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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Shelter says high private rents lead to young adult homelessness

The campaigning charity Shelter says young adults are more in danger of homelessness than any other age group - and puts part of the blame on the private rental sector.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, says the government should extend the current Coronavirus eviction ban beyond June 29.

“Even at the best of times, young adults are more in danger of becoming homeless than other age groups as they’re more likely to be living in an unaffordable private rental or have an insecure job. And as the pandemic rages on, it’s proving even harder for many young people to keep up with their rent” Neate says in an interview with The Yorkshire Times.

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“Our services have heard from younger renters who are scrambling to stay afloat after their income has taken a huge hit or they’ve lost their job because of Covid-19. While they rack up debts that could put their home at risk, the end of the government’s evictions ban looms ever nearer” she continues.

In April Shelter predicted that one in five tenants - some 1.7m renters - would lose their jobs during the Coronavirus crisis; the charity also claimed that even at that time a quarter of tenants had already seen their income drop or lost their jobs.

It claimed that another quarter of renters said they were living hand to mouth and that losing their job would mean they couldn’t pay their rent.

The Labour party has already called for an extension to the evictions ban.

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    Yet Shelter support S24 which pushes up rents and leads to people losing their homes.

    Shelter is a scam.

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    • 03 June 2020 08:25 AM

    Isn't the reason that Shelter supports S24 is that they wish to see leveraged LL eradicated from the PRS!?

    Presumably they believe that the ex-LL properties will be bought by the evicted tenants! !?? ..................Or other people? ?

    Of course this would be a bonkers understanding so where do Shelter suggest all the evicted tenants will go once LL sell their properties !?

    Has anyone asked Shelter where the millions of homeless tenants will live when LL have sold up!?

    There are more than enough properties already for sale.
    Yet I see no rush of FTB or former tenants to buy up the currently available properties.

    Just adding to that already unsold stock won't suddenly make the properties any more affordable than they already are.
    I guess Shelter might believe that property prices would reduce so much as to make them affordable.
    Well for that to occur in the SE would mean properties reducing by about 50%.
    WILL NEVER HAPPEN! !

    So I'm fascinated as where all these evicted tenants will go when LL sell up lots of their properties.
    I know when I sell up I will be making 16 occupants homeless.
    None of them can afford to buy my properties but then they don't wish to buy.
    Being tenants is what suits them.
    Shelter can't force tenants to become OO if they prefer to be tenants.

    I really don't understand the logic of Shelter wishing to see FEWER rental properties.
    How does that assist all the evicted tenants?
    Seems to me a bit of a disconnect between reality and fantasy.

    I really don't understand Shelter's position on S24.

    The other thing Shelter keep banging on about are unaffordable rents.

    Well logically shouldn't the logical response from tenants be to move to mire affordable locations! ?
    It's what everyone else does when they are looking to buy.
    Or do tenants believe they have the right to reside in expensive areas at less that market rents!?

    That would be very weird if they did.
    Why would any LL invest in what would expensive property and then charge less than market rates just so feckless tenants can reside in expensive areas!?

    To these feckless tenants not understand market dynamics! ?

    I guess they just expect people should use their capital to keep them in a style they would like.

    Can't see many LL wishing to do that!!

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    Paul surely you know that one of Shelter's sponsors is L&G, one of the biggest B2R providers in the country? The company will do very well from rising rents and reduced competition.

    In one of the Shelter annual reports they state that L&G 'collaborate' with them on policy. What more of an admission of guilt can there be???

     
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    • 03 June 2020 09:17 AM

    Ah! I see so these corporates are using the likes of naive Shelter as their extermimator to get rid of LL.
    But I thought Shelter would be against big corporates who tend to have higher rents and are also located off shore in tax havens so pay little tax compared to normal LL.

    Does seem strange that Shelter an avowedly left- wing organisation would side with big corporates.

    Seems like Shelter has misunderstood it's own ideology.

    But I suppose the corporates are manipulating the likes of Shelter to do their dirty work.
    Once achieved these corporates won't have much to do with Shelter etc.

    Personally I'm resigned to the PRS LL being eradicated.
    I'm planning to sell up as soon as possible.
    It is an unequal struggle when you have Govt wishing to eradicate you.
    This strategy has been tried in Ireland and it all went horribly wrong for the Govt there which is why they now have a massive homeless problem.
    All the LL have gone!!!

    I know once I'm sold up I will never let to tenants again.
    I might take on some lodgers in one property but no family lettings etc.
    I just wish the Govt would offer to buy LL properties.
    The abolishment of S21 etc is another one of the reasons that tenants are no longer for me.
    If I cannot control my investment asset then I will sell it.
    I'm sure many LL will be coming to the same conclusions.
    I well remember the dark days of rent controls and sitting tenants.
    It seems we are returning to that situation.
    We will see the demise of the leveraged LL to be replaced in part by cash rich LL who won't use leverage at all.
    Of course those LL will still have problems getting rid of rent defaulting tenants should they occur.
    But I would imagine that such LL will be very thorough in their DD on who they take on as tenants.
    I know in hindsight I wish I had bought just one house very lightly leveraged.

    I would be in a far better position now.
    I can see many LL selling up.
    This CV19 thing has proven how many feckless tenants there are.
    LL really don't want to base their financial security on such individuals.
    There will be other CV19 things and so tenants will stop paying rent at the drop of a hat and there won't be much a LL can do to get rid of them.
    To me that is a busted investment business model! !!



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    Paul I've tried to find you on FB but can't identify you, if indeed you have a presence. Please message me (I use my own name and am the guy with a Harley Davidson in my profile pic). I'll send you an article I wrote about Shelter that was printed in the Elite Investor mag.

     
  • Barry X

    Paul & others - as you know the whole boom in the PRS was due to the introduction of s21 in the Housing Act 1988. Before that socialist 1950s and 60s laws applied, as well as the later Rent Act 1977 that gave the tenants even more anti-landlord "rights".

    All that made virtually all tenants "sitting tenants" who could not be evicted - for two generations, so even when the "sitting tenant(s)" died it still wasn't over and the landlord still couldn't recover the property!

    Furthermore their rent was "capped" by the always out of date and out of touch government, and if you wanted/dared to increase that always low rent you had to go cap in hand to a Tribunal after spending a lot of money and filling in many forms to try and justify it! The Tribunals were, of course, very pro-tenant and anti-landlord.

    What's happening now is a steady step by step return to those dreadful anti-business laws and that state-controlled hard-left regime (I've long said the "Tories" under Cameron transformed themselves in to the "New Labour in Tory Clothing" party, while "real" Labour moved further to the left).

    Until the introduction of the s.21 in the 1988 Act (that came into force the following year)
    (1) tenanted properties became worth only 1/3 of their normal open market value with full vacant possession, i.e. with no tenant.
    (2) It wasn't normally possible to get a mortgage or loan secured against such a property, i.e. against a tenanted one.

    Even to this day there are still quite a few blighted properties with sitting tenants under that dreadful former regime. They can only be sold (if the owner wishes to sell) at auction to specialist investors and, as I said, for around 1/3 of their otherwise normal value.

    No wonder landlords in those days were totally averse to any maintenance (unless required by law as safety critical) or improvements!

    If you/we wait long enough - and do nothing collectively - the way things are going means ALL of our properties will be turned into 1950's - 70's style blighted, almost unsaleable properties with sitting tenants!

    You have been warned!!!!!!!

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    Sometimes a 'like' is not enough

     
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    @ John McKay - well said.

     
    Barry X

    Thank you John and Lyndon - much appreciated :-)

    All we need now is for another 20,000 or more landlords and agents to get it and agree too, and then for us all to mobilise into a force to be reckoned with! ...perhaps in my dreams!!!!

     
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    Barry I had hoped for that when the Landlord Alliance formed. Larry Sweeney would have made the organisation a true landlord force if people had joined. However only around 3% of landlords belong to any organisation so trying to launch a new one was always going to be a challenge. He did have some notable successes before standing down. However the apathy of landlords was something that really shocked him.

    The NLRA appear to have no teeth and I think they'll lose members too.

     
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    • 03 June 2020 15:12 PM

    Yep I don't believe many LL appreciate what is happening as so clearly explained by John.

    We LL are the proverbial frog being boiled in water that is gradually being increased in temperature until we are boiled alive.

    It is very insidious but of course many LL now have no appreciation of how things once were.

    What is that about those who ignore history are destined to repeat the same mistakes!

    I don't believe LL understand the full import of what is going on.

    I do which is why I am desperate to leave the AST lettings market.

    Easy to say NOT so easy to achieve!!

    Very gradually Govt is throttling the life out of the PRS and yet few LL see this.
    I don't know why many LL seem to operate in little bubbles of blissful ignorance.

    One has only to see the impact of such bonkers Govt policies by looking at the Irish experience.
    There the dopey Irish Govt is having to repeal it's anti-LL regulations.
    Trouble is the damage has been done.
    The LL have gone and they are not for returning.

    This is causing massive homelessness issues.
    You would have thought that the Irish experience would have knowledge enough for the UK Govt not to make the same stupid mistakes.
    But no they are making the mistakes and planning to make more!


    Once LL leave the UK PRS they won't be returning.
    Many will just bring forward their retirement.
    There certainly won't be sufficient replacement LL to maintain the required rental stock.
    So very bad news for tenants.

    I predict that many tenants will be forced to return to parental homes.
    They'll have no job and no possibility of sourcing ever scarce rental.property.

    LL need to wakeup and build sufficient financial resilience to all that is coming down the track.
    If they don't they will be squashed!

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    Regarding frogs, Paul, today the first of my froglets left the pond to seek their new life in the outside world!

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