying he was a villain – if he didn’t he was a economic illiterate.
5. shipbuilder said...
As Uncle Tom says, there is a market for people who want to rent and not buy and therefore there is nothing wrong with being a landlord serving that market. The problem is when conditions become distorted and people who want to buy are essentially forced to rent. Like any market distortion, that was never going to be a sustainable situation. It is the mentality of the population that dictates whether we are a nation of renters or buyers, not the dreams of a greedy speculator. The idea that we could be forced into being a nation of renters is about as sustainable as house prices increasing beyond wages forever.
6. crunchy said...
2. uncle tom said...It was abundantly obvious that the craze for taking out BTL mortgages, in pursuit of capital growth, would ultimately end in tears; yet the govt did nothing to stop it.
The govt created the perfect situation by taking the long term rights of sitting tenants away from them, making property a much more liquid investment vehicle. It did not take the banks long to catch on. This whole decade long bubble was deliberately inflated. "Did nothing to stop it" falls very short of the truth. The truth is very much more complexed.
7. shipbuilder said...
Crunchy - I don't think the truth is much more complex - try to get as much money as possible for the least amount of effort - the 'capitalist' way. As someone pointed out on another thread, it's what the West has been doing since the 50s.
You have the producers and then those in power who cream off the top - the despised bankers and so on. Yet in terms of the globe - we are those people. It's good to remember than when we get on our high horses about being shafted by the elite. Ask someone in the third world who they think the elite are.
When it's our culture we shouldn't be surprised when everyone follows it - the government, the people. Look at the popularity of the investment threads on here, for example.
8. crunchy said...
I take your basic point shipbuilder.. SPOT ON.
Perhaps it's a little harder this time because it is US. I have said on here before that Britian is starting to eat itself from within.
Our bodies do this when we starve. The only difference to this is that the UK has no surplus fat apart from that on Gordon Brown.
Surplus indeed.
9. Watchingthewheels2 said...
I totally agree shipbuilder,it's capitalist greed that has got us in this mess,everybody should have to work to have a house-but not all their lives.There should be a limit on the number of properties allowed to be rented by a landlord.Idealy one per person.max.BTL is centred on greed.Greed is the disease of the western world,run by corrupt opportunists feathering their own nests,protected by a group of thugs in blue.ps,very good programme on channel 4 tonight-dispatches-on MPs corrupt mentality.
10. Mr Rigsby said...
For crunchy the truth was definitely much more complexed.......lol