(Part 2)
As the saying goes “An
Englishman’s home is his castle” and as Maggie Thatcher lauded ‘everyone should
own their own home’. In 1971, around 50%
of people owned their own home and, as the baby-boomers got better jobs and pay
that proportion of homeowners rose to 69% by 2001. Homeownership was here to stay as many baby
boomers assumed it’s very much a cultural thing here in Britain to own your
home.
But on the back of TV
programmes like ‘Homes Under The Hammer’, these same baby boomers started to
jump on the band wagon of buy-to-let properties as an investment. First time buyers were in competition with
landlords to buy these smaller starter homes … pushing house prices up in the
2000’s (as mentioned in last week's blog) beyond the reach of first time buyers. Alas, it is not as simple as that. Many factors come into play such as economics,
the banks and government policy. But are
landlords fanning the flames of the housing crisis bonfire?
I believe that the
landlords of the 659 Oakham rental properties are not exploitive and are in
fact, making many positive contributions to Oakham and its residents. Like I have said before, Oakham (and the rest
of the UK) isn’t building enough properties to keep up the demand; with high
birth rate, job mobility, growing population and longer life expectancy.
According to the Barker
Review, for the UK to standstill and meet current demand, the country needs to
be building 8.7 new households each and every year for every 1,000 households
already built. Nationally, we are
currently running at 5.07 per 1000 and in the early part of this decade were
running at 4.1 to 4.3 per 1000.
It doesn’t sound a lot of
difference, so let us look at what this means for Oakham …
For Oakham to meet its
obligation on the building of new homes, Oakham would need to build 41
households each year. Yet, we are missing that figure by around 17 households a
year.
For the government to buy
the land and build those additional 17 households, it would need to spend £5,920,612
a year in Oakham alone. Add up all the
additional households required over the whole of the UK and the government
would need to spend £23.31bn each year. Our country simply hasn’t got that sort of
money.
The bottom line is that as
the population grows, there aren’t enough properties being built for everyone
to have a roof over their head. Rogue
landlords need to be put out of business, whilst tenants should expect a more
regulated rental market, with greater security where they can rely on good
landlords providing them high standards, with safe and modernised homes. As in Europe, where most people rent rather than
buy, it doesn’t matter who owns the house – all people want is a clean, decent
roof over their head at a reasonable rent.
So only you the reader can
decide if buy-to-let is immoral, but first let me ask this question, if the
private buy-to-let landlords had not taken up the slack and provided a roof
over these people’s heads over the last decade, where would these tenants be
living now? The alternative doesn’t even
bear thinking about.
Understanding People & Property
We can help you to buy, sell, rent and manage your homes and
property investments.
Oakham 01572 725 825
Stamford 01780 484 554
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