Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I've been saying that all along, some real colours coming out in this thread.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I live in a council house in the area that i grew up in, i could not possibly afford to live anywhere around here on the private market as the rents are double what i pay now before bills.

As for buying this is out of the option as getting the deposit together with kids is impossible!

With the tories once again only helping the rich the hard working people like myself are screwed over, as if i get effected by this its my kids that would suffer the most.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Makes you wonder why so many clearly not rich people voted for them then...

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

They voted for them because they were seen as the best of a bad bunch.....

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Why would they be the best of a bad bunch to anyone who believes they only look after the rich?

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

l never said they looked after the rich only but they were seen as the safest and best option by many due to a variety of different reasons and factors.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I know you didn't. The poster I initially replied to did and I then asked the question which you answered.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Ah, your talking about arabs and oligarchs there. Different kettle of fish but surely that accounts for a tiny percentage of investment properties in this country? :confused:
btw, I'm obviously not in that league but my properties have passed the 1.5 million mark by a fair way, and I'm doing my best to make them all earn their keep :)

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

What, you mean you don't derive huge satisfaction from keeping them empty and playing your role in ensuring that even more of the deserving poor have nowhere to live? :eeek: :confused:


;)

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

you must forgive me for not responding quickly but i have been out working earning the money to pay my mortgage and taxes etc [un subsidised by nanny;) ] - i do not begrudge poor families having social housing i begrudge the well off having it at the expense of the poor - you ask what kind of idiot gives up cheap subsidised social housing ........ well that's the very attitude that is the root cause of the problem people who don't need state handouts grabbing every thing they can get because they think its their god given right to live off the backs of others instead of doing the unthinkable and fending for themselves .

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I believe that some voted for them to punish the poor some more.
they thought Dave was going to leave them alone and make them rich because he kept saying how much he loves the hard working people.
I also believe some people voted them back in because they're stupid.

Dave maybe nuts but he's clever enough to fool them stupid people :)

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

my colors are if you wan't something out of life work hard and save for it don't stand there with your hand out waiting for the state to do it for you

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Bitter, much? :D

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Are you due an holiday soon? :D

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

As made famous by JFK: 'Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country'.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Sitting by the pool in North Cyprus, sipping a G&T at the moment.....

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Selfie. or it's just another Google image search.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Its not a tiny percentage, in london it up to 75% of new builds being snapped up by foreign investors and it's spreading to other cities

http://m.ft.com/cms/s/0/605cdea2-fb6...44feabdc0.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ty-market.html

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Enjoy.....:D

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

You look lonely. did everyone hear you were coming? :D

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

You appear to be confusing me with you.... ;)

I'm here with my wife and my son & his girlfriend - and we are all very relaxed and enjoying the lovely weather (high 30s), cheap food & drink, and friendly locals.

Life is good....:)

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Its the drink that looks lonely, allow me to assist :beer:

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I can't see where those articles mention that foreign buyers are leaving the houses they buy unoccupied....which is what I thought we were arguing about :confused:

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

i smell a tantrum fast approaching:)a level 12 dummy out the pram event.
i wonder if he will stoop so low as to involve my kids
and maybe even the NHS

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Presumably then you never use the NHS and your kids all went to private schools because you would never allow the state to give you anything :rolleyes:

---------- Post added at 20:48 ---------- Previous post was at 20:38 ----------

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Fear...ail/story.html

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...t-london-homes

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londo...y-8702570.html

In fact it is such a growing problem in London that Islington council plan to fine buy to leave investors

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Irrelevant

Don't try and justify your <removed> position with pointless comparisons.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Where the <mod edit removed>,you know nothing about me or my financial position <also removed>

---------- Post added at 21:59 ---------- Previous post was at 21:46 ----------

How do you know that ? what gives you right to make unfounded assumptions about me or anyone else to justify your own prejudices

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Twisting things again to suit your prejudice ,how do you know I am "well off" , how long have I been "well off" ,since you seem to know so much about my personal finances how big a mortgage can I afford ?
<removed>

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

We weren't arguing my friend, you might find marty's links helpful though

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

ooh, name calling! <mod edit removed>

By your own admission you work full time, earn good money, good enough to afford a mortgage though at your age you have no desire to undertake... Which is totally fair enough.

The whole point of this thread is the proposal that those in your position will no longer be allowed to benefit than a lower than market rent for the size and location of property you live in that may be charged by the local authority against a private property.

You've skirted around the issue pretty well insisting you pay " full rent" as demanded by the LA but been a bit more sketchy around whether that constitutes the market rate for the size and location of you council property.

I'm not an expert in the field but I'm pretty sure that council properties are cheaper than private rental of the same standard, otherwise what would be the point?

Therefore if you can afford to pay the private rate you should pay it. By all means stay where you are, but pay the full rate so that the extra can help some poor sod who can't.

If you complain about that, then you are morally - exposed.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

That may be but having read those articles, apart from some small super rich areas, it's all 'could' and 'feared'. Looks like they are trying to sell papers by hyping up a possible eventuality.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I think what we have to remember is that if we've all been supportive of cuts to the unemployed and such. then we can't be a hypocrite and expect ourselves to be excempt from cuts by way of paying a bit more rent :)

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Give that man a ceee-gar!

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I gave up smoking. can I have some e-liquid instead?

Mango flavour.

a Vision Spinner battery would be nice too.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Since when is 75% a tiny fraction and since when is stratford a small super rich area

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londo...w-8826336.html

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

That article doesn't suggest that the foreign investors are going to 'buy to leave' :confused:

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

It does if you saw the sales video the developer was criticised for. Hopefully they won't be but I wouldn't put my house on it after seeing so many blocks in the city at night without a light on anywhere.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Could that be due to power saving measures?

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

I mean the residents could be doing that but it isn't mandated or local authority policy.

He is right though most new build flats are marketed as investments in London. Adverts on radio for them boast of the profit that could be made and paper advertisements are accompanied by yield rates. We can also expect it to get worse with the turmoil in the Asian stock markets too.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Yes but the point he & I are discussing atm is the real or imagined growth of 'buy to leave'.
There is nothing wrong (as far as I can see) in foreign investors investing in property here.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Well it does impact upon the city. Those are by far the most profitable builds so cheaper apartments aren't built and unused residential homes mean less accommodation for a city that needs people to work in it.

Governments should ensure that properties are homes first and investments second. If there is a finite amount of space for a city of 8 million then allowing empty homes as investments, or even luxury rental apartments, is pretty bad planning.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

The trouble with governments 'ensuring' things is that they are usually spectacularly bad at doing that. The law of unintended kicks in and it all ends in tears and recriminations.
Second point: I, and the article referenced didn't mention 'unused residential homes' & 'empty homes as investments' so why did you? :confused:
Third point: What's wrong with luxury rental appartments?

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

They're great for developers, great for those who have a bunch of equity they did nothing to earn in existing buy-to-let who can then use it as deposit and great for the cash-rich who can buy them outright

For actually housing people in the city in question, not so much, as most of population can't afford to live in them.

Look at the Battersea Power Station development. Studios being bought off-plan for £1 million, and back up for sale, again off-plan, for £1.5 million. Do you seriously think there are enough people in London who can both afford the rent a place like that would attract and actually want to pay it?

A family certainly wouldn't - £1.5 million will pay for a 4-5 bedroom house in a gated mews in Twickenham.

There are only so many single people with that kind of money.

In the case of 'cheaper' areas another problem arises - why would people with the kind of money to be able to rent a 'luxury apartment' want to live there when they can get far more property for their money in more established areas with similarly good transport links?

London may have more billionaires per head of population than anywhere else in the world, bar Monaco, however it massively skews income statistics. The amount of housing supply that is luxury apartments is way out of kilter with the actual requirements for housing in the city, leaving many of these properties as commodities, not places to live.

As far as evidence goes have a look at the changes in price of Prime London property.

Lastly another major problem - we import too much and export too little. The brief export boost that comes from selling off as much of our capital as is possible to, frequently dodgy, foreign money comes at the expense of an ongoing drain to our current account as rent goes abroad, and at the expense of an ongoing drain to our economy as a whole as high rents soak up money that could be buying goods and services and send that money abroad.

Housing as a whole is an overpriced mess, with the only thing keeping many mortgaged people afloat being 'emergency' low interest rates and tenants in huge swathes of the country paying rents regarding by the normal metrics as 'unaffordable' to service their landlords' mortgages, with investor demand in some areas ensuring their landlords have enough equity to go purchase their next investment while they themselves cannot save their deposit.

EDIT: That ignoring the government putting taxpayers' money behind keeping property prices up to avoid losing votes. Housing must remain a one-way bet, always.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

:tu:

---------- Post added at 08:47 ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 ----------

:tu:

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

There is no imagined growth, the electoral roll for new builds is about as good as it gets but is indicative of this growth.

Strangely many of those investors come from Singapore, and they most certainly do have a problem with foreign investors investing in property there.

http://www.sla.gov.sg/Services/Restr...dProperty.aspx

Alongside hefty stamp duty for foreign investors and for Singaporean natives investing in second properties - 15% additional stamp duty for foreign investors, 7% additional for local investors.

Amusingly, the overwhelming majority of Singapore's housing is publicly built. People buy their government built property and then with the money they saved on that can come buy up London :)

I can't help but feel the strong vested interests that come with a £1.5 million property portfolio somewhat colour your views on this. I have no idea how much of that value is capital appreciation or, if you prefer, money for nothing, but if you're in the south-east it's unlikely to be trivial.

Getting serious about housing both inside and outside London, and cooling the investor market would likely impact both your rental income and capital gains. A pretty good reason to see nothing wrong with foreign or any other investment in properties that might keep their value excessive.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Anyone who thinks house prices only go one way didn't own one in the early 1990's or even as recently as the late noughties. ;) What's worrying for me is that irresponsible borrowing and property price/rental inflation is still being effectively encouraged because, right now, property is seen as the only way to get any sort of return without significant risk. The BOE is in between a rock and a hard place because if they increase interest rates by any significant amount there'll be countless big losers who can't pay their mortgages and if they do nothing the bubble will inflate further. It's all a bit like what's happening with Greece - policymakers transfixed by the headlights of economic reality. The more I look at what's going on here and around the world, the more I feel we're on the verge of a perfect storm.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

As Osem said, I've been through two property bubbles so I'm looking at this with the long view. The only people who come unstuck if a bubble bursts are those who need to sell and are in negative equity.
I honestly don't care about foreign investment because it drives up some prices (good for me) and if there is a bubble and it bursts I sit it out. I don't need to sell. btw, most of the appreciation in my case has come from taking something that isn't liveable (so you can't get a normal mortgage on it), doing it up and then renting it out or using it myself. The property I just took on doesn't have a floor downstairs and hasn't been lived in for ten years. I'm doing the local community & council a favour. So whilst there is a vested interest on my part, it's not as strong as you think.......the only time I will have an interest is when I finally do want to sell.
The argument about buyers from Singapore seems to hinge on how they treat foreign investors over there.
Not sure what point is being made in the post about central London properties being out of the reach of normal buyers. Those properties attract a lot of stamp duty, the building industry gets paid a lot to build them, developers make a mint and pay tax on that and then can reinvest their profits in building other developments......money goes round and at each stage tax gets paid to the government....which is what you surely want :shrug:

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

No, I want the government to stop meddling in the housing market with their ridiculous schemes, liberalise it, and tax it properly.

What you've described exactly proves my point - the money goes in a circle, it's not being distributed to the wider economy. The taxation is crumbs off the table, units aren't sold in especially large quantities, especially second-hand, and the lack of ongoing property taxes besides council tax make it a cheap, safe asset to hold.

I want a low tax economy where possible, where people aren't spending huge swathes of the income on rents and mortgages in order that the government receives some stamp duty.

If it were as simple as you suggest Singapore and Hong Kong must've been committing economic suicide when they tried to dampen foreign demand for their property.

These must also all be completely wrong, and should be welcoming higher housing costs helped by foreign demand. They all advocate increased supply, however given their complaints focus around an average house price of £500k in London it seems fair to presume that million-pound flats aren't what they have in mind in terms of supply.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9dac9292-c...#axzz3fyAOOv5a
http://www.turnerandtownsend.com/moving-out/_23206.html
http://www.londonchamber.co.uk/lcc_p...e.asp?aid=4842
http://www.cityam.com/1411671893/why...n-s-businesses

Seems reasonable to think that a combination of demand-side and supply-side reforms would be the best option. The obvious demand-side solution is further taxation / restriction on foreign ownership given supply seems to remain a major problem.

Developers don't want to develop too quickly, they are focused on maximum price per unit. UK housing has never responded well to increased demand, and there's zero reason to think this will change. The only time we've actually built enough is when the government step in to build. The Town and Country Planning Act ensures that supply is going to be difficult for the foreseeable.

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

:tu:

But it is being distributed to the wider economy- architects, surveyors, builders, scaffolders, glazing manufacturers, lift engineers, roofers....the list goes on.

Stop some of the unfettered immigration and build more houses :D

Perhaps they did. Govt meddling often does

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

After reading through this thread, I find it ironic that some of those lucky enough to be in a comfortable lifestyle are now squeeling.

It was perfectly alright to cut services and benefits to some of the most vulnerable members of society, yet now that "hard working families" etc that the Tories purported to support are now being hit, it's suddenly not fair.

Off the top of my head:

- Tax Credits cut.

- All mortgage help to be in the form if a loan.

- Increased rent for some better off social housing tenants.

Regarding the last point, ask yourself if you would rather be on a decent income and pay a little more for your accommodation, or be on £57.90 a week (like many people are) for day to day living expenses- yet now have to use some of this money to have to pay up to 25% of the rent (previously covered in full) and approx 29% of the Council Tax (previously covered in full)?

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Yeh. as has been pointed out. they thought it was all going to be somebody elses problem. and agreed in the way that we have no money and cuts have to be made. and now because they're being 'asked' to help out they think it's unfair.

then they were told that they were hypocrites. and a little bit naive ;)

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

they'll find another way to milk the system they always do .

Re: Crackdown on 'rich' council house tenants
 

Then we should cut some more! :D