Btl Scum Regrouping And On The Offensive. -- Merged

[mrtickle]

2 hours ago, TonyJ said:

I wonder if LLs will notice the irony.

Not only have they noticed, they are denying it flat out!

 

The story says "Average rents in the UK decreased for the first time since 2012 during the first quarter of 2018, the Deposit Protection Service (DPS) claims. However, the finding is out of kilter with ARLA’s latest report – see next story."

 

JMK's comment under it: "

Interesting figures though they of course only apply to new tenancies.  The effects of S24 and other measures will first be felt by long-term tenants that have not had a rent rise for a while, if ever.  I must add though that in my area I see plenty anecdotal evidence of rents increasing on new tenancies too.  I’m a little doubtful as to the accuracy of the DPS data."

Why would he doubt the data of a government body, yet believe the data in the "ARLA Propertymark’s Private Rented Sector Report for March" with its claim of rent rises. Hmm.

 

ps I've tried very hard to fix the formatting in these quotes. It's ****ing ridiculous that the forum editing page won't let me.

 

Edited April 26, 2018 by mrtickle

[oatbake]

3 hours ago, rantnrave said:

Gotta love this from PropertyIndustryEye today

 

To be fair, it only says they are *trying* to make up the losses through rent increases. In the same way, I can try to buy a Lamborghini for £50... 

[Patient London FTB]

1 hour ago, mrtickle said:

Not only have they noticed, they are denying it flat out!

 

The story says "Average rents in the UK decreased for the first time since 2012 during the first quarter of 2018, the Deposit Protection Service (DPS) claims. However, the finding is out of kilter with ARLA’s latest report – see next story."

 

JMK's comment under it: "

Interesting figures though they of course only apply to new tenancies.  The effects of S24 and other measures will first be felt by long-term tenants that have not had a rent rise for a while, if ever.  I must add though that in my area I see plenty anecdotal evidence of rents increasing on new tenancies too.  I’m a little doubtful as to the accuracy of the DPS data."

Why would he doubt the data of a government body, yet believe the data in the "ARLA Propertymark’s Private Rented Sector Report for March" with its claim of rent rises. Hmm.

 

ps I've tried very hard to fix the formatting in these quotes. It's ****ing ridiculous that the forum editing page won't let me.

 

DPS data = Rolls Royce to ARLA's Robin Reliant

[Bland Unsight]

4 hours ago, mrtickle said:

ps I've tried very hard to fix the formatting in these quotes. It's ****ing ridiculous that the forum editing page won't let me.

Best option is to give it a bit of right click 'Paste special' and introduce the text as unformatted. If you carry across the formatting then it's already too late.

[mrtickle]

8 minutes ago, Beary McBearface said:

Best option is to give it a bit of right click 'Paste special' and introduce the text as unformatted. If you carry across the formatting then it's already too late.

Yes, 100% correct. I was trying in vain to fix it after I'd pasted it with the formatting. I couldn't believe that there wasn't a way. Didn't want to trash my whole post and start again. Utterly ridiculous.

 

[Mossie]

On 25/04/2018 at 18:57, Beary McBearface said:

Anyway, the main idea I was attempting to communicate is that BTL is sufficiently mainstream that many people who chose to engage in it probably don't think for a moment about whether it is wrong or right. Enough people do it that is gains a degree of social acceptability and therefore people are willing to engage in it  by virtue of a kind of daft exculpatory logic that if enough people are doing it then it can't be that wrong to do it. 

Quote

 

As for the reasons whey people make buy-to-let investments, they do it for many reasons. The most important is presumably a desire to make money, for others vanity may play a part. As I've argued at great length over the last six years for a long time lots of people did it because it was a hell of a lot easier to refinance an existing property and let it out than it was to find a buyer. In a time of massive house price inflation many people often came to feel that selling a house was a kind of madness if you could hold the asset with a bit of leverage. I've also argue that it represents a kind of magic beans pension planning for people with no pension; it won't work but for now they can stop worrying about having no pension because maybe the magic beans really are magic (spoiler: the magic beans were magic but the magic was a curse, leverage is brutal on the way down).

I'm no fan of buy-to-let and I've go no interest in defending buy-to-let investors; this is in fact a theme I have expanded upon at considerable length elsewhere on the forum  

 

 

On 24/04/2018 at 19:09, Beary McBearface said:

The key thing about buy-to-let is that it has become a mainstream financial 'product' hence most landlords are just totally normal people who have just done what everybody else was doing.

Again though, Buy-To-Let has absolutely not a mainstream financial product for those who have long been unable to afford to buy one home, still few houses on the market, and house prices.  It can't be mainstream if millions of people in Generation Rent have no way to invest in Buy-To-Let.  And I for one have been harmed by all this Buy-To-Let.  It has pushed house prices far out of reach.  I can explain that by way of millions of houses being bought by Buy-To-Let landlords, including houses we tried to bid on mid 2000s.

Millions of homes did not fall to the Buy-To-Let landlords overnight.  It has been over the course of 20 years.

Buy-To-Let landlords as "totally normal people."  ?   I had a good laugh at that with my wife.    Sleepwellatnights and all the Buy-To-Let landlords for 20 years "not knowing what he was really doing".  Who are the non-totally-normal-people?  A few hundred bankers behind the "mainstream financial product" ?

You are suggesting that Buy-To-Let investors don't even think about what they do.  They just go with the flow apparently.

After 12 years of renting during two phases of extreme house price inflation, up against Buy-To-Let landlords at every viewing made during the early years, I am due to receive £150,000 by way of inheritance.   A home was sold to the market to make that financial sum, and that is my share of the estate.  My deceased relative was against the BTL and HousePriceInflation 20 year excitement phases as much as I did.  Homes for living in.   Not everyone was doing it.

I did not want it to be this way, in receiving a lump sum to better secure my housing future.  BTL and everyone in it have been the bane of my life, while Sleepwellatnights and so many other BTL investors tell how BTL has been their best investment and that they don't care.  Sleepwellatnights.  You are putting up the defensive case for him and so many other BTL landlords very similar to him, all who have done financially great out of BTL, and who have admitted money was their motivation, and that they couldn't care less about anyone else but themselves. 

£150,000  but it takes the financial pressures of my own family with housing outlook.   I just feel bad for those who have no money coming their way.   And here you are, with "Buy To Let Investors are just totally normal people."    Although I am pleased to have a way to escape this, with some options now, because we have had enough of the wishy washy sandal wearing excuses for landlords as "not knowing what they do."  "Just doing what everyone else was doing."  "Bankers to blame for all ills with Buy-To-Let."   However I still want to defy all things Buy-To-Let for other people trapped in Generation Rent with no lump sum coming their way.   You putting up the argument that BTL landlords "know not what they do".  

We have spent 12 years fully up against it with housing.  Paying rent from income, and house prices becoming ever more expensive by a jump almost each and every year, with Buy-To-Let landlords buying more and more houses.  

It really does not matter if each individual Buy-To-Let landlord does not know how their individual Buy-To-Let investor action affects the housing market.  It really does not matter if some of them truly believe they are creating housing supply.  It really does not matter if some more recent Buy-To-Let investors believe they are doing a "good thing" to help Generation Rent.   Almost each and everyone of the BTL investors are motivated by obtaining money for housing, and sometimes vanity of owning multiple housing comes into it as you say. 

 The 'key thing' is this forum has seen many a Buy-To-Let investor give their case for their investment since 2004.  Money frequently comes into it.  Hedge against inflation.  Not building any more land.  More population.   It has been homeownership for themselves, and them seeking to 'help' others into a life of renting and paying up to them, with S21s always at the ready.   Your mainstream BTL financial product is rejected by some people as a bad thing.  Non productive parasitic capitalism.  Almost all of your Buy To Let investors have an angle for their Buy-To-Let investment, and none of it is to help society.  It is to have more of an essential need, housing, for themselves.  What matters is house prices fall more towards affordability of younger people in Generation Rent, and, or, that these speculative BTL landlords are pushed aside and tenants have far better housing security on the renting side.

[Bland Unsight]

51 minutes ago, Mossie said:

It can't be mainstream if millions of people in Generation Rent have no way to invest in Buy-To-Let. 

I guess that you and I have a difference of opinion as to what it takes for a financial product to be called 'mainstream'. If a suitably capitalised person with sufficient income can get the product at every single major UK mortgage lender, if there are two million of them in the market and if there are about a million people with them I am prepared to call the financial product 'mainstream' even if the terminology is quite informal.

If you don't want to call the financial product 'mainstream' because there are people who can't access it, then that's your prerogative.

If you honestly think that I am putting up a defensive case for "Sleepwellatnights" then you perhaps need to read some posts you may have missed.

[nome]

Just had a quick look on the MSE ''House Buying, Selling and Renting'' forum... of 20 threads on page 1 there were only 3 threads that pertained to FTBers or Owner Occupiers looking to buy, whilst there were 9 threads related to property investing in various forms, mainly BTL.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

 

From what I can see BTL is very, very far from dead.

[Ah-so]

5 minutes ago, nome said:

Just had a quick look on the MSE ''House Buying, Selling and Renting'' forum... of 20 threads on page 1 there were only 3 threads that pertained to FTBers or Owner Occupiers looking to buy, whilst there were 9 threads related to property investing in various forms, mainly BTL.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

 

From what I can see BTL is very, very far from dead.

But these days there is a lot more talking that buying.

[nome]

4 minutes ago, TonyJ said:

People think it will only start to show when LLs do their tax returns, probably in the autumn/winter.

I hope so

3 minutes ago, Ah-so said:

But these days there is a lot more talking that buying.

I hope so

[nome]

This is also an interesting read (especially from page 5 onward) and could do with some HPC contributors...

 

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=&t=1739406

[spyguy]

14 minutes ago, nome said:

This is also an interesting read (especially from page 5 onward) and could do with some HPC contributors...

 

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=&t=1739406

'Something I've always wondered... genuinely. (Not trolling, I'd actually like to know)

If BTL is so profitable, how come it is so full of amateurs, and why don't pension funds, trusts etc invest more in leveraged property?'

Because they know you need a yield of much more than 4-5%.

The reason why BTL is popular us that it was the onky way for Joe Punter to take a very leveraged punt.

And  IO BTL are grossly mispriced - small building societies lending on a commercial venture on redidential repayment terms.

And that leverage will destroy Joe Punter.

 

 

[spyguy]

On 25/04/2018 at 20:32, BuyToLeech said:

Yes, we’re none of us perfect. I think there’s a big difference between the kind of stupidity, carelessness and neglect we are all guilty of, and the kind where you actually see your victims and still persist.

All landlords, including Neville from accounts and the nice old lady next door, stand ready to throw people onto the streets, on a whim.  I couldn’t do that, so I couldn’t be a landlord, even if I could ignore the deeper issues. 

Still, I don’t think individual landlords are evil, no more than me anyway.  I think they are doing an evil thing because it has been normalised and encouraged.  

On the other hand when the harm they are doing is pointed out to them, and they defend it, then I have my doubts. 

And the banks stand ready to throw the LL on the street.

Really, theres a huge number of people who, this very long and aged business cycle, need to learn the lesson of borrowing money from the banks.

 

[Si1]

29 minutes ago, nome said:

This is also an interesting read (especially from page 5 onward) and could do with some HPC contributors...

 

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=&t=1739406

One BTLr complaining that BTL is more accessible to the average Joe than an s&p tracker. These people are numnuts who don't understand simple things short of bullying and thieving.

[spyguy]

3 hours ago, Mossie said:

Again though, Buy-To-Let has absolutely not a mainstream financial product for those who have long been unable to afford to buy one home, still few houses on the market, and house prices.  It can't be mainstream if millions of people in Generation Rent have no way to invest in Buy-To-Let. 

Its almost been a mainstream financial product - for every 1 person whove gone into BTL theres been 10 wishing they had.

I dont know how many people have btl, or how many btls they have. Neither do the banks, which is now a big problem for them.

Id guess hmrc is working on the numbers.

Back to main stream product.... bit like endowments. They turned out ok, didnt they?

Luckily endowments were covered by consumer protection laws, so mug punters were saved from their own greed, stupidity and ignorance.

BTL are classed as commercial lending, you and the bank are considered peers, not wolf and sheep.

 

[Sandwiches33]

I'm just gonna throw this in here so you know HMRC are on it.

Bloke I know, Had a few BTL, He would move house buy a new one then rent the old one out. has about 3 or 4. Seemed like a  straight laced bloke certainly not a shady landlord just a guy with a job trying to get ahead :)

Anyway he bought another and HMRC confronted him, he wasn't clear about how they found him but I think it was when he was checked for his mortgage on his new place. Money laundering laws? Turns out he hadn't paid any tax ever on any of them. 

They got very angry with him and demanded his appearance so he had to go see them with a lawyer. 

I haven't found out what is happening yet but he looked very worried. 

[Si1]

31 minutes ago, TonyJ said:

As far as I can remember, although I wasn't paying as much attention to past business cycles, this is the only business cycle where the prospect of it ending is filling everyone with so much terror that the government will pull out all the stops to keep it going.

If people really do believe the government has the power to keep the business cycle running indefinitely, how come it has never used that awesome power before? Why is the power only being called into action now?

Tptb managed to kick the can down the road in 2001 and, to a lesser degree, 2007. This is because, IMHO, the younger age cohorts who would object simply had no political power to object.

The reason bricks are being sh#tted is that there is no longer a can-kicking liberal boomer concensus dominating politics, and the price of several recessions may now have to be paid. The political mechanism to put it off any longer is broken.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Si1

[Sandwiches33]

18 minutes ago, TonyJ said:

Interesting. Looks like something has changed with HMRC getting hold of info, since it had not called him in previously.

I got the distinct impression from him it was completely "unexpected" and "ruthless" too so I would imagine they have.

I would also imagine it could be a massive profitable cash cow for them to pursue these people. Hence there enthusiasm for it.

[Sandwiches33]

1 minute ago, TonyJ said:

It's interesting also that they actually called him in. Others here have been saying they won't have the manpower or inclination to deal with individual cases.

He must owe a lot I would imagine 4 houses over a period of ten+ years? I dont think the plan is to jail anyone but I did get the distinct impression they are going to bleed him dry with fines charges etc. i guess they have a cut off to make it financially viable.

[Si1]

8 minutes ago, TonyJ said:

i hope they have reached the limits of their powers to prevent a reset. Although someone on another thread said if the world can agree to print in unison again, they can probably kick the can another few years down the road, in which case we will all be stuffed regarding house purchases. I wonder if they will be able to agree to act together this time.

I suspect not because I don't think there's going to be a coordinated global shock like last time, it's simply not in the interests of certain major players to print money willy nilly anymore. Each country has had a chance to put its business in order and of it didn't, then that's a national not international concern now. I don't think there's a cavalry coming to the rescue.

[Sandwiches33]

2 minutes ago, TonyJ said:

It's a very expensive business. My stepfather had an investigation and apparently it was a nightmare. And once you are on their radar, you are never off it.

Yeah I heard that too. I also know the intention isnt to jail you its to bleed you over a long time. I would imagine if they get a few of these they can set examples. I believe the fines are massive and you have no recourse really either. I did suspect that alot of these BTL dreamers werent paying any tax.

[Si1]

3 minutes ago, TonyJ said:

I think you may be right. I have read in the paper that at the moment at least there is no international consensus - I suppose it may be our saving grace. And if they ever do get a consensus going, house prices may have already fallen.

Why should there be unless the gun is to everyone's head? If Macron sorts out the French economy, why would he want the ECB to print money and debase the very success he had worked for? 

International financial concensus is the exception not the rule, nations are in competition.

My remaining problem is that this will play out over decades, too long for me.

[spyguy]

12 minutes ago, Sandwiches33 said:

I'm just gonna throw this in here so you know HMRC are on it.

Bloke I know, Had a few BTL, He would move house buy a new one then rent the old one out. has about 3 or 4. Seemed like a  straight laced bloke certainly not a shady landlord just a guy with a job trying to get ahead

Anyway he bought another and HMRC confronted him, he wasn't clear about how they found him but I think it was when he was checked for his mortgage on his new place. Money laundering laws? Turns out he hadn't paid any tax ever on any of them. 

They got very angry with him and demanded his appearance so he had to go see them with a lawyer. 

I haven't found out what is happening yet but he looked very worried. 

If he was buying, doing up, selling, then hes ok.

If hes moving out and putting a tenant in then theres tax due on the rent.

Hmrc will know as soon as land registry entry goes thru.

[Sandwiches33]

3 minutes ago, spyguy said:

If he was buying, doing up, selling, then hes ok.

If hes moving out and putting a tenant in then theres tax due on the rent.

Hmrc will know as soon as land registry entry goes thru.

He was buying , doing up, living there, then moves out and puts a tenant in. he got away with it for a long time.

Been going on a long while, I was prying as an HPCer but I only got so far as when he bought his latest place checks were done and he was rumbled.

Him and his partner have really well paying jobs so god knows what they were thinking.

[Si1]

2 minutes ago, Sandwiches33 said:

.

Him and his partner have really well paying jobs so god knows what they were thinking.

High earners seem more into this sh#t than most. Something to do with pent up energy, a need to fiddle, to be part of the system.