house prices

We used to live in a tied house. That’s code for an employer who wants to pay the lowest possible wages! However we were determined to own our own home so we bought to rent , many, many years ago. We have had fantastic and appalling tenants but I feel we were good landlords.
I firmly believe that there needs to be more LA housing.
I have always been aware that our tenants don’t have much security of tenure, we would have been able to give them notice even if they had been perfect and given us no trouble.
I can’t help but think that this makes for a precarious and stressful position to be in.
IMO not everyone needs to own a house but they should be in a position where they can have more security.

But I really can't see how these awful landlords get away with it

Me neither JenniferE but they do. Probably because there is such a shortage of homes that the LA's can't be too fussy and can't risk a large increase in the amount of homeless people. There are some lovely private rentals about but astronomical rents make them unaffordable to most young families.

The best offer my DD's partner has received is still £15k less than the outstanding mortgage (£55k offer on a £70k mortgage) which the Halifax will not accept. Not sure what he will do to be honest. The Halifax are a disgrace. thanks for remembering though.

But I really can't see how these awful landlords get away with it. I guess they find their own tenants, because letting agents ensure that properties they take on comply with safety regulations, eg, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors etc. We obviously had to get the gas boiler checked out, and surprisingly it was working fine, considering the state the other people had left the house in!
The woman from the letting agency wanted to know exactly what we were planning to do renovation wise, so presumably they wouldn't have taken on any property which wasn't nicely presented.

I guess then in your area gilly there must be a lot of unregulated landlords whom the authorities know nothing about. Dreadful.

Did your daughter's partner manage to sell his house?
I remember you saying how difficult it is to sell where you are. A dreadful worry for them.

Both you and your tenants are extremely lucky then JenniferE but this is by no means "the norm". Where there is a shortage of housing (where isn't there at the moment?) there will always be bad landlords cashing in on the misfortune of others with overpriced and substandard housing. In my area almost all of the decent homes are those rented by the LA who all come up to the Decent Home standard. The couple that you refer to are by no means typical of a young family needing somewhere to settle and bring up their children.

Well I can assure you all that we are most definitely not unscrupulous landlords.

We have always felt that if a property is nicely done up and presented then it will attract decent tenants who will respect and look after it.

Now I really don't want to tempt fate, but that thinking has, touch wood, been proved correct.

The house we rent out now was in a terrible state when we got it last year. We put in a new kitchen and bathroom, re-plastered then re-decorated. We had new carpets and flooring fitted so it was completely re-furbished.

My husband spent time in the garden, putting plants in, and generally tidying up. We rent through a letting agency, so there is no question of us charging over the going rate.

If the tenants report any problems we get it sorted pronto. I honestly can't understand the mentality of landlords who neglect their properties. Apart from the unfairness of expecting tenants to pay for a dump, they have got money invested in the house, so why on earth neglect it?

Getting back to my point about some people preferring to rent, our tenants are like that. We met them, they are a lovely couple and we hope they stay, but the man is in a line of work which requires him to move around the country every few years. They said they love that lifestyle of having new parts of the country to live in and get to know.
Buying for them wouldn't work as they said they wouldn't want the hassle of having to keep selling, so renting suits them just fine.

A question: If more houses are being built than are being demolished (private sector) and the prices are going up year on year who is buying them?

You’ve hit the nail on the head Eloethan . The only decent landlords in my town are the LA. The rest are mainly greedy,unscrupulous chancers who you would be terrified to approach for a repair for fear of being turfed out (for causing trouble) plenty more suckers where you came from and a chance of a rent rise too. What a way to try and bring up a family, although I appreciate there are those who think if your poor enough to live in unsecured “rented” you probably shouldn’t have children anyway.

JenniferEccles Although younger people with reasonably good salaries may be quite happy to rent, I doubt that many young people on average salaries are happy to see nearly half their income disappear in rent (This is Money 2015: "the average rental cost across the UK taking up 41 per cent of take-home pay,").

I don't imagine that a couple with children would choose to pay excessive rent for a property that is only guaranteed to be available to them for one year, to be frightened to ask for repairs to be done in case they are turfed out at the end of that year and to have to move their children to new schools. Is it any wonder that so many children these days are reported to have problems with depression, anxiety and self-harm and so many relationships are cracking under the strain.

As for "much maligned landlords", no doubt there are some very decent and conscientious landlords (and some awful tenants) but I know of several people whose landlords were extremely reluctant to carry out essential repairs, such as to the boiler, despite the extortionate rent charged.

You can only pay what you can afford petra and as long as rich people are prepared to pay exorbitant prices, greedy people will continue to cash in pushing the prices up and up. No wonder some villages in picturesque settings have hardly any permanent residents.

We are similar to you paddyann stagnant and falling house prices because there are no (decent) jobs . We also live in a tourist area with fabulous unspoilt beaches, promenade, parks with miniature railways, lakes (and ducks) but no one has any money.

Petra house prices haven't risen like that here ,in fact they were stagnant or dropping for a very long time.We live in a tourist area too but its possible to buy a 4 bedroom detached house for under £200k .Young people CAN buy here ,ex council houses at £60 -£80k for 3 bedrooms ,flats for under £60k .The problem a lot of our young have is jobs ,zero hours contracts ,minimum wage and seasonal .Of course we have a lot of social housebuilding happening here too which is good .Over 50.000 houses for social rent in the past few years ,that certainly helps the housing crisis .

Southend!!

gilly
how have house prices risen so much
Market forces, supply and demand.
Uk population in 2008: 61,689, million
Uk population in 2018: 66, 57, million.
An example is our own bungalow. It has gone up £100,000 in 3yrs, why, because we have an aging population who want bungalows, we live close to the beach, great train links to London, an airport 20 mins away from where you can fly to anywhere in Europe.
And of course, the longest pier in the world

Bossy Where are all these pensioners living on final salary pensions? The only ones I know are those who worked in the public sector. I think the private sector was forced to drop such pensions because of the cost as there was no one else, like councils and the government, to pick up the slack. My own pension was capped and I had to pay significant extra contributions to get less pension than when I started.

If young people are getting such a raw deal why are there so many trendy young bars full of people drinking? Why are there so many chain restaurants? I don't think they are full of pensioners. Why are fashionable hairdressers so expensive? I can't afford them. Just making the point that not all young people are forced into renting and not all are as stretched as some seem to think.

How have house prices risen so much ?

^ Some are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to buy their own home^

What a load of rubbish JenniferE sacrifice what ? Food and water ? You simply don’t get it do you ?

Actually Jennifereccles it is smug comments, accompanied with a complete lack of empathy or understanding of other people's lives which causes the unnecessary bad feeling between the generations and achieves nothing^

The basic facts surrounding this topic is that there were winners and losers in the 1970s as there are winners and losers now.

Some are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to buy their own home, yet some genuinely prefer to rent. There are people don't want the responsibility of owning their own home. After all if the boiler goes wrong, or the roof or windows need replacing, that's down to the much maligned landlord to sort out and pay for.

Whatever the whys and wherefors of this topic, the fact is it is completely ridiculous for some (not all thankfully) youngsters to blame my generation for the rise in house prices.

All it does is cause unnecessary bad feeling between the generations and achieves nothing.

sorry - I would say some

Bossyrossy I would some some, but certainly not all. There are plenty of pensioners who are JAM in properties worth quite a substantial amount - but they're not large properties so downsizing, leaving an area they know and people/families is just not an option. And their pensions may not necessarily be good, some of these people could be widows surviving on a very small pension.

nonnie I said it was 'patently obvious' but perhaps instead of using the phrase 'don't know', I should have been more blunt and said don't care!
Smugness abounds!

The poorest LA’s are forced to charge the highest rates of council tax in order to protect essential services . Wrong on so many levels .

Many baby boomers who bought property decades ago are now in the fortunate position of having paid off their mortgage and able to live on their final salary pensions. Lucky them. What worries me is the current generation who are paying high rents, paying off student loans and not enough money left at the end of each month to contribute to a pension. How are they going to manage when they retire and only have a state pension to live on? We have a time bomb ticking away in our society and government needs to do something about it.

It’s because all areas can decide how they want to impose council tax, and no two councils seem to be exactly the same.
We pay far more now where we are in the south ( in a smaller house) than we did in a large house in the West country.

No property in Westminster can be charged more than £1,376.28 a year."
Why?

Here the highest band pays over £3,500

There is inequality, Eloethan but then again, there are many cases of older/elderly people living in houses in the South-East which they may have bought 50 or 60 years ago and which are now worth ridiculous amounts of money - not through anything they have done themselves. It will be 'the family home' and perhaps not particularly large - so should their council tax be based on the value, which in many cases, they could ill afford to pay.

That is not to say that properties in these London boroughs should not be charged at a similar rate to those in other parts of the country - on size, not on value?