BoJo’s proposed Stamp Duty reforms

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SDLT receipts are down since the 2nd home charge. If they where to be reduced then more purchases would happen with landlords buying in LTD company and I reckon receipts will increase

Reply to the comment left by Will stillman at 15/08/2018 - 23:01
Will, just the opposite has always proved to be the case. Lower rates and income rises. Surely the sensible idea is to increase people's desire to move.

I know property is expensive vs wages to afford buying in London or surrounding home counties, but if a first time buyer really wants to get on the property ladder, they can but like many of us back in our day who had to sacrifice a social life and buy a box in a less salubrious area with a longer commute to work & stop spending generally, it's doable albeit a tough long haul. My own kids had to move further out to afford their first box of a home and spend 4 hours a day commuting to/from work, and later restrict themselves to only having 2 kids as they couldn't afford more (we could have helped financially but we felt there's no lesson in that). Now they're thriving 40 year olds who are proud of what they've achieved through sheer hard graft.
When I first started working full time for M&S head office (2 weeks before turning age 16) I earned £15 pw & had to pay my parents £2 pw housekeeping (not because they needed it but because they thought it a good discipline for me to understand the real world) plus they encouraged me to take out a £2 pw Prudential savings plan on top of which I saved a further £2 pw in a building society savings account to build up credibility for when I wanted a mortgage. After my fares to work (2 busses & 2 trains each way leaving home at 6 am and back by 7 pm & I took packed lunch), I was exhausted with next to nothing left over for a social life, yet my parents said if I wanted more for going out, I'd have to work extremely hard to earn more through progress at work from being in charge of my own post trolley in M&S's Head Office post room (one up from being a tea girl!) and work my way up the corporate ladder. So I did. I worked my socks off & progressed as fast as any large corporate allowed one. By age 19 I was running a small team in food distribution & by forfeiting ownership of a car and rotating what little I had in my my wardrobe & only going out socially once per week if that, and no holidays for 3 years, I had saved enough money to put down a 10% deposit on a minute studio flat I did not want to live in but it was all I could afford as my first stepping stone to what I dreamed of owning (3 bed flat in Hampstead). I even did my own conveyancing as I could not afford a solicitor & every weekend I would learn from a family solicitor friend of what to do next. Then aged 24 I left the security of M&S and went in to self employed sales with no basic wage as I knew the only way to really give myself a chance of earning more was not to to rely on dead men's shoes in a large corporation & I needed to take risk & back myself. Before leaving my M&S job, I borrowed enough from Midland bank (aka HSBC having told them it was for a car) to be able to survive whilst I struggled like crazy for the first 3 years working all hours with many sleepless nights until in the end I was earning enough to repay the loan & afford new savings plans (which I still have to this day) & traded up on property 3 times until when aged 27 I was able to buy my dream 3 bedroom flat in Hampstead (my goal from when aged 15) albeit a tip & needed money spending on it. My social life was still pretty scant but worth it. In 1985 I met a guy & by 1988 we bought a home together & soon after bought our first commercial retail unit, but by 1990 the lowest fixed mortgage rate we could get on our home mortgage was 11.75% & the commercial loan had jumped to nearly 20% pa (back to no social life). We both continued to save like crazy & after 3 years paid off the commercial loan whilst still funding our pensions to the max & built up other savings so that by 1999/2000 we were able to put down 30% deposits on 6 buy to lets with repayment mortgages over 10 years. By 2004 we'd bought another one & another 7 between 2005 & 2007 with our latest acquisition in 2013. Length of our tenancies averages 8 years (one is nearly 15 years with us) & we meet all regulatory & repair obligations at all times. We are good landlords.
Now that we're ready to enjoy the spoils of all our hard work, we find as Landlords we have become the punch bag of the Press & the likes of Shelter & become low hanging fruit for local & central government & am fed up of being told we were lucky to have grown up in the era we did & that we should feel sorry for how tough youngsters have it today in trying to get on the property ladder, yet I often hear how many youngsters live at home paying little to no housekeeping, never had a Saturday job or not for long anyway, think nothing of buying a cafe latte at £3.50 or a new dress at £25 (albeit cheap - it's still a new dress) and if went to University (many were called a Polytechnic or College in my day!) they get miffed when they exit Uni & have no savings & say they can't afford to rent or buy & think it unfair that as a graduate they can't get a well paid job or afford a deposit.
I also get angry when I read about the massive housing shortfall as e.g. I feel those who enter the UK & need housing benefit or temporary accommodation should have to accept accommodation outside London/South East. I also think they should have to do something for their benefit e.g. volunteer work, and if in receipt of benefits in excess of what's needed for housing, e.g. food/bills, this part of the benefit should be paid out in energy & food coupons. This would soon discourage long term benefit dependency for those able to manage their own finances & seek work, and for claimants less able, they shouldn't mind as they're still in receipt of what they need to live on. It's a sad state that nobody is allowed to be poor anymore. I see my tenants drive nice cars (one temporary accommodation tenant got out of a brand new Range Rover the other day & another has gone abroad for a 5 week holiday to attend a wedding - funded by family abroad I'm told but whilst away they're not looking for work are they?). Another has 2 kids who are always in the latest trainers & have iPhones. Benefits nowadays seem to provide a lifestyle yet should only provide a living until they can stand on their own 2 feet. Hence why drive & ambition has been knocked out of society. We live in a Nanny State with an overprotective government yet this same government (advised by think tanks & such like) say it's wrong to interfere unduly with personal choice yet I feel we should if people are to be funded by the tax payer which should encourage them to seek & earn the right to be financially independent.
I'm not the hard person I'm in danger of coming across as. We need to give tough love. Just like good parenting.

Well done.
We have tenants who have credit card bills which they are paying off from a holiday last year. Las Vegas, a desert town in August!
They do not have any money! Life is so unfair they cannot afford a deposit!

Reply to the comment left by Laura Delow at 18/08/2018 - 10:39
I suspect many of the readers of this forum can relate several of their earlier life experiences to your own. I know I certainly can.

Youngsters now have a very different mindset though. Using my stepson as an example; he lives and works in Richmond. He cannot afford to buy there but he 'needs' to be on the doorstep of his work for his social life. He is 25, left Uni with a First in Computer Programming (funded by student loans and the occasional handout from us) and now earns a very good wage. However, he chooses to live in a house-share because he prioritises socialising, festivals, travelling and the latest gadgets. Nevertheless, he sees himself as a victim of Generation Rent and is very vocal about their policies and his socialist beliefs.

What can I do?