General Election 8th June – Who on earth do landlords vote for?

Rob,
I completely agree, if we vote for ANY party other than the Tories we will get Corbyn.
If we do he'll give the PRS an absolute caning, perhaps nationalise us, better the devil we know.
AND he'll wreck the UK.
We have to continue the fight after the election and use the Irish example more.

Corbyn is a communist at heart, he will make a complete mess of BREXIT , Junker will be delighted to bully him and we'll be deserted. Going back cap-in-hand would be the worst thing we could do.

I'm going to stop following blog this until after June 8th because some of the thoughtless comments have been sending my BP sky high.

Like the comment about disabled benefits...the problem is the DWP civil servants who are reducing the numbers by getting genuine cases off the books rather than the scroungers. Disabled are helped because they can't help themselves.

Reply to the comment left by "Luk Udav" at "26/05/2017 - 18:23":

'the fact that The Spirit Level shows **with evidence'

Never thought I'd see The Spirit Level, fact and evidence all used in the same sentence.

A Lefty Luvvy handbook of cherry picked stats to fit socialist Utopian theories.

I spoke with Ray Finch (MEP) -UKIP's Housing Policy Director- and essentially he said, they will review their stance, but they cannot be seen to be supporting wealthy landlords…

A spoiled ballot is my least worst option at this point 🙁

Reply to the comment left by "Luke P" at "27/05/2017 - 11:03":

UKIP has chickened out. They are fully aware of the issues but have decided to not stick their neck out. They have won no friends in the landlord community.

Reply to the comment left by "Dr Rosalind Beck" at "27/05/2017 - 11:07":

He did seemed surprised there is a potential 2 million landlord votes, should they get their policy correct, but clearly their 'bigger picture' is more important.

I'm all over the place! Still haven't decided.

It takes imagination to create policies which actually tackle the real issues, it takes intelligence and pragmatism to recognise the real issues, it takes courage to sometimes act counter intuitively when creating the right policies, it takes a strong vision of what our priorities should be, it takes a lack of ego so that they are open to learn from those that know better than them and the humility to respect those that don't.

None of them have it. They're all just stuck in this partisan ping pong.

I think the four year roll out of S24 is less a decision about treating the PRS gently and giving us all time to adapt (as I had naively thought) and more about the government managing the fall out from a potentially bad decision. No government has ever (although Cameron did promise) spent the time to extrapolate their policies out over a twenty year period to see the real effects on real people before they implement them. Theresa May doesn't even bother to explain things to her own party, let alone the voters.

As far as I can see, Theresa May's priority is to find ways to create money so she governs by spreadsheet. She picks out self serving industry 'experts' who write reports justifying her proposals and backing them up as completely based on the needs of the people on the street, but they aren't. She ignores the people who really understand the industry or any other evidence that her policies are flawed and won't work (she ignores NHS Staff, PRS Landlords, the Police, Social Services, Local Councils - basically everyone dealing with those that are really effected by her policies) and then closes her eyes and hopes for the best. And when S24 starts to go tits up, which it inevitably will, I'm hoping that she will halt the roll out. And we'll end up with the first year at 25%. To be fair, I could cope with that, but it is a risk.

I think Corbyn's heart is in the right place but his head isn't quite as active. It's great to have a party for the people, "the many not the few" but when you're relying on the few to fund the needs of the many then the communist ideal starts to crumble. Again, like May, his policies are all great on paper but just like hers completely ignore the fact that they're imposing them on real people, despite the hand shaking and the rallies.

The proverbial always does roll downhill and they both refuse to acknowledge it.

So, am still totally confused about my vote. I think they should have a 'don't want to vote for any of you - can we have a new lot!' box. What are the chances?

In the meantime, I'm basing my future strategy on the worst case scenario and I've set up a limited company and am beginning to build up my portfolio through that. I still have 16 houses which I own myself and have decided to sit with those for the next year or two and see how this situation plays out although I'm actually selling one and will probably do that once a year and use any profit to pay down the other mortgages until this is all settled.

But the houses that I'm looking at are all landlords selling up and asking if I would be prepared to keep their tenants on (in fact one purchase was 'landlords only' because he loved his tenant that much. The rents are rising so fast I can't keep up and tenants are desperate to get in anywhere, so the chaos has already started. The council keep calling me and offering incentives but their figures don't stack up.

Here's hoping she's as keen to do a U-turn on S24 as she is on 'dementia tax'.

Still no idea who I'm voting for! But not prepared to waste a vote. Tough one.

Reply to the comment left by "Pamela Potter" at "27/05/2017 - 11:15":

There's alot of good thoughts there Pamela.
Plan for the worse and it may stop by 50% before it repealed....
There are 2 issues here, the government needs more tax, as its been over spending for decades, everywhere they look, its hard to collect more, but people aren't also liking the issues in health care. The other trouble is that politicians are binary, not business thinkers, so we need tax, take it from wealthy LL...job done! If they'd worked in business, they would also understand 'Cause & Effect', so implementing these changes, they've not really considered the ramifications of the effects.....
# I predict, big sell offs in LL property from PRS, creating less rental, pushing up rents
(already seeing large lots of property being sold, look at rightmove with empty properties on the market!
# There are about 4.5m PRS houses and 75% of LL have 1-2 properties; and these mainly be 40% tax payers. If only 25% of them sell out, that will reduce PRS by 1m homes.....and anywhere between 1 & 3 million people homeless (renters couldn't afford to buy or get a mortgage, otherwise they wouldn't rent)
# Councils inundated with homeless, as PRS shrinks, Start commandeering Premier Inns for Temporary accommodation @ £50 a night (suddenly, a months rent is gone in a week, and any Tax collected doesn't even fund a months hotel stay)
# Housing market reduces by 10% between 2017 & 2020 as tax rollout starts
# 1st time buyers stop buying as prices fall, and no-one else wishes to move either, alot of negative equity.
# Additional house building taking 3-5 years to make any impact on replacement, affordable housing
# Imigration still out pacing house building, still making the problem even worse

Finally, Tenant Tax is scrapped as a failed policy with PRS stock gone and record homeless and still not enough housing!!!
A Bad None vote winner turner nightmare, with higher rents, less rentable property, and maybe even a switch to government incentives to rent property to make up the shortfall and immigration still out paces building......disaster for all

Reply to the comment left by "Mike D" at "27/05/2017 - 11:43":

Yes the Irish Government is now trying to woo back the landlords it attacked. What a bunch of interfering idiots.

Absolute fools who couldn't run a bath

Luke. I shook Nuttals hand on S24 going into their manifesto and the bastards have backtracked the chicken shits. Waste of space these politicians. I'm spoiling