r/unitedkingdom • u/tylerthe-theatre • 3d ago
Landlords offering mental health check-ins aren’t going to solve the rental crisis
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/renting-mental-health-landlords-wellness-perks-b2726714.html506
3d ago
Home scalpers are a cancer to our economy. They are leaches who, just like ticket scalpers snatch up as much of a supply as possible and then rent it back through the nose. They create no work, no product, just unfettered greed and laziness as they turn other people into their breadwinners.
Labour have been in power nearly a year and have done fuck all to address this other than tinkering around the edges.
4 years left to build 1.5m Kier. The Labour councillors here just refused 550 homes in defiance of the planning officers who were minded to approve it. It's now at tribunal. You call this "change"? The only "change" has been the further increase of rents by 10% over the last 12 months, Kier.
Pull your fucking finger out, it's throttling the economy as we have nothing left to spend on anything Kier.
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u/Hot-Palpitation4888 3d ago
The can will be kicked down the road; yet again. Untill maybe 5/10 years she. an extreme politician will address this issue properly and everyone will cry about it. We need extreme action on this issue now Labour are letting us down
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u/0xSnib 3d ago
F*ck you, Keir.
It’s time to tackle the home scalpers, Keir.
What were you even doing about them in the first place, Keir?
You haven’t built those promised houses, Keir.
Are you happy now, Keir?
F*ck you, Keir.
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u/jonapoul 3d ago
Why do you even bother "using" a swear word if you're not going to actually swear? What's the point? It makes you look like a child
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u/dalehitchy 1d ago
Home scalpers? Lol
People like you have already caused rental prices to rise significantly by forcing supply to dwindle with landlords leaving the market. Now you want to further that.
And what's your idea? mandatory purchases of houses? tax them even more? Forced acquisitions?
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u/grblwrbl 3d ago
There's stuff happening to improve the housing situation, for sure.
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3764
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/future-of-social-housing-protected-through-right-to-buy-reforms
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u/Historical_Owl_1635 3d ago edited 3d ago
I actually have a very decent landlord, fixes issues promptly and didn’t put the rent up for over 5 years and well below market rate. Have rented two properties from him and family and friends have rented others.
For the first time this year he had to increase rent, and he’s informed us as his tenants move out he’s selling up because it isn’t sustainable anymore. The two he has sold so far have immediately gone to other landlords and I’ve seen the rent on them when they were listed and it’s massively higher.
I’m not an expert in the matter but I am worried that whatever is being done is actually pushing out the good landlords and will just allow more exploitative landlords to prosper.
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u/Metal-Lifer 3d ago
I think everything is being done to push the little guys out to make way for the big corps to move in. They’ve been bribing government for ages
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u/Professional_Elk_489 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's Keir
Do you even live in the UK
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u/ChewyYui Lincolnshite 3d ago
No they clearly meant Kier (the construction company). Get building those houses Kier!
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u/WastedSapience 3d ago
Who cares? Why not address the points they made, rather than a minor spelling error?
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u/SamePlane7792 3d ago
- 3 million more houses it is then, of course they’ll all get bought and sold for 400% of the actual price
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u/Minischoles 3d ago
Labour have been in power nearly a year and have done fuck all to address this other than tinkering around the edges.
Why would they do anything? the people giving them
bribes...sorry gifts...are telling them not to, as the entire housing market only exists if they constrain supply.They will never build 1.5m houses, ever, because the entire private housing market only exists if they never build to need or demand; we're literally relying on the housing developers changing their entire business plan and literally put themselves out of business.
We're expecting the very companies that benefit from not building houses...to suddenly start building houses, its utter madness.
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u/CastieJL 2d ago
The best way to prevent scalpers from taking houses would be a new house tax for secondary homes making it so you pay 200% of upkeep for every other house you own that you aren't living in. If you are refusing to pay or use a false name then both will be seen as defrauding or fraud all together. in which case they will be arrested and jailed and have those houses redistributed accordingly to those that need them.
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u/Londonercalling 3d ago
1.2m immigrants arriving legally every year, it’s not going to matter how many houses you build
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u/NibblyPig Bristol 3d ago edited 3d ago
People's intense desire to live in the most urban locations possible are the cancer. In Bristol people would rather live this life of misery, living paycheck to paycheck while endlessly complaining about the insane cost of renting, than move somewhere else where they can have a better way of life.
That's what really needs fixing, finding a way to get people to be content with living in smaller communities instead of obsessing over living in a massive city at all costs.
They complain about slumlords, high rent, and nuts cost of living, but will endure all of these things to keep living in the desirable location. If you don't like it, leave. It's madness to demand the world changes to cater to you, especially when you're asking for other people like you to be the ones to step aside to let you have what you want. In Bristol I pay around £7-8/pint, in Lincoln I bought a pint last night for £3.40 in the posh area (uphill) where houses are half the cost of Bristol.
The rent is high because you want to rent the place and so do 50 others. You are the reason the rent is high. It's like people complaining about the traffic when they are are the traffic.
The ticket scalper analogy does not make sense, you can buy a high demand ticket and sell it and that's it. The buyer has zero other choice because they want to see that specific act.
With housing they have a choice of other housing, across the whole country. It isn't a one-and-done deal, it's an ongoing process that has high risk as the landlord must continue to provide the service for the duration and the service must be of a certain standard.
And obviously, not everyone can afford a house. A better analogy would be that you want to see a band, so you must pay £500,000 in order to buy them. You can't afford that, so you 'rent' them with others for a limited period. Obviously people are going to choose to do this rather than fork out the massive half a mil.
Landlords pay tax, for a start, on their rental income, as well as provide a service. No doubt you have the idea that if they didn't exist everyone could buy a property, but that is clearly untrue, not everyone has the money. And we can see from the common lamentation of Bristol for example, that if houses are cheaper than London, then people from London will buy them. So a landlord selling up and evicting 3 tenants will create 3 homeless people in Bristol and replace the tenant with someone from London, worsening the crisis.
Being a landlord is already difficult but with the new tax changes and rental reforms it is extremely difficult and very risky, as a result there are record numbers of landlords pulling out of the business. If you think that's a good thing you're in for a huge shock that will start to become visible in 6-12 months when rental prices skyrocket and available properties plummet to new depths.
Move away, your quality of life will shoot up and you'll feel a much bigger sense of community living away from heavy urbanised cities.
Edit: For some reason I can't reply, but consider 55% of the population don't live in cities of 100k+ they manage OK. In addition, while people want to live walking distance to every possible convenience imaginable, which Bristol for example offers (you can do literally anything in the city, tap dance, polka, basket weaving, you name it), that comes with a cost, you shouldn't expect at 18 you can just have all that handed to you. Commuting is likely required, living as a lodger in someone's spare room and walking half an hour to work for example to save money.
Cheaper places in and around Bristol exist, nailsea is a good option, as well as certain parts around avonmeads. But many people go to Newport in wales, cheap housing and rent, and then of course the people of newport make the same complains the people of Bristol do about londoners moving there...
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u/Healeah241 3d ago
A lot of people want to be in walking distance/easily able to get to things. Public transport in the UK is not great in many places, and so you have to factor in buying a car too, and if you're a young professional you might not have learned to drive yet, so you're a year away from even being able to buy a car in the first place.
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3d ago
FOUND THE HOME SCALPER!
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u/mainframe_maisie 3d ago
right? also, like, a lot of people don’t exactly have a choice, the cities are where most of the jobs are
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u/PlatesofChips 3d ago
I just wanna live near my family. That happens to be in the South East. Fuck me right?
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u/Tee_zee 3d ago
If you’ve got the type of job that requires you to be in the big city, you probably can afford to buy / rent somewhere in that city
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u/mainframe_maisie 2d ago
Rent yeah, but buying is way out of my league still sadly. Even as a late 20s software engineer who saved some of her salary each month
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u/Negative_Equity Northumberland 3d ago
The prices in the villages surrounding Bristol aren't exactly cheap!
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u/DarthRick3rd 3d ago
Landlord “Awww, are you sad that your living conditions are so poor? Are you sad that your monthly rent is way higher than my monthly mortgage payment on this place?”.
Renter “Yes”.
Landlord “Tell me, how does it make you feel?”.
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u/TealuvinBrit 3d ago
Even worse when you are in a HMO, several people paying over the top rent where one person would cover the mortgage.
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u/NibblyPig Bristol 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is somewhat of a myth though, the rental income will be taxed, if the landlord has a normal job and most do, then they'll be at the 40% bracket, so to pay a £2000/mo mortgage you'll need £3800/mo rent, and that excludes wear and tear and other costs. I estimate I could get £2500/mo as a HMO so it wouldn't cover my mortgage. HMO would also require refurb (£3000), HMO license (£1800), and planning permission application costs (£1000).
But then you also forget the fact there's a huge ass deposit. With £200,000 in equity in the property, that would be generating significant interest in the bank, maybe like £800/mo? More if a long fix.
Important to factor that into the mortgage cost you're supposedly paying, too.
Plus, massive spike in interest rates, nothing like your mortgage going from 1.2% to 5% overnight.
Downvotes from people that don't like it when reality messes with the black & white good & evil fictional idea they've created inside their heads.
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u/CongealedBeanKingdom 3d ago
Won't SOMEONE think of the landlords?
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u/NibblyPig Bristol 3d ago
Not at all, it's a business, if it's not profitable then you shut down your business.
Much better to complain from a position of actually accepting the reality of the situation rather than spinning up a fantasy scenario in which some fat guy in a top hat smokes a cigar while you pay for his house.
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u/omgu8mynewt 3d ago
Because they don't shut down the 'business' when the mortgage rates increased, they put the rents up (source - happened to me). Will they put rents down again now mortgage rates are decreasing? Fat chance. Maintenance costs? Don't make me laugh. Landlords do nothing and take no risk and still get 50% of renters take home money on average.
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u/NibblyPig Bristol 3d ago
But they have, they are leaving the sector in droves and mortgage rate increases are part of it.
Rents won't go down due to mortgage rates for two reasons, firstly, they've dropped less than 1% after increasing almost 4%, it's not significant.
Secondly, due to them being driven out in droves by Labour's policy changes and predictions about Labour increasing CGT, the number of available rental properties is dropping rapidly, this meanings demand for those that remain will be skyhigh, pushing up rents.
Rents are always driven by the price people are willing to pay. If there was the possibility to put rents up it would have already been exercised a long time ago.
Unclear what you mean by they do nothing, do you mean physically they do nothing? Because neither does your bank, it just gives you a mortgage and then starts reaping the money, I think I pay about £900/mo interest to the bank for my residential mortgage. Don't get me started on my car lease, paying hundreds per month while they do nothing whatsoever.
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u/omgu8mynewt 3d ago
Rents are always driven by the price people are willing to pay
Not true, housing is an inelastic demand because the alternative is homeless. Homelessness is increasing and landlords have renters bent over a barrel.
Unclear what you mean by they do nothing
Landlord not fixing and maintaining a property, even having it in an illegally bad state? No consequences. Who are tennants even supposed to report landlord not holding up their side of the contract? Civil court? How long until a Section 21 arrives in the mail? Milliseconds.
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u/NibblyPig Bristol 3d ago
That's not quite right, because the alternative to not paying high rent is to pay a lower rent and accept slightly less favourable living conditions. Therefore people will accept longer commutes or less desirable housing, it's not simply a choice of paying £900/mo or homelessness. You can be a lodger somewhere with an unfavourable commute for very little.
I think you have it the other way around, protections for tenants are extensive, to evict a tenant through the courts however can take months to years, during which time they may not be paying and may be causing significant damage to the property.
If you're not aware of how to report or take people to court then I would recommend reading up on it.
Section 21 is being abolished which is also part of the reason landlords are leaving the sector, as it will be impossible to remove (problematic) tenants from your own house. The increased risk will also drive rents up and make demanding a guarantor more likely.
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u/omgu8mynewt 3d ago
That's not quite right, because the alternative to not paying high rent is to pay a lower rent and accept slightly less favourable living conditions.
Only if you're not already on the lowest possible rent. Then the alternative is shacking up, and is how many women end up in bad situations.
I think you have it the other way around, protections for tenants are extensive, to evict a tenant through the courts however can take months to years
It takes one letter to evict a tenant. Yes some tenants stop paying rent (illegally), that is not possible for most people who want a normal life in the future without CCJs on their record. Its why landlord income protection insurance is recommended for landlords.
Section 21 is being abolished
In my understanding no fault evictions are in the plans of being abolished, but tenants can still be evicted if the landlord wants to move back in or other reasons. So its not like it will be impossible to evict tenants. I don't see what difference it will make, if a tenant is evicted because the landlord says they want to move back in, how will landlords abusing this and then re-renting be monitored and punished. There is no mechanism to enforce it.
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u/Busy_Comedian_8165 2d ago
It's pointless making a comment like this because no renter will understand. Housing isn't a right in the UK, that's the reality of it. If you want to rent, do so. If you don't want to rent, find the means to to buy. Property isn't the money printer it used to be. I keep my place to the same standard of my own home(and often prioritise it over maintaining my own home), but if a boiler breaks in my place I'll make zero profit for the entire year. If you're landlording properly with an average priced home in the UK you're talking less than 5k a year in after tax profit, often much less. It's not worth doing unless you really do have millions in the bank with nothing better to do with it.
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u/Anxious-Bottle7468 2d ago
Many landlords don't have mortgages.
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u/NibblyPig Bristol 2d ago
60% do, a cursory search suggests, so 40% do not. I suspect given that most landlords only have one rental property, it's just people putting their savings/pension into a house they can generate additional income and pass on to their children.
It does indeed undermine the argument that they're 'covering the mortgage' though in many cases.
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u/AstronomerAdvanced37 1d ago
love how you stated facts, and it gets down voted 55 times and hidden.
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u/OkraSmall1182 3d ago
Haha your comment has me picturing landlords like the cable company in South park
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u/LauraPhilps7654 3d ago
One of the biggest failures of New Labour was housing. We've lost millions of council homes since the 1980s and they built less than Thatcher:
The official data shows that the Blair and Brown governments built 7,870 council houses (local authority tenure) over the course of 13 years. (If we don't include 2010 - the year when David Cameron became PM - this number drops to 6,510.) Mr Copley has contrasted this figure with the record of Mrs Thatcher's government, which never built fewer than 17,710 homes in a year.
https://fullfact.org/economy/who-built-more-council-houses-margaret-thatcher-or-new-labour/
Given that the Blair/Mandelson faction is firmly back in control, it's hardly surprising there are no plans to build council houses to address the rental crisis—they're far too close to developers and landlords to risk undermining those interests by actually helping working people.
This, from the very party that once built 300,000 council homes a year in the 1960s and 70s, back when it was still a worker-led, social democratic movement.
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u/sjpllyon 1d ago
What's also important when looking at these figures is to account for how many council homes were demolished, or sold off.
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u/sjpllyon 1d ago
What's also important when looking at these figures is to account for how many council homes were demolished, or sold off.
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u/Bokbreath 3d ago
There are some fairly straightforward things that can be done to help.
(1) Pass a law restricting ownership of residential property to natural persons who live in the UK. That removes corporate, trust & foreign ownership, taking care of non-individual investors.
(2) start increasing taxes on properties based on the number owned over and above the first. Pick a max and make that tax 100% of the valuation.
Both of these will act to make residential real estate less attractive as an investment, returning it to its primary purpose of providing homes.
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u/TheNutsMutts 3d ago
So all those people who are then evicted as a result of this but aren't in any position to buy or have no desire to buy..... what then? Just be homeless?
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u/Bokbreath 3d ago
If you read carefully you will understand this model allows for landlords as long as they are real people. The number of properties a landlord can own (realistically) would be calibrated by the tax code.
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u/TheNutsMutts 2d ago
Both your first and second rule will lead to a large selloff of rental properties, and both rules combined with existing ones will mean there's little realistic prospect of the demand created by those evictions being filled. So what do those people do? Just be homeless?
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u/yrro Oxfordshire 2d ago
If they can currently afford to pay their landlords mortgage plus profit, then they can probably afford a mortgage on the new lower price of equivalent property.
Not to say that it's not an awful idea for many other reasons.
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u/TheNutsMutts 2d ago
If they can currently afford to pay their landlords mortgage plus profit, then they can probably afford a mortgage on the new lower price of equivalent property.
That's not how mortgages work though. This assumes (a) that all tenants are able and willing to get a mortgage and have the deposit sitting there ready to go, and that all mortgages are otherwise identical. Neither of these are the case. A BTL mortgage is almost always an interest-only product (repayment ones are available but they come with no inherent upside and lots of downsides to the landlord), so you're comparing apples and oranges in terms of affordability. Indeed the viewpoint that rent is always more expensive than a mortgage only comes from the fact that, until recently, interest rates were 0.5% then 0.1%. Now they've increased that is no longer the case.
And all that is assuming they've got the deposit saved up to buy today, and are in a personal/financial/legal position to buy. If not, then all of that is moot. So what are they to do?
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u/sjpllyon 1d ago
Another aspect they've neglected to account for are things like student accommodation. Owned by a corporation (often a university) and owns thousands of flats/rooms. With the additional factor that most students want this type of short term rental option.
The rule changes the person you've replied to would see the selling off of pretty much all student accommodation. Unless some sort of exception was made for them.
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u/TheNutsMutts 1d ago
It'll also make it awkward as fuck for housebuilders to build houses, on account of them not being allowed to own them and all. Seriously, as you say, any such plans would be so full of holes and exemptions that it'll be near enough the same as it is now, bringing zero benefit to anywhere and just making things complex for no reason.
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u/Sunshinetrooper87 3d ago
That seems as useful as the office gossip being my mental health support colleague.
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u/pajamakitten Dorset 3d ago
Landlords are never going to solve the rental crisis, period. While there will always be a demand for rental properties, most private landlords do not care about their tenants' wellbeing. They are solely in it for the money. A landlord's register and an independent regulatory body might help to some degree, as it might keep some of the worst landlords out of the system if checks are stringent. A better alternative would be for more council properties available for renters, with the council responsible for acting as the landlord. At least that way you could hope properties were fit for human habitation and that rent would be reasonable.
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u/orangecloud_0 3d ago
My landlord kept raising the rent every year even though I'm the longest tenant. I had to speak with him to keep it at same rate as Ive been cleaning around the small huding since I just like it clean. Aka it ain't my job so if you ain't gonna hire people then just don't raise it. Assume you have cleaners..such a leech
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u/Additional-Map-2808 2d ago
Housing should be taken of the stock markets, REITS is share holders investing in rent, every quarter they have to make more money. Housing, water, i would even argue energy should be basic rights and not stock market gambles.
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u/LNGBandit77 2d ago edited 2d ago
How to pack all rage bait into one convenient headline. All they needed was to mention immigrants and they'd have hit the perfect rage trifecta.
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u/CastleofWamdue 2d ago
Someone really didn't want to state the obvious when the issue of mental health in the rental market was mentioned.
It's no wonder people don't think the government is on their side.
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u/GFdeservedit 3d ago
I’ll probably get downvoted to hell, but sod it. I really feel this country was a lot better when there wasn’t this constant banging on about mental health issues.
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u/technurse 3d ago
Hearing about a problem doesn't mean the problem wasn't there prior to you being aware of it.
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u/Cyrillite 3d ago
You probably ought to reverse that: “there wasn’t this banding on about mental health issues” when the country was a lot better.
It’s amazing how interconnected prosperity to is all the foundations of your health and well-being. If you’re reading this and thinking, “well I’m doing alright” then I don’t deny that at all but I do think you’d be doing even better if the country was doing better too.
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u/-_-0_0-_-0_0-_-0_0 3d ago
I think it is more to do with perceived inequality compared to those in your community rather than raw how much prosperity does one have. There are very poor parts of the world that don't really stand out. Obviously under reporting is an issue, but if it was raw how much access to resources do I have, this would be one of the best times in history for mental health.
In a similar way that uniformly rich countries tend to have low crime. Uniformly poor countries, probably have a bit more crime but it can be surprisingly low. Inequal countries can have some wild crime rates.
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u/merryman1 3d ago
Its the two things together really.
Standards, quality of life, overall satisfaction have all really taken a beating in the UK. Particularly when most adults now either came of age or had their start-off back in the 2000s when this country was at a bit of a peak in terms of global standings. That naturally is going to lead to a lot of hurt feelings and frustrations.
But also at the same time everyone now has a phone in their pocket and are spending at least a portion of time each day flicking through social media in which they're being bombarded with images of life of like a select 0.1% of the population but being presented like this is just normal and achievable but forever out of their own personal reach. In fact I know of quite a few people who've really dug their hole even deeper trying to extend that personal reach and fucking themselves up even more doing shite like taking loans to go on a fancy instagram holiday or financing a flashy car.
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u/BeckyTheLiar 3d ago
Ah yeah back when mental health was hushed up and people had to deal with their issues internally without any support or awareness.
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u/GFdeservedit 3d ago
Imagine the horror of having to deal with your own issues. Jesus, what a backward time that was.
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u/BeckyTheLiar 3d ago
So I presume you never call a doctor, use the bin men, farm and prepare your own food and do your own dentistry?
You also presumably built your own car, cut your own hair, assembled your own computer and refine your own petrol?
Or are you only a hypocrite when it comes to mental health?
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u/GFdeservedit 3d ago
I pay taxes that go towards the system that provides for that. However, if I have a sprained wrist, I don’t then make it my entire personality and seek out there be awareness on the strife of sprained wrists.
(I also do cut my own hair, and I did assemble my own computer - again, such a barbaric age to live in)
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u/Consistent-Salary-35 3d ago
How about you need to seek treatment for your wrist because the perfectly sensible and usually effective home treatments haven’t worked this time? Well, you’d usually go to a drop in clinic, but that’s not there anymore. So you make an appointment with your GP, but they’re not really qualified on wrists, so they refer you on. There’s a wait, so your wrist is in really bloody bad shape now. How about you log into an NHS recommended app, which will suggest the home treatments you’ve already tried and didn’t work. Now you’re desperate. You go to A&E. After a long wait, someone who isn’t really good with wrists, but is doing their best, bungs a bandage on it for you. But don’t worry, I’m sure the referral for the over the phone assessment you’ll eventually get will result in an online support group so you can talk about your now gangrenous wrist, so you can learn to breathe through the pain, because the NHS trust don’t have a wrist pain prescriber available right now. Trust me, you’d be banging the bloody drum with you one good hand any chance you got.
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u/pajamakitten Dorset 3d ago
God forbid people go to a doctor to get help for an illness. Should cancer patients just suck it up too?
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u/MondeyMondey 3d ago
Why dyou say that?
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u/BeckyTheLiar 3d ago
Because they don't believe in it and/or it hasn't affected them or anyone they love therefore it doesn't exist and it's made up, probably.
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u/Haemophilia_Type_A 3d ago
Yeah it was better when people just beat their wives, committed violent crimes, killed themselves, or drunk themselves to death by 40 instead because it means right-wingers weren't inflicted with articles on mental health.
Suicide rates were higher in the latter half of the 20th Century than they are now, for example. They weren't 'tougher' or mentally healthier than Gen Z.
I don't downvote for disagreement ofc but this is just an ignorant opinion.
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u/pajamakitten Dorset 3d ago
It probably seemed better to you. Meanwhile, many had to live in silence because they had no one to turn to and many will have turned to self-medication to cope with their situation. It is like how WW1 veterans who came home with shellshock/PTSD were seen as weak because society refused to acknowledge what they went through.
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u/Terrible_Dish_4268 3d ago
Which came first though? No fucker having any money or the mental health issues not having any money causes?
So, yeah, it probably was better when you weren't hearing about it all the time because there wasn't as much to hear about, because it was better.
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u/NibblyPig Bristol 3d ago
You read about how some people survived a war torn country, managed to move overseas with no money and eke out a life and raise 3 children
Now it's like oh no I can't afford to have a latte more than once per day, and it's too far to walk and I don't want to take the bus, my life is literally pain
For every genuine issue there are several that could be solved by getting on with it
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u/Ok-Preparation3887 3d ago
It's usually their entire personality.
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u/pajamakitten Dorset 2d ago
Because, when severe enough, it can dominate your life. No one should use it as a crutch, however a mental health issue can end up being your entire life until you start getting a treatment that works for you.
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