Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

It's a move in the right direction, coupled with the removal of the favourable holiday let tax treatment might curtail antisocial Airbnb-ists. I don't have a problem with the private residential rental market: just the locking up of rentable property in the occasional holiday let market. Fine it we had surplus residential property stock to use up, but we don't.

I have heard it suggested - in a non vested interest/political way - that there are enough empty properties in the UK to solve the housing crisis ‘at a stroke’. Don’t know enough to know if that’s true or not. Thoughts?

[Andy_Faber]

I have heard it suggested - in a non vested interest/political way - that there are enough empty properties in the UK to solve the housing crisis ‘at a stroke’. Don’t know enough to know if that’s true or not. Thoughts?

What part of housing do you consider to be in crisis rA it’s a complex many faceted issue

[ramAnag]

What part of housing do you consider to be in crisis rA it’s a complex many faceted issue

The shortage. I have no point to make on this. Don’t pretend to know enough about it. Happen to have spent the last couple of days in Oxford…there’re an awful lot of people - men and women of all ages and colours - on the streets there. So I’m sure it’s ’complex and many faceted’…maybe more so to the homeless people I saw today than to you and I.

[Andy_Faber]

The shortage. I have no point to make on this. DonÂ’t pretend to know enough about it. Happen to have spent the last couple of days in OxfordÂ…thereÂ’re an awful lot of people - men and women of all ages and colours - on the streets there. So IÂ’m sure itÂ’s Â’complex and many facetedÂ’Â…maybe more so to the homeless people I saw today than to you and I.

I can only offer enlightenment on this from my own observation and experience, and for Tricky-related reasons I won't include comment about immigration pressures

An observation about 'the homeless': You may recall I did charitable work that brought me into contact with 'the homeless' (I don't now by the way, halo slipped). I was surprised/shocked that a significant amount of those I spoke to PREFERRED to be homeless, for reasons too complex for me to help with, including many who were given shelter and either refused it or quickly/repeatedly gave it up. Solving that (in those cases) seemed to me to be a mental health issue not an accommodation-shortage issue

Regarding empty properties, personally as a landlord I consider gaps in occupancy of my own properties beyond a couple of days per tenant changeover to be a failure on my part and I/we work bloody hard to avoid it happening, so seeing empty properties around frustrates me. BUT there are lots of genuine reasons, beyond the obvious 2nd home/occasional airbnb anomolies - houses in probate, houses vacated by people in old folks homes, houses empty due to temporary work relocation, houses waiting for sale where the owner has had to move, houses willed to people not yet capable of occupation, there are loads more and there's a lot of such inertia, I have indirect knowledge of the volume through my own and Mrs F's employment in estate agency/management. In most of these cases, and because every case is different, its not practically possible to give these properties over to people in need, think of the time (and cost) of bringing them up to standard as a for instance

Add to that the fact that if an accidental empty property owner becomes a landlord and gets it wrong, it can be a nightmare to put it back right. Whatever the noble intentions in allowing tenants into a property, once they are in they are in and they hold almost all of the cards, regardless of behaviour, inclination to pay or adhering to other conditions. Landlordship is a profession and I would always recommend owners NOT to risk their property unless it was for the long term and with eyes absolutely wide open to the pitfalls

Just a few points, not any sort of solution

[Geoff Parkstone]

Having just googled, last data (12m old) suggests some 260,000 long term empty properties, rising to over a million if you include holiday lets and second homes.

So numerically there could well be scope for easing "crisis" but in practice the location of homeless may not align with where these second homes/holiday lets are. Eg the latter are probably in rural/coastal areas whilst the former are more likely urban.

[MadAmster]

Saw one economist on the box yesterday saying that mist of the "burden" of the extra tax from the budget will fall on the top 10% of earners. Unless you're in that top 10%, you'll likely think that's where it SHOULD fall.

There will be more than enough tales online, some credible, some obviously made up, of people who, for instance, run one small care home who will be worse off.

I saw it as a not unreasonable budget but there are several things in it that are dependent on certain other things and if anything in the "chain" breaks then.... IMO, austerity could return. I hope, for the sake of the country, that the Red Tories have got it right.

For me, the only change that applies is the 4.1% increase on my part OAP from next April. That's above Dutch inflation, which is good. Now waiting to hear, sometime in the next 6 weeks, what will happen to my part Dutch AOW and private pension. A similar rise to that of my UK OAP would be great although I wouldn't refuse a higher rise...

Going after the Covid billions is a great idea. If they find sufficient to permanently damage the Blue Tories, it will prove to be even better.

[Geoff Parkstone]

2% increase will have less impact on property buyers than the beer duty has on draft drinkers, in fact this small increase combined with a relatively larger increase in disposal (CG) tax might well change the minds of those in property to dispose of their assets. I was expecting and in fact had adjusted for some sort of income tax differential for 'unearned' income

But the CGT rate on selling second homes hasn't changed has it? Was 24% already - isn't it just other capital gains - eg on stocks n shares - where the rate has gone up.

CGT rate on second homes for higher rate tax payers was reduced from 28% to 24% by last blue budget

[Andy_Faber]

But the CGT rate on selling second homes hasn't changed has it? Was 24% already - isn't it just other capital gains - eg on stocks n shares - where the rate has gone up.

CGT rate on second homes for higher rate tax payers was reduced from 28% to 24% by last blue budget

Depends how you hold your asset. As I understand it holding as an individual hasn’t changed, holding as as shareholder in a company/partnership has.

[ramAnag]

I can only offer enlightenment on this from my own observation and experience, and for Tricky-related reasons I won't include comment about immigration pressures

An observation about 'the homeless': You may recall I did charitable work that brought me into contact with 'the homeless' (I don't now by the way, halo slipped). I was surprised/shocked that a significant amount of those I spoke to PREFERRED to be homeless, for reasons too complex for me to help with, including many who were given shelter and either refused it or quickly/repeatedly gave it up. Solving that (in those cases) seemed to me to be a mental health issue not an accommodation-shortage issue

Regarding empty properties, personally as a landlord I consider gaps in occupancy of my own properties beyond a couple of days per tenant changeover to be a failure on my part and I/we work bloody hard to avoid it happening, so seeing empty properties around frustrates me. BUT there are lots of genuine reasons, beyond the obvious 2nd home/occasional airbnb anomolies - houses in probate, houses vacated by people in old folks homes, houses empty due to temporary work relocation, houses waiting for sale where the owner has had to move, houses willed to people not yet capable of occupation, there are loads more and there's a lot of such inertia, I have indirect knowledge of the volume through my own and Mrs F's employment in estate agency/management. In most of these cases, and because every case is different, its not practically possible to give these properties over to people in need, think of the time (and cost) of bringing them up to standard as a for instance

Add to that the fact that if an accidental empty property owner becomes a landlord and gets it wrong, it can be a nightmare to put it back right. Whatever the noble intentions in allowing tenants into a property, once they are in they are in and they hold almost all of the cards, regardless of behaviour, inclination to pay or adhering to other conditions. Landlordship is a profession and I would always recommend owners NOT to risk their property unless it was for the long term and with eyes absolutely wide open to the pitfalls

Just a few points, not any sort of solution

Points all accepted. It was just something I’d read and wondered if it provided a way forward at a time when affordable housing is needed and they’re not making land anymore.

[Geoff Parkstone]

In fact global warming is taking land rather than making it!