A thread I found Interesting.
Incredible story, but something us Corbyn sympathisers have long suspected.
Disgraceful intervention. Zahawi should be booted from Parliament.
[Stephen Shakespeare, the main founder of YouGov, went to a great school.]
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Possibly. If Sharma was running it probably wouldnāt be, heās popular among the constituents (I used to live there) but a new Conservative candidate wonāt have that goodwill so seat definitely vulnerable.
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Twitter is fun sometimesā¦followed @redfanmanās post above and ended up hereā¦
Its Desmond Swayne.
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Apparently this was eviscerated by an interview this morning on Wake Up To Money. I havenāt actually listened so canāt comment, but this smells of plain desperation.
Iāve always considered that the original right to buy scheme in the eighties, was Thatcherās most invidious, and politically motivated policies
Itās proudly not a good thing.
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I always felt that the way it was done was very much what the Americans would call āPork Barrel Politicsā. Of itself, right-to-buy is not all together a bad idea so long as the money raised is ring-fenced into social housing provision but that isnāt what happened.
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It wasnāt just that though - although that was a big problem.
It was a cynical plot to divide working class communities. RTB was introduced just after the Miners Strike had nearly brought down Thatcher. She understood that mining communities had survived the strike and were able to prolong it for a year through the solidarity and cooperation of working class communities, especially on council estates. She wanted to break that.
The end result was predictable. People who bought their houses, once on the ladder, sold and moved as soon as possible and the houses ended up in the hands of private landlords who rented them back to housing associations. I remember seeing a stat that something like 60-70% of ex-council houses ended up being rented back to Local Authorities, and it ended up costing the taxpayer much more to house vulnerable people, than if the councils had owed those houses outright.
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The ārightā to accumulate property, specifically housing, really does not sit well with meā¦the landlord class has in many ways destroyed Australia, and I donāt see things here being any better here. Not the place for this discussion, donāt wanna start a bun fight with anyone, just an early morning brain fart on my behalf.
TGIF
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Thats what happens when peope bought their house for 100K, do very little and 10 years later its worth 1M. The wealth allowed many to buy second homes, using the equity. Its the biggest issue in NZ at the moment.
A huge property bubble where prices here have doubled in just 5 years. In UK pounds the average house costs 0.5M.
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I think it depends on what is actually offered. Property requires ongoing maintenance and repair and this is the service that tenants are paying for as well as allowing for a return on the residual capital. There is nothing wrong with that as a model as people will always have circumstances where renting is preferable to buying.
However, the whole buy-to-let mortgage thing has distorted the market. There is little initial investment required from the landlord as the tenant will be paying off the capital and there is little incentive to actually maintain or improve the property providing that there is still a pool of potential renters. Since the renters are on lower incomes they are unlikely to be able to get a deposit which would allow them to but a property directly and are stuck - effectively working to buy a house for someone else.
The thing with this is that this is not an unforeseen quirk of modern economics. Adam Smith wrote an entire chapter about it in The Wealth Of Nations and even back then he was quite disparaging in tone about it.
I wouldnāt suggest stopping the private renting sector at all but it certainly needs regulation. Minimum standards of tenancy and habitability are a must. Iād also suggest rent regulation where there is market distortion.
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Great discussion about the Johnson premiership on now
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I own a second property which only occurred through circumstance, some good fortune, hard work and a fair chunk of time and money but I agree completely with your thoughts here. It needs more regulation on both sides of the fence, tennant and landlord. That is happening in Wales but the focus is clearly more on the landlord side. I can understand why and those reasons are set out in your post.
Weāre fortunate to have good Tennantās and decided to steer clear of the holiday let market. I also try to maintain the house but Covid hit that side hard.
For the record I will not get rich off of this but I can see how people can exploit it. The whole housing market, holiday let and second home issue in Wales is a massive it potato. Itās problematic and thereās no easy solution as weāre a long way down the rabbit hole.
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You need some basic obligations on both sides. Tenants should be expected to to pay their rent on time and to observe reasonable behaviour in terms of the use of the property - essentially not causing nuisance to neighbours and performing reasonable maintenance (cleaning, putting rubbish out etc.) Landlords need to be obligated towards secure tenancy and so on.
Iāve been in a similar situation where I have had to rent out a property. Iāve also had to rent myself at times, most recently in Germany. It is much better regulated here and I can see why it is preferred by many.
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