Keir Starmer: Not all landlords are evil

Reply to the comment left by Lorne Mason at 01/07/2024 - 14:29
A very valid point but as you say this important economic fact is never mentioned by most politicians and instead landlords are expected to subsidise tenants.

Reply to the comment left by SirAA at 01/07/2024 - 16:48
Well said.Be warned and don't expect sympathy if you vote them in.

Starmer is both wrong and deluded.
It is NOT landlords who are driving up rents and I for one have never once had a bidding war as he suggests.
Mr Starmer told BBC Radio 5 Live: “We also need to tackle the rental sector. As you know private landlords are often getting tenants or would-be tenants to bid against each other in an upward spiral and that means rent goes up and up and up.”
Can we see actual evidence of this claim from Starmer: probably not?
The immediate abolition of Section 21 is ill-conceived unless it is accompanied by an equally immediate review and change to the court system in respect of applications made under Section 8. Already unable to cope with matters, this proposed change will bring about a further increase to workload where there are already inadequate staff and even a lack of judges to deal with matters.
Sir Keir needs to think…..in the real world.
The Labour leader repeated Labour’s manifesto pledge to build 1.5 million new homes over the next Parliament by building on brownfield sites….they never did it before so why now?
He also said, There are very huge deposits as well that are being taken from people…does he not know the amount of deposit is already limited and in most cases will not cover what they are intended to at the ened of tenancy?
He said:
“However, we can’t simply leave out of account what is happening nowadays, where the rents are just going up because there are more people who need to rent than there are places to rent, and the prices are just going through the roof.”
In other words, we need to punish the private rental sector for the failure of successive governments to build and provide adequate social housing.
What will come next: intervention in the manner other business can operate: state controlled?
So out of touch, but as usual with this Party, it focuses on the politics of envy and the redistribution of wealth created by others..

Is Starmer aware on inflation?
Costs of mantainance are greatly increased .
Mortgage cost are dramatically up.
We have put one up for sale.
Unless the Government can throw us a bone others will follow.
More people will be made homeless.

Reply to the comment left by david porter at 02/07/2024 - 08:01
Starmer does not care about inflation, cost of maintenance, increased costs of mortgages, compliance costs, down time etc.
Like a dog with a bone Labour will continue to chew away and peddle the idea that landlords are evil.
This suits their agenda and unlike many in the PRS Starmer will continue to clock off each day at 6.00pm if he becomes Prime Minister!

Reply to the comment left by Ray Guselli at 02/07/2024 - 07:11From what I can gather from family members renting in London, the bidding wars he describes are proposed by a few letting agents in London. Like you, as provincial landlords we have never experienced anything like what Starmer describes. We set a fair rent that covers costs and a small profit and if any applicants offer more or less, both of which have happened in a few cases, we decline and use our judgment to select the tenant whose income comfortably covers the rent and who we feel we can get on with. However, Starmer recognises the lack of supply but gives no consideration to the causes of there being "more people who need to rent than there are places to rent", it's simply the lazy "greedy landlords" mantra of the Left, rooted in Marxist "rentier economy" doctrine. And he makes no attempt to answer the caller's question, simply using it as a electioneering opportunity.

Reply to the comment left by Ray Guselli at 02/07/2024 - 07:11
I've never been involved in a bidding war and I don't know whether they happen in London or not. But both my daughters rent (outside of London) and one of them applied for several flats before she got one. In order to get the one she eventually got she put in an offer for a higher rent than was advertised and offered to pay some of the rent upfront.

That's not a bidding war....that's just what you work out you have to do if you repeatedly try and fail to rent accommodation.

If there's a dramatic shortage of property in the places where people either need or want to live and 10 tenants are going after every property, who are you going to choose as a landlord?

I use an agent and the last time I advertised the agent gave me a choice of tenants. The tenants I chose were the ones that I felt were most likely to be able to pay over the longer term.

This report says that agents are getting 25 enquiries for each listing:

https://metro.co.uk/2023/10/11/25-tenants-apply-for-each-rental-home-how-to-make-sure-you-get-it-19644366/#:~:text=As%20a%20result%2C%20more%20of,eight%20prior%20to%20the%20pandemic).

If you advertise a property via an agent and the agent gets applicants from 25 enquiries you're not going to bother checking every single one are you? I don't.

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 02/07/2024 - 09:54
So it seems you have some kind of process to work out who is most likely to be able to pay....I didn't quite understand the reply about what happens when a tenant offers more. You say you decline...I presume that means that you decline the extra cash, not the tenant.

I can't see a moral problem with accepting the tenant that offers more if you believe that the tenant can actually pay. In fact, I'm not sure how you'd conceive of a fairer system to select tenants from a choice of say half-a-dozen who all looked as though they could pay other than by choosing the higher bidder.

Scotland famously has a blind bidding system for people to buy houses. The details are here:

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/discover/buying/5-differences-between-scottish-and-english-conveyancing-systems/

Buyers put in sealed bids and the successful applicant wins. Presumably Keir Starmer would have no problem with a blind-bidding system with the highest bidder winning. It's more objective and fairer than "...we decided that we didn't like the colour of your skin.." isn't it?

We decide who to rent to with our agent on the basis of who we think will be able to pay over the longer term. Some of that is objective in that our agent checks salaries and credit history. Some of that is subjective....it comes down to who we believe because we can't check everything.

But subjective or objective, it's tenants who are bidding rents up. Not landlords.

only tenants that can afford to make an 'over' offer will and they will only do this to secure a property if they want it for specific reason (might be closer to transport links/local school etc)

Everyone seems to be forgetting, a contract will only ever be offered IF tenant affordability checks so if they offer to pay over the asking rent to secure the accommodation that's ultimately up to them but it doesn't guarantee a contract being offered at the end of the day still.

The market finds the balance. It is certainly not dictated by the LL. Bidding wars is a scare tactic simply to gain the fear vote.

I've an idea, lets call landlords greedy and evil, increase stamp duty, taxes and regulations for them, increase interest rates on the money they borrow, take control over THEIR property to make sure they dont have a profit, and cant sell it when they want to, and then cry about why there isn't enough rental property available. Oh wait, thats already been done! We are not being lead by rocket scientists.