The two most aggressively pro-tenant activist bodies have accused landlords without mortgages of “cashing in.”
According to a poll of more than 1,000 landlords commissioned by Shelter and publicised in The Guardian - but apparently not sent to the rest of the mainstream media - seven out of 10 landlords who own rental units outright claimed to have increased rents on new or extended tenancies in the past 12 months.
Ben Twomey, the chief executive of the campaign group Generation Rent, tells the newspaper that debt-free landlords are “cashing in simply because they can”.
He warns that without government intervention - he does not explain what kind - “the cost of renting crisis will continue to uproot families and fuel homelessness”.
The Guardian does not name any agency or landlord but says: “When Shelter’s pollsters asked landlords why they were increasing rents despite not having increased mortgage costs, many said they had been advised to do so by letting agents and others who said ‘it’s the way the market is going’.”
The chief executive of Shelter, Polly Neate, told the paper that rent increases by debt-free landlords showed they and letting agents were “cashing in on the housing emergency because they know people are in desperate situations”.
She said: “Every day we hear from private renters who are facing the very real possibility of losing the roof from over their heads after their landlord hiked their rent. Others are being pitted against each other and being forced to pay eye-watering sums to find a new home after being served an eviction notice.”
Here's The Guardian story in full.
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To Polly Bleat and Ben Twomey, WE ARE RUNNING BUSINESSES, NOT CHARITIES. Rents are set at the market rate and whether I am mortgage free (one property) or mortgaged (the other) is frankly, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Your vitriolic hatred of landlords is one reason why rents are rising. Landlords are selling. They have had enough of your attacks and, combined with the RRB they are sticking two fingers up to you and selling.
I congratulate you both on making matters worse for renters.
Spot on!
Couldnt agree more! do we check the level of borrowing a supermarket has when setting its prices? No! so why is our mortgage situation your concern?
Most renter's aren't renting for fun, people need somewhere to live and they rent because they can't afford to buy. There are prospective buyers who have tens of thousands in savings who can't afford to buy, not least because the truss budget sent interest rates soaring but also because the repayments on the mortgage on a single income, and sometimes jointly simply isn't sufficient. Housing should never have been allowed to fall to private landlords precisely for the reasons you're stating. What happens when the market sh*ts itself and being a landlord is no longer profitable? Renting becomes a bidding war because the supply dries up. Renter's aren't the most financially resilient and private landlords are hoarding housing stock to fill their boots simply because they can. As much as being a landlord is a business finding a home isn't, housing insecurity is a social issue. This isn't landlords issue, you're just capitalising on the opportunities you had available to make your money. People think that the actions and behaviours of poor people contributes to social decline but it is actually systems that prop up asset holders and allows them to exploit the poor which cause social decline. The answer to mitigate rising rents would be to tie rent to debts as clearly it's unfair on good tenants to raise the rent on property owned outright based on "market rates" which is itself an arbitrary measure. This is for the politicians to do, complaining to landlords is probably as effective as praying to the moon, but many landlords are also landlords so I doubt they'd vote like turkeys for Christmas
A mortgage is only one cost. Everything else has risen - insurance, repairs, gas safety checks, EICRs, utilities in HMOs. There are constant demands for eco upgrades which aren't even tax deductible. Landlords are businesses and have invested their capital in order to generate an income.
Also my personal cost on living has risen like everybody else.
I just sold off investments to pay down my morgages with the resulting loss of investment income. Surely there is nothing wrong in trying to balance this loss of investment income by increasing my rents to make up the loss.
Paid for idiots in the pockets of others.
It's funny how they confuse us with Social Landlords!
Those are made up answers which is why it wasn't sent to any other media outlets.
The tenant is effectively borrowing the value of the house from the owner. So if the house is worth, say, £100K, then that is what they are borrowing. It's irrelevant where the finance originated from, whether direct from the landlord's own equity or from the bank, or a mixture of the two, as the price to the consumer is determined by the market value. Treating the landlord's equity stake in the property as "free" money for the use of the tenant is morally wrong and only applies to the social sector, which is, I presume (correct me if I am wrong), effectively subsidised by only charging for the running costs, if that.
The reality is that most private rentals, even mortgaged BTL, are well below what should be charged. For example, I have a £100K house I charge £650 pcm for, which the tenant barely manages to pay. But with current interest rates at about 6%, plus tenant tax adding 33% (realistically on up to 75% loan) plus maintenance, insurance, etc and management fees of, say £200 pcm, the total cost should be £9900 per year, or £825pcm. Likewise, a £200K house should be about £1500pcm. For an owner occupier, the monthly cost would be a lot higher as they are also paying down capital.
The only realistic solutions are to bring down the cost of borrowing instead of inflating it with section 24, a significant lowering of interest rates generally, sensible levels of HB, plus lowering taxes back to what they used to be to encourage investment. And building more houses/giving incentives to bring empty houses back into use.
Market rates, the more government, councils and Polly stick the knife in my back the higher my rents increase, just like insurance the greater the risk the higher the price, that's the way it is Polly suck it up
Cashing 💰💰 in they say… More like cashing out 🏝🏝👍🏻👍🏻
I wonder if this pair of pillocks realise that most on here had to find deposits, obtain finance, carry out renovations and generally take a lot of risks. Some failed and some have done ok. The difference with Polly and Ben they have took no risks at all so keep out of it.
Let me explain. Bosses at Shelter get increased salaries and bonuses funded by the Government and kind charity giving patrons. Wealthy landlords get richer, small landlords get pushed out of business. It all contributes to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
Shelter, Generation rent and the public got what they asked for. Increased taxes, regulation and costs for Landlords. What did they expect to happen. Smaller landlords are increasingly been pushed out of business, which equals reduced supply. Bigger landlords are selling some properties to pay off debts on other properties. This also reduces supply. Reduce supply and the product becomes scarcer and more costly.
You got what you wanted, an increase in supply for first time buyers. Unfortunately the poorest in society who will never be buyers are suffering as a result. I always found it very strange that charities were pushing the government to make the lives of the poorest in our society worse, which is the opposite of what charities should be doing.
Hmmmm strange concept. Give to charity to deliberately push the poorest in society on the street.
Very good comment.
Good luck to them. Polly is cashing on on £150k per year.
If you think your rent is too high, move to a cheaper property. If you can't find a cheaper property then you rent isn't too high.
That's what I am going to tell my tenants when I put the rents up next year.
Thanks John.
Regardless of whether your property is encumbered with finance costs or not (which is none of anyone's business) If you don't keep your rents up with the market rate then guess what happens?? your cheap rent attracts Tenant's on the lower income levels, and guess what happens then?? you are statistically opening yourself up to a much higher chance of rent arrears, antisocial behaviour, Etc. This is all documented with statistics that keep appearing in articles I've read over the years. Whilst most people on benefits are decent tenants, most problem tenants happen to be on benefits. read that again.
Right on that one, the tenants I've helped out with low rents have often turned out to be the problem ones, charge all the way now
Only once have I successfully let to a tenant on benefits and she was working to support her daughter and getting, what was then known as, Top up benefit. She left the property in a better condition than she found it. She did not regard her benefit as a right, unlike the rest.
Fortunately for her, unfortunately for the landlord, she had a promotion at work which meant she had to live-in.
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