Buy-to-let has skewed housing market and must be curbed, says thinktank

[iamnumerate]

2 hours ago, Wayward said:

That's appalling.

Would never vote Conservative again but I would have to hold my nose whilst marking a cross next to Labour in the polling booth.  Pointless exercise anyway given the first past the post system, my vote won't be counted.

Given the calibre of the mainstream politicians and little in the way of options for fair minded decent people I would expect more malcontent and therefore disruptors to enter the stage, Brexit is only the beginning.

It is amazing how many people defend her, it is not acceptable to say things like that, also people are all the same, a nurse can nurse someone from any race - they don't need to do a different course per race.

(Ironically Diana Abbot's remarks on nurses would have made any pro apartheid politician in the past very happy).

[jiltedjen]

18 hours ago, hotblack42 said:

They flew out of the cloud.

They saw the staggering jewels of the night in their infinite dust and their minds sang with fear.

"It'll have to go," the men of Krikkit said as they headed back for home.

On the way back home they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life, and the obliteration of all other life forms.

Overnight the whole population of Krikkit was transformed from being charming, delightful, intelligent if whimsical, ordinary people, into charming, delightful, intelligent, whimsical, manic xenophobes. The idea of a Universe didn't fit into their world picture, so to speak. They simply couldn't cope with it. And so, charmingly, delightfully, intelligently, whimsically if you like, they decided to destroy it.

____

I miss Douglas.  Very much.

+1 just sat reading a few pages. 

[cnick]

49 minutes ago, jiltedjen said:

+1 just sat reading a few pages. 

Ha... so did I. Liked this one-liner.....

"They roared into the sky like a ship that knew precisely what it was doing."

Thought about posting it on the Brexit thread..... but, of course, the same could be leveled at joining the EEC project in '75 (sorry...off topic)

 

[tomandlu]

19 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

It is amazing how many people defend her, it is not acceptable to say things like that, also people are all the same, a nurse can nurse someone from any race - they don't need to do a different course per race.

(Ironically Diana Abbot's remarks on nurses would have made any pro apartheid politician in the past very happy).

I'd say she's a useful idiot - throw "Diane Abbott" in anyone's face who's arguing that ethnic minorities are systematically discriminated against, and force them into a "when did you stop beating your wife" scenario*. A useful idiot par excellence.

* a debating tactic not limited to the right

[iamnumerate]

15 minutes ago, tomandlu said:

I'd say she's a useful idiot - throw "Diane Abbott" in anyone's face who's arguing that ethnic minorities are systematically discriminated against, and force them into a "when did you stop beating your wife" scenario*. A useful idiot par excellence.

* a debating tactic not limited to the right

Of course you wonder why parties promote such people.  There are plenty of minorities in Labour who haven't said racist things and presumably have a better grasp of maths.

[Guest]

Wasn't this thread about a think tank report on BTL tax relief?  Diane Abbot didn't write it, right?

[Bland Unsight]

6 hours ago, irrationalactor said:

Wasn't this thread about a think tank report on BTL tax relief?  Diane Abbot didn't write it, right?

The thread was pushed off-topic by a totally off-topic post from @inbruges (the post itself has been removed by the moderators, I reported it, I'm sure others did too). It was a classic troll move from a obvious troll and not the first time that account has attempted it (a post about a notable recent arrest outside Leeds Crown court on a thread about interest-only mortgages is another example that springs to mind).

I am willing to entertain the idea that @inbruges couldn't care less about immigration and is just spamming threads with inflammatory posts in the hope of derailing threads and turning off posters and lurkers who, not unreasonably, expect a thread on buy-to-let to be about buy-to-let and are put off by some of the, ahem, 'edgier' views expressed by some HPC posters.

Related pro-tip: if you encounter posts that breach the forum's code of conduct don't quote them, just report them. Quoting them just makes more work for the moderators as it means there are more posts to clean up.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Jurassic Bland

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, Jurassic Bland said:

The thread was pushed off-topic by a totally off-topic post from @inbruges (the post itself has been removed by the moderators, I reported it, I'm sure others did too). It was a classic troll move from a obvious troll and not the first time that account has attempted it (a post about a notable recent arrest outside Leeds Crown court on a thread about interest-only mortgages is another example that springs to mind).

I am willing to entertain the idea that @inbruges couldn't care less about immigration and is just spamming threads with inflammatory posts in the hope of derailing threads and turning off posters and lurkers who, not unreasonably, expect a thread on buy-to-let to be about buy-to-let and are put off by some of the, ahem, 'edgier' views expressed by some HPC posters.

Related pro-tip: if you encounter posts that breach the forum's code of conduct don't quote them, just report them. Quoting them just makes more work for the moderators as it means there are more posts to clean up.

One big yawn.

I have attended anti fascist marches, my politics used to be a little too far the left, I could also start mentioning my links with various ethnic groups, but you would do that modern day fascist thing so many do these days while articulating in that annoying inverted commas way  "Ohhh, he has a black friend does he" .

This is property website here to predominantly discuss over priced housing, to which Immigration is a major factor to the huge problem we have. And secondly, the UK is probably the most ethnic friendly diverse  and tolerant country on this planet, it will though never reach perfection, and the constant beating people for past offences will not help us move on.

Oh, and thirdly, I am the son of Immigrants massively victimised on arrival and for years later, I do wish people like you would think before throwing the "troll" accusation around.

 

PS  It's not the first time I have seen a post branched off or morphed into a slightly different area, stop trying to create issues that are not there. I am fine with you disagreeing or not liking everything I post, but I just find the over emotive stuff childish.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Guest

[Bland Unsight]

11 minutes ago, inbruges said:

Oh, and thirdly, I am the son of Immigrants massively victimised on arrival and for years later, I do wish people like you would think before throwing the "troll" accusation around.

Grown man compares his own parents being "massively victimised" with himself being called a troll on an internet forum by a random stranger whom he can choose to ignore at any time 

Just treat your present terrible ordeal (wherein I think you're a bit moody and say so) as your part in your generation's Normandy landings. Be strong. You can do it. You can have the last word on this, for now, here on this thread, if you want it.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Jurassic Bland said:

Grown man compares his own parents being "massively victimised" with himself being called a troll on an internet forum by a random stranger whom he can choose to ignore at any time 

Just treat your present terrible ordeal (wherein I think you're a bit moody and say so) as your part in your generation's Normandy landings. Be strong. You can do it. You can have the last word on this, for now, here on this thread, if you want it.

Ehhh

See this is the problem with people like you, I am seeing it daily with Brexit where both sides manufacture issues. The slyness of you suggesting I compared my parents victimisation to be called a troll just 100% was not there.

The rest of your post just makes zero sense, "Normandy landings"??

[Bland Unsight]

28 minutes ago, inbruges said:

Ehhh

See this is the problem with people like you, I am seeing it daily with Brexit where both sides manufacture issues. The slyness of you suggesting I compared my parents victimisation to be called a troll just 100% was not there.

The rest of your post just makes zero sense, "Normandy landings"??

I promised you the last word:

 

[Kosmin]

 

On ‎27‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 16:53, tomandlu said:

I'm no fan of inbruges' attitude towards race (inbruges, remind me - are you the one with the seriously racist SA wife, or is that someone else?), but I'm no fan of the neglect and contempt that has been piled on the white working class throughout the west.

You may be thinking of markyh (from the bitcoin thread). I think he said his wife came from an African country (he didn't say which one, but was derogatory about it: basically that the whites had to the work as the natives wouldn't).

[Wayward]

On 27/06/2018 at 00:16, Kosmin said:

Lowering house prices isn't enough. Achieving this as soon as possible is also very important.

Always strikes me how out of control HPI which increases prices by 50% over just a few years is tolerated by masses and TPTB and not regarded as being destabilising and yet a 5 % fall in a year will be greeted with howls and fears capitalist civilisation is on the rocks...

BTL I argue has made the market more volatile however as as speculators will run for the door at signs of trouble...and so thanks to BTL we may get the fast and deep correction needed.

(back to thread topic........!!)

[oatbake]

Just now, Wayward said:

Always strikes me how out of control HPI which increases prices by 50% over just a few years is tolerated by masses and TPTB and not regarded as being destabilising and yet a 5 % fall in a year will be greeted with howls and fears capitalist civilisation is on the rocks...

BTL I argue has made the market more volatile however as as speculators will run for the door at signs of trouble...and so thanks to BTL we may get the fast and deep correction needed.

(back to thread topic........!!)

Totally agree. Like never before, UK residential property is an asset class, just like stocks and shares, currencies etc. 

As soon as the price starts to decline, and where the decline looks like it could contiinue, "investors" will dump and a fire-sale will ensue. It is actually worse as most UK BTL is bought for capital appreciation, rather than yield. A flat market is therefore also no good.

And there is no danger of FTBs stepping in anywhere near current prices - they won't be able to afford the same batshit crazy prices paid by BTL investors, even if they wanted to. 

The whole think is a powder keg just waiting for a spark. 

Prices and rents already collapsing in London. Not hard to see what will happen to other regions going forward...

It will be utter, utter carnage. 2007/8 on steroids.

I think a Japan-style  50%+ crash is a very real possibility. Even a fairly modest fall (10%) would financially eviscerate many of the leveraged chancers. 

CGT could be the least of Busta's worries if his portfolio is hemorrhaging value whilst he's sunning himself in Malta...

[maverick73]

No need for a think tank to state the obvious.... Its a big blow up doll economy, that will not survive a new era in interest rates. Regardless of what central banks say, everything is heading back to a world of supply and demand. Remove Help to Buy & raising interest rates will cause prices to plummet, simply because wages did not keep up with the everything ballon...

Flat screen TV (Interest Free Credit Cards)

Cars (Cheap Credit)

Houses (Cheap Credit)

Air Travel Costs (Low Oil Costs)

Cheap human resources from EU (Freedom of Movement)

All the smart people have begun to leave... & leaving behind....... ??

9 hours ago, oatbake said:

As soon as the price starts to decline, and where the decline looks like it could contiinue, "investors" will dump and a fire-sale will ensue. It is actually worse as most UK BTL is bought for capital appreciation, rather than yield. A flat market is therefore also no good

 

[Mossie]

11 hours ago, Jurassic Bland said:

I promised you the last word:

 

Quote

I personally think that buy-to-let lending is a terrible idea, but I respect that other people may hold a different view and I think the forum will be richer if they feel confident to express a different view. I know for a fact that some leveraged landlords are not scum because I know some people who, in the round, I admire and respect who also happen to have leveraged investments in rental property. I disagree with the choices that they've made in that regard but I can't see how that single choice can eclipse everything else about them and make them "scum".

Did you not once post something about the line between BTL and scum being upward of 1 house rented out?  I can't help but feel your position on these important housing matters really wobbles, every 3-4  years, when you think HPC is really coming in.  Last time it wobbled thinking of the sympathy for owner side, prices surged up very quickly by £100Ks.

You mentioned 8YI recently and ringing like fine china; I can point you to some of 8YI's posts about BTL scum, and BTL exploiting tenants.

I don't think many of us on HPC are in a fury and 'overly involved' in thinking the BTLers as 'scum'  - just very sad and upset by it all, and against so many of the individuals who have chosen to be in BTL.  What was that post about these people (BTLers) having differentiated themselves...... ?  They really have.  Multiple homes for them.  

Quote

 to call them scum is to desire to make them feel shame for their actions. Some landlords have come out publicly in the newspapers about feeling bad about what they have done. This sense of self-awareness is to be commended. Others will never feel this shame.

That's all it is for me.  And to differentiate my position against theirs on their BTL side.

just 'happen to have' leveraged investments in rental property.  Did it just magically happen?  Another property for them, rented out, collecting rent, and all the capital gain?  They are BTL landlords.  Just happen to have leveraged investments in rental property? 

I have to wonder what you admire this particular BTLer for?  You are highly intelligent and capable, so I would guess the BTLer has some skills and intelligence ability that impress you, but has still chosen to seek their return in BTL.

Along with millions of others exploiting the housing situation for personal gain, with all the bleating about providing homes, not enough homes, not building enough and so on, as the BTLers have been buying up more homes in their millions.

They each had to go about making it so on the BTL side.  They made their active choice.  It's something they had to think about and decide upon.  It's money/debt.  Choices make reality, and now there are millions of BTL landlords, with something like 5 million homes rented out.  Other choices were available.  Ask Ah-So, and others who own but been against BTL even though they could have easily got into it many years ago.

I don't see why you're so hard on inbruge. 

Okay we should really hold back from comparing BTL to war, but I understand inbruge's underlying meaning that he has chosen his side, and the BTLers have chosen an altogether different side, and that he stands very firm against it.  It's just inbruge emphasis that he won't give a pass to anyone who has chosen to be in BTL, including any BTLers in his family or friend-zone.  It's the same for me too.,

It's not as though inbruge makes the type of very distasteful war comparisons of Rozzer and many others on the BTL side. 

And I personally do consider it as a type of war; a financial war of housing speculation and greed, that for too many years the BTLers and the Banks have been actively exploiting situation of millions of people who just want a home free of BTL specuating landlords, who have way too much power (S21) and just care about easy rent and HPI.  'Society' indeed.  Ask some of your BTL pals about 'society' and ask about their BTL role in it all.  They put themselves first with their BTL and rentierism. It's all on them to work it out and make their choices, and they have really chosen.  Multiple houses for them, and renting for others.

I have read all the arguments how there are 'different types of BTLers' including elderly who just want an income on top of their £750,000 outright owned home, and how it's a waste of money to have £500,000 in savings earning 0.5% in the bank. Just will never ever accept such responses as a valid good reason for them being part of BTLism.   

I dislike all the banks who are active in BTL, but I refuse to give a pass to the BTLers themselves.  They all know what they are trying to do, and have successfully done to their financial advantage for so many of them.

Quote

inbruge: Sorry, but they are ALL scum.

__________

inbruge:  Look, I seriously do get the point you are making and it's one that I once made myself at one time. But my way of thinking now  is similar to someone about to storm a German WW2 trench, there are no doubt many of those German men who in any other circumstance I would be more the happy to share a beer or two with and get on very well, but the trouble is they follow and are willing to protect and ideology that I despise.

So quite simply I must run them through with a bayonet no differently than  I would someone that is far more evil and compliant even though they might tell me they thought they were doing the right thing. But of course the war will one day be finished and if they hold no grudges and still alive we can still have that beer.

__________

Bland Name: This kind of thinking strikes me as unhealthy.

Firstly, the problems you wish to surmount can be fixed at the ballot box if enough people agree with you and if, as appears to be the case, most people disagree with you then you'll have to live with it; landlords are here to stay.

Secondly, it's healthier to accept your lack of power and find small ways in which you can engage constructively with the political process. You are not a soldier in a war, you are not part of an army. The soldier's ultimate significance rests not on his own beliefs or his own endeavours, it rests on the army of which he is a part, "just one part in a big war" (link).

Go out and enjoy the weather. The pace of change in UK property makes glaciers look like F1 cars. No good will come of imagining your engagement with these things as storming a trench and bayoneting people.

Okay, part of a resistance then, against BTL landlord multiple home owning rentiers, and housing financialisation.

Glaciers.  Yet you suggest there may be more BTLers in a fix in time to come, and perhaps coming to HPC forum to find answers to their multiple home rented out levarage or tax problems?

And I want to see more of the millions of BTL landlord speculator investors to begin taking losses and for rentierism to be pushed back.   

It's not all going to be some 'Society wants lower prices' sweet-harmony nonsense, but will have to be forced, IF substantially lower house prices are to happen.   

Alternatively it's going to be a big divide in housing wealth haves, who don't know much about hardship, and the priced out people and active workers who tend to be younger for many more years or even decades, and money bomad or inherited to get you into the housing wealth haves, which is a cruddy system.

Quote

 On page 27, in post #393, spunko2010 (joined on the 9th March 2015,
167 posts at time of writing), contributes this; “This is probably my favourite HPC thread title
so far.” There is buried somewhere in the thread itself a line of discussion between posters
about the appropriateness of calling the posters of another forum scum. My reading of that
discussion is that after a little reflection we agreed that scum was well earned and
appropriate. I personally have more latterly favoured ignorant moronic sociopathic amoral
scum so it cannot be said that I come to the matter wholly dispassionately and with entirely
clean hands, thus as ever, do your own research – your guru is a quack. However, reflecting
on the thread title in drafting this here, I’m with spunko2010; it just makes me laugh.
I do have friends in real life. Most, probably all of the posters on hpc have lives outside the
forum, for many it is abundantly clear from their posting that they are embedded in rich, full
lives; hpc is part of their lives, but still just a part. Further, many are clearly drawn to the
forum and earnestly determined to keep it alive because they want a home of their own to
serve as a material anchor for those lives. 

A goodbye to all that buytolet.

 

Quote

Bland Name:  But for those of us deprived of homes by the voice of reason tw@ts expecting us to rent from them forever, this is the f**king front line, and I fight, and I give it my best shot.

Quote

Bland Name 2015: It's obscene that they've been allowed to exist at all, let alone have an eighteen year clear run at things, disrupting people's lives, depriving them of the homes of their communities. It's testament to how much as a people we despise each other. We love pwoperdee madness more than we love ourselves. It is grotesque.

Not we, but many individuals do, and others carry the costs of it all.

Quote

jammin35
As the "group most affected by it" is the hundreds of thousands of young people forced into paying extortionate rents while having the opportunity of owner occupation stolen from them by tax-advantaged self entitled scum , i'd say that the Government has indeed listened to the group most affected by..

I fully agree with Digsby.

Quote

Digsby 2015:  It matters to me what others do to the extent to which what they are doing impacts me, my loved ones, and to a slightly but not too significant extent, others.

Just like I consider the effect on others that my own actions have, direct or otherwise.

It's called social responsibility.

I'm not defending the labelling of a group of some 2m people as "scum", but the argument of questioning what it matters to me what other people do is a non starter for me, and a very weak position to take.

It all matters to me as well.  Their BTL actions have, for many many years, had many negative consequences on others.

Quote

Bland Name 2015: The social consequences of allowing this situation to come into being have been decidedly grim for renters, who have been effectively enslaved.
The social consequences of blowing these buffoons up (i.e renters being pushed from pillar to post by landlords issuing Section 21 notices) will be indistinguishable from how things are today.
The only other change will be a collapse in property prices back to a level consistent with earnings, allowing young people to once again obtain the security of tenure that comes with ownership and the ability to start making provision for the shelter they'll still need once their ability to work and earn abates, by buying a house.

Quote

Bland Name 2015:  There are no limbs being blown off in the war that I am fighting, but I keep being forced to piss 30%-35% of my earned income up a wall because the great unwashed have their imaginations captured by idiocy. If they can keep this up long enough, I'll have to leave my

... leave and settle somewhere cheaper.   Or no HPC, with prices not dipping much, and the BTLers maintaining all their multiple home and rent and financial gain positions.  I recently spent £50 sorting out a problem with rental because I didn't want to bug the landlord who is very rich with many properties, for I don't feel like I have any housing security at all for my family.  There was a consequence and cold tone the last time I sought a repair, with a response that no other tenant has ever complained, and a fix made some 5+ years ago should be still okay today, and not wanting to do any new inspection of the problem. 

It's the being captured by insecurity of tenure, and such very high prices, that creates difficulty in my life, and lives of many of my family and friends.

The thought of making HPC forum a 'safe-space' for in distress BTL landlords, IF the market ever turns down, makes me feel so queasy.  Especially when there is the suggestion that these plucky multiple home owning BTLers, with their leveraged investments rented out to other people who would much prefer to own, are somehow not actively responsible for their own choice to do what they have done in becoming BTL landlords.   

There is also nothing to find out what they cause of their downfall is, other than their own self, IF their leveraged housing greed gamble fail.   Whether it's by way of falling prices and their debt leverage, or whether HMRC guts them like a fish.

And they can become renters themselves, which they currently are fully involved with in making it for other people, with properties rented out.  It's not death.  

Quote

 

Bland Name 2015: Not coincidentally to the change in affordability, we have the arrival in 1996 of the completely unneeded buy-to-let sector, with lending volumes really taking off in the early 2000s. Over the following twenty years this moves about 2 million homes which would otherwise have been in the owner-occupied sector and transfers them into the private rented sector. It follows therefore that some portion of the 2 million associated households will feel as Byron's daughter did, (and not unreasonably, even if others see the same situation differently).

Hence some family formation is delayed and some children grow up having never met their grandmother, just because the banks saw easy money and willing quislings could be found. Hence scum.

 

Quote

 

What I feel is, as I've said before, sadness and grief; I think that Byron cut to the chase when he mentioned his anger at the fact that these clowns meant that family formation is delayed and thus some people have gone to their grave having never met their grandchildren, just so that we could have a societally destructive housing bubble.

For me it's all about how do you respond to idiocy and iniquity. If you see a chance to make an easy buck and pile in, I think you are scum. I don't think that's manipulative. It's just my opinion.

Active BTL participants.  Even IF we ever had a big HPC, there will still be many landlords.

 

Quote

 

Sandwiches33 2015

It is wrong to label an entire group as scum but opinions are often based on personal experience. I have been renting twenty years and in that time I have averaged a different house ever year and a half. In that time I have been threatened with physical attack, verbally assaulted, fraud committed against me, family threatened, and on many occasions had to endure dangerous conditions including a near gassing at the hands of a faulty heater.

It is truly shocking that a basic human need has been left so open to corruption and from my personal experience landlords are some of the worst examples of human beings so I can imagine why so many people have so little opinion of them. Land hoarding to avoid work is pretty much a curse on the modern human race.How can someone who hoards a basic resource a valuable member of the human race compared with a doctor or fireman or teacher?

I also said it before on this website I am prepared now to have all my assets all my savings wiped out in a banking collapse to see these people corrected into becoming better more functional members of the human race.

 

 

Quote

Frizzers:  Premature congratulation is something that has blighted HPC for a long time.

It certainly has.  Decade+ of it.

[Guest]

22 hours ago, Jurassic Bland said:

The thread was pushed off-topic by a totally off-topic post from @inbruges (the post itself has been removed by the moderators, I reported it, I'm sure others did too). It was a classic troll move from a obvious troll and not the first time that account has attempted it

What a blatant liar and fake you are.

You never had that post removed because it was "off topic" it was removed for being in appropriate language, which I find baffling in itself, most importantly it was not racist in the slightest and it was in my view a tame put down of Abbott, which because of you I will never post about her again if it effects sensibilities that much.

I have seen Carney, Blair,  Brown, Cameron, May, most EU leaders, BOE  and endless BTL website hosts and users called on here that word that begins with c and has four letters and nobody bats an eyelid.

[Bland Unsight]

20 hours ago, inbruges said:

What a blatant liar and fake you are.

You never had that post removed because it was "off topic" it was removed for being in appropriate language, which I find baffling in itself, most importantly it was not racist in the slightest and it was in my view a tame put down of Abbott, which because of you I will never post about her again if it effects sensibilities that much.

I have seen Carney, Blair,  Brown, Cameron, May, most EU leaders, BOE  and endless BTL website hosts and users called on here that word that begins with c and has four letters and nobody bats an eyelid.

• I didn't claim that I "had that post removed", I stated that it had been removed.
• I don't know how many people reported it but I knew that I had and it seemed deceitful not to acknowledge that.
• I didn't claim that it was removed because it was off-topic and I didn't claim that I reported it for being off-topic.
• I didn't report the comments about Diane Abbott ("fat bloated thick Dianna Abbott" -  I felt that the near tautology in "fat bloated" was poor style but there are no forum rules on that, as best I understand matters)
• I won't repeat the phrase that I did report. It concerned your rather ham-fisted attempt to criticise "Lefty Labour" on the basis how they engage with needs of some groups whilst at the same time, according to you, "miss how people live like, those too busy to complain"*. The problematic part was how you characterised the group you felt "Lefty Labour" were listening to.
• I don't know why you're wittering on about "that word that begins with c", you didn't use it.

In short you've made a bunch of unwarranted inferences from my post and can't remember your own, but apart from that, great work. 

* I assume you're not including yourself in the roll call of those who are "too busy to complain" 

Edited July 1, 2018 by Jurassic Bland

[christhpc]

Please stop it, guys.

Best Regards,

An aforementioned lurker and former poster.

[Darby Ram]

8 hours ago, christhpc said:

Please stop it, guys.

Best Regards,

An aforementioned lurker and former poster.

Personally, I think @Jurassic Bland is doing the Lord's work by calling out obviously irrelevant posts for what they are. As a mostly lurker it is unbelievably tedious to watch almost every thread get derailed by the same few posters, making exactly the same points every single time.

This forum is a goldmine of information. It has an incredibly good collective memory. Disruptive posters do their best to obscure those features to newcomers and outsiders.

Not to get all Edward Snowden here, but you couldn't design a better misinformation strategy than debasing the signal-to-noise ratio in a place where some posters clearly know their shit.

[Bland Unsight]

1 hour ago, Darby Ram said:

This forum is a goldmine of information. It has an incredibly good collective memory. Disruptive posters do their best to obscure those features to newcomers and outsiders.

I read the Onward policy paper start to finish. Took me a while to read it but got it finished at some point last week. However, every time I opened this thread to add my thoughts I found that there were other posts to deal with first (not all of which related to the Onward policy paper).

It's quite an interesting read and I commend it to other posters. With regard to this thread I'd say the following:

1. The report identifies the UK as "one of the cheapest countries for investors involved in residential investments" (taking Taxand as their source). My reading of this is that Tory SpAds still see the buy-to-let sector as an area where extra tax revenue can be extracted without any political blowback.
2. It's (probably) knowingly deceptive in that it puts the knife into buy-to-let lending saying that lending levels are "substantially above 2010 levels" in a section where it evaluates the impact of section 24, but the figure includes remortgages. Given the level of growth in the stock of BTL mortgages between 2010 and 2018 even on constant lending volumes for purchase lending would be substantially above 2010 just because of the growth of the stock, i.e. the person who wrote this has an agenda.
3. It explicitly states that "the measures taken so far are not large enough to produce a step change in ownership"
4. The focus of all subsequent taxation changes to mortgage interest relief is clearly focused on discouraging new entrants (e.g. to "fully abolish [Mortgage Interest Relief]" only on a grandfathered basis).
5. The section on Capital Gains Tax is all about people who've hung onto their old flat. As previously noted, given that the government have the HMRC returns they are the people who knew first about the 30,000 or so leveraged portfolio landlords with 20+ properties, £2m worth of debt and showing no profits and paying no income tax, and there is nothing about these guys. The inference that I draw is that the Treasury SpAds know that section 24 has killed the PovertyLaters stone dead and thus the SpAds are moving onto the next part of the problem, which is people hanging onto their old flats or considering holding onto their old flats. The CGT part is, in my opinion, impotent. A gain is a gain; taxing a capital gain won't discourage people seeking it, given the incredible capital gains residential property has made in the last few decades.

Obviously keen to hear what @inbruges thought about the policy paper. Not holding my breath. Apologies for going off-topic, but there's also some stuff in the policy paper about local authorities selling their social housing to housing associations so that the housing associations could use a "rent surplus"  from the ex-council stock to support "£27bn of borrowing capacity". Obviously if you unleashed this borrowing capacity without first reforming the compulsory purchase rules it would just be a demand subsidy fuelled by leverage.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Jurassic Bland

[Houdini]

Points 1 and 4 contradict each other.  The easiest way to increase tax revenue from BTL is to remove interest payments from tax relief and if they are doing that they won't (and can't*) grandfather it..

* Actually that's not quite true - the rules are already different for build to let deals as that is were the government want future investment. Mr amateur buying and letting a 2  up 2 down in a northern town is not the long term plan....

[Bland Unsight]

8 hours ago, Houdini said:

Points 1 and 4 contradict each other.  The easiest way to increase tax revenue from BTL is to remove interest payments from tax relief and if they are doing that they won't (and can't*) grandfather it..

They don't contradict each other.

I wasn't claiming that policy makers see it as a context where any possible measure will result in no political blowback, just that, as I originally said, "extra tax revenue can be extracted without any political blowback".

If you compare the fuss over the pasty tax with the zero fuss over section 24 then that ought to give you some context of levels of political fallout that follow from various amendment to the tax rules. I recall that nobody cared a fig about the CGT rate on residential property staying at 28% when GGT was cut to 20% (via the introduction on an 8% additional rate).

Also I think you might benefit from reading the paper, as it specifically mentions grandfathering the tax remaining post 24 section relief and fully abolishing it for new landlords. You seem to be making the point that you can't grandfather that which you remove entirely and whilst that's true, it does seem to be a slightly redundant observation. More usefully, perhaps, the paper does offer a narrative surrounding why Osborne's Treasury decided against removing the relief entirely in 2015.

Quote

In the Summer Budget 2015, the then Chancellor restricted relief to the basic rate, but decided not to fully abolish it. One risk in going further for existing landlords would be that it would push some highly-geared landlords into bankruptcy, and lead to some landlords paying more tax than they were earning from letting. The key issue is that the reforms applied to people who had made their plans on the basis of gaining the relief.

One possible way to go further would be to grandfather the mortgage interest relief for existing rented properties – but fully abolish it for new landlords or new properties let out after a certain date. This would not raise significant revenue for the Treasury, but would equalise treatment with owner occupiers and other investments. It could encourage investors to look beyond residential investment when considering new investments.

HM Treasury could also look again at the tax treatment of wear and tear. While the new post-2015 system (based on actually incurred costs) is fairer the previous system (based on a percentage of the rental value), the system still means landlords can gain a tax relief on their furnishings which owner-occupiers cannot. Ministers could also look again at the generosity of the relief. They could either reduce the rate or cap the total that can be claimed to prevent abuse.

Source

[BalancedBear]

On 25/06/2018 at 09:36, Locke said:

Swing and a miss.

BTL landlords are a symptom, not a cause. 

 

The cause is ultra-low interest rates and a decades-long recession, both a result of government intervention.

 

Even if BTL landlords hadn't taken advantage of the scenario, someone else would and house prices would be just as high as they are now.

 

Yes, BTL are scum, but attacking them will not address the fundamental drivers.

 

 

I agree. One of the biggest reasons for price increases is the easy availability of finance, and the ever increasing population. The population has been increasing by over 300k per year for many years now. However the number of extra homes entering the market is nowhere near that level. It does not really matter whether houses are rented or bought, as long as there is demand for every house, the prices will be bid up. BTL landlords may have bid up prices, but they would have been bid up by people buying for themselves too. BTL would not have got so big if there were not literally millions of people entering the UK having to find somewhere to rent whilst they find their feet.

[Bland Unsight]

1 hour ago, BalancedBear said:

I agree. One of the biggest reasons for price increases is the easy availability of finance, and the ever increasing population. The population has been increasing by over 300k per year for many years now. However the number of extra homes entering the market is nowhere near that level. It does not really matter whether houses are rented or bought, as long as there is demand for every house, the prices will be bid up. BTL landlords may have bid up prices, but they would have been bid up by people buying for themselves too. BTL would not have got so big if there were not literally millions of people entering the UK having to find somewhere to rent whilst they find their feet.

For the uninitiated, please take one decent pinch of salt with BalancedBear on buy-to-let. Actually argued that those worse affected were "smaller unincorporated landlords" (not people like Busta with fifty properties who actually had to go into tax exile in order to avoid bankruptcy because they didn't have enough equity to pay the CGT that would fall due if they tried to close out their investment by selling up). This poster is either willfully ignorant (virtually impossible given the time they put in on the Tax relief on mortgage interest thread in 2015) or has ulterior motives for, to put it charitably, putting a little spin on the facts).