Would you rather rent or buy a house?

Do you not think these landlords are scum?

I'd like to think if I was a landlord and I had a renter like that I would at least drop my rent to breaking even prices...

Do you not think these landlords are scum?

I'd like to think if I was a landlord and I had a renter like that I would at least drop my rent to breaking even prices...

I agree there's a lot of greed now amongst landlords. Renting out a property in the UK is relatively unregulated which is why especially in London it has become seen as free money. If you own a property in London, it doesn't really matter if it's in poor condition, you can get a tenant in it and on recent years' evidence you can increase the rent about 10% per year. Often this means the tenant can't afford it so will move out and want to rent somewhere else, but there is always someone else coming in. The constant supply of people searching for a place to stay means they just see it as an asset with a high yield and basically they are just drawing away their tenant's salary that they are working hard for.

I am like you, if I was renting something out it would be a matter of personal principle that I provided the person with a comfortable place to live at an affordable price but increased selfishness is a byproduct of housing scarcity. I had this conversation a while ago with a guy I know who rents out property in London, and his argument was, look, I've got 2 daughters and I want them to have a decent chance in life for a place to live. Realistically both of them might need a deposit of £60k to £80k to have a chance of getting somewhere, he can't afford to save that from his income so renting out his property is basically his way of doing that. He's trying to increase rents as much every year because he's got this target of £150k or so to bring in in the next 6 or so years. When I pointed out that that's someone else's sons/daughters who are paying for it while he makes them live in basic conditions his view was basically sorry but that's their parents problems.

I have no idea how people can be comfortable with doing that especially in a country with no rent controls.

Why aren't people angry about it then? Where's the mass social unrest? Affordable long term shelter is important yet I don't sense any kind of urgency or panic among Generation Rent. Instead they just shrug their shoulders and pay up. There's all these new build luxury flats going up everywhere in London and none of them are aimed at average people. Yet people don't seem very bothered it.
The reaction to this "crisis" is typically British - be polite. bend over and just accept it.

There are pros and cons to both, and if you're a fresh graduate or apprentice who will be moving between sites/locations early on in your career, or want the option to work in different cities, it makes more sense to rent, but in the current environment with rapidly rising house prices and rents you could argue that it generally makes more sense to buy, if you can afford it.

But that mightn't always be the case. I think (hope!) that people are slowly beginning to see that successive governments have repeatedly shown themselves inept when it comes to managing the provision of the supply of new homes, and pressure may come from two groups of people in the future to open it to the market.

The first is Middle England, who will be fed up with having their children staying at home well into their twenties and maybe into their thirties too, as they are increasingly being priced out of their own property, or have to receive help from the bank of mum and dad.

The second are professionals who are growing increasingly discontented with flat-sharing and house-sharing into their thirties and beyond. These are people with skills, qualifications and jobs, who yesteryear would have been on the path to owning a fairly decent sized property but now are increasingly facing the prospect of their living standards more closely resembling their student lives than what their professional parents would have experienced at their age.

Lower earners will probably continue to have their housing rents subsidised, to increasing amounts, which may also trigger taxpayers alliance types, too, as increasingly large amounts of government spending goes into the pockets of landlords.

You'll notice I have conflated house prices with rent prices, but these are both rising due to the same cause: an artificial scarcity of homes.

Would you rather rent or buy a house?
And why?

I'm planning on buying a double decker bus and converting it to live in.

I agree there's a lot of greed now amongst landlords.

But at the same time, it is a high risk game for landlords. I know a few people who rent out property and all have horror stories of tenants who either don't pay the rent or trash the property. If the property has a mortgage and the tenant doesn't pay, the mortgage must be paid by the landlord which can add up to thousands. There is then the situation where a tenant leaves and the property is empty for a month or so resulting in another loss.

Personally, I don't think renting is worth the effort as an investment especially if it is mortgaged. You only need a month or so of empty property to wipe out any profit. There are certainly easier ways to make money IMO.