Are landlords as bad as bankers?
The Tories have resurrected Thatcher's right to buy scheme that means that affordable housing will be sold off at knock-down prices. The government seems to be creating opportunities for landlords to become richer, just as they did the bankers - but are landlords worse?
Most people were affected by the banking crisis in 2008. The crisis was a global, but was largely down to the deregulation and greed of the banks. Quickly the enormous bonuses paid out to City fatcats came under public scrutiny. This money is created through the buying and selling of shares; the shares that make any real difference are those bought in bulk by rich people, who then sell to even richer people for a profit. Share price is affected by a company's performance; a company that you work to make profitable. The money that you earn from this job gets paid directly into a bank, which will in turn go into the money markets to help make the bank profit. Basically, all money goes through a bank. In return, we get interest on that money and credit that enables us to live beyond our means.
We pay in and we also get out. In fact, we get out more than we put in. We all have mortgages that will not be paid off for at least 25 years, loans, overdrafts and credit cards that aren't always paid off immediately. But we all agree that bankers heartless, money-grabbing arseholes.
Landlords own property, a lot of property. These assets will never lose value, they will only become more and more lucrative. Landlords then rent out these properties to anyone, however a lot refuse to take anyone who claims housing benefit. These people are professionals, young people, families or immigrants. As long as they pay their circa £1000 a month rent, they can continue to live in these houses. Things go wrong; boilers break, damp, over growing gardens, etc. the landlords does something if they wish. If they don't, there's not much a tenant can do about it. These properties quickly descend into wreck and ruin.
So other than having somewhere warm and dry to sleep, plus somewhere you can receive post, you don't get much else. But landlords are essentially good guys, right?
Landlords have fallen under the radar of this housing crisis. No one has mentioned that landlords create unaffordable, substandard living. The people that buy their homes from housing associations may go on just to rent them out at market value without making any major repairs. And these would be snapped up due to demand being much, much higher than supply - so beggars can't be choosers.
Housing associations genuinely can't afford the upkeep of their properties, as they are renting expensive homes at knockdown prices. And we forgive them for this, as they're charities and don't make profit. When these get sold off to private buyers, the buildings won't be massively improved but rented out for huge profit. And those that are refurbished will be so unaffordable that poor people won't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever living there, well you've got to get back what you put in and some. Then the 8 million working poor and 1 million people who rely on foodbanks are pushed further into poverty.
I live in one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Reading. It's Victorian and you can see this legacy in every terraced house, pub and church. However, what should be one of the most desirable areas of the town isn't because the majority of the houses are owned by landlords and are rented out to families, professionals and people on JSA. Since barely anyone owns their house, no one spends money on making their homes the best they can be. They leave them virtually unmaintained, outdated and with the cheapest building jobs possible.
I lament against the gentrification of London, as it is directly responsible for London becoming a soulless place. For somewhere like Reading, where it's already soulless, it needs a little bit of TLC - people who care about their neighbourhood and spend money to make their homes beautiful. Look at the difference between Powis Square, Notting Hill in 1968, compared to how it looks now.
Landlords today, are just like the slumlords of Victorian England, where 80% of the population lived in poverty. They also exploited the poor and forced them to live in appalling condition because they're misers.
There is no control over how much a landlord can charge and although there are regulations to ensure a decent standard of living, the resource isn't there to enforce it. So people are forced to live somewhere they don't really want to, that they can barely afford and in a place that isn't the best that it can be.
In the 80s, Professor George Kelling wrote about Broken Windows Theory, that if a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired for a period of time, soon enough the other windows will be broken too. The theory was fundamentally about law and order, it was a way to eradicating anti-social and criminal behaviour, but at the core of this are the landlords. If they spent even a fraction of the money they collect from rent in making the houses beautiful. Not just to hike up the rent but just to make affordable housing more bearable, it would make a huge difference to the quality of people's lives. And they in turn will take pride in where they live.
First published 12/06/2015
Most people were affected by the banking crisis in 2008. The crisis was a global, but was largely down to the deregulation and greed of the banks. Quickly the enormous bonuses paid out to City fatcats came under public scrutiny. This money is created through the buying and selling of shares; the shares that make any real difference are those bought in bulk by rich people, who then sell to even richer people for a profit. Share price is affected by a company's performance; a company that you work to make profitable. The money that you earn from this job gets paid directly into a bank, which will in turn go into the money markets to help make the bank profit. Basically, all money goes through a bank. In return, we get interest on that money and credit that enables us to live beyond our means.
We pay in and we also get out. In fact, we get out more than we put in. We all have mortgages that will not be paid off for at least 25 years, loans, overdrafts and credit cards that aren't always paid off immediately. But we all agree that bankers heartless, money-grabbing arseholes.
Landlords own property, a lot of property. These assets will never lose value, they will only become more and more lucrative. Landlords then rent out these properties to anyone, however a lot refuse to take anyone who claims housing benefit. These people are professionals, young people, families or immigrants. As long as they pay their circa £1000 a month rent, they can continue to live in these houses. Things go wrong; boilers break, damp, over growing gardens, etc. the landlords does something if they wish. If they don't, there's not much a tenant can do about it. These properties quickly descend into wreck and ruin.
So other than having somewhere warm and dry to sleep, plus somewhere you can receive post, you don't get much else. But landlords are essentially good guys, right?
Landlords have fallen under the radar of this housing crisis. No one has mentioned that landlords create unaffordable, substandard living. The people that buy their homes from housing associations may go on just to rent them out at market value without making any major repairs. And these would be snapped up due to demand being much, much higher than supply - so beggars can't be choosers.
Housing associations genuinely can't afford the upkeep of their properties, as they are renting expensive homes at knockdown prices. And we forgive them for this, as they're charities and don't make profit. When these get sold off to private buyers, the buildings won't be massively improved but rented out for huge profit. And those that are refurbished will be so unaffordable that poor people won't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever living there, well you've got to get back what you put in and some. Then the 8 million working poor and 1 million people who rely on foodbanks are pushed further into poverty.
I live in one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Reading. It's Victorian and you can see this legacy in every terraced house, pub and church. However, what should be one of the most desirable areas of the town isn't because the majority of the houses are owned by landlords and are rented out to families, professionals and people on JSA. Since barely anyone owns their house, no one spends money on making their homes the best they can be. They leave them virtually unmaintained, outdated and with the cheapest building jobs possible.
I lament against the gentrification of London, as it is directly responsible for London becoming a soulless place. For somewhere like Reading, where it's already soulless, it needs a little bit of TLC - people who care about their neighbourhood and spend money to make their homes beautiful. Look at the difference between Powis Square, Notting Hill in 1968, compared to how it looks now.
Landlords today, are just like the slumlords of Victorian England, where 80% of the population lived in poverty. They also exploited the poor and forced them to live in appalling condition because they're misers.
There is no control over how much a landlord can charge and although there are regulations to ensure a decent standard of living, the resource isn't there to enforce it. So people are forced to live somewhere they don't really want to, that they can barely afford and in a place that isn't the best that it can be.
In the 80s, Professor George Kelling wrote about Broken Windows Theory, that if a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired for a period of time, soon enough the other windows will be broken too. The theory was fundamentally about law and order, it was a way to eradicating anti-social and criminal behaviour, but at the core of this are the landlords. If they spent even a fraction of the money they collect from rent in making the houses beautiful. Not just to hike up the rent but just to make affordable housing more bearable, it would make a huge difference to the quality of people's lives. And they in turn will take pride in where they live.
First published 12/06/2015
Comments
Post a Comment