Property vs pension

[scooterscot]

No offence to scooter, but make sure you look into what your buying. I've bought some zencash on scooters tip, but only after looking into it myself first.

Bitcoin donations gladly received!

18BZ2ojk64NqKkJmTmrPrA8z4syJTVAb86

I have the zencash report. If you knew what I knew about this one you'd plunge every penny into it. PM me your e-mail address if you'd like. I paid £2k for it, so not going to hand it out willy nilly. Suffice to say, our privacy is under attack and this crypto makes bitcoin, dash, xmr look like a public library.

[FrontEnder]

I guess it's just me but I find the idea of owning houses for profit slightly immoral. Yes, fine for business/student rents but generally making a few quid where really the tenants would rather own the house than pay you but have no choice. I've looked into BTLs and for the sake for a few grand a year (where I can invoice this in less than a week) hardly seems worth the ball ache.

I see where you're coming from, but look at it this way. If you become a landlord, you have the chance to do it fairly and the family who live there will not be renting of someone potentially far worse.

I'm one of many 'accidental landlords'. I couldn't sell my house without a big loss, but we needed/wanted to move somewhere bigger/in a nicer area, so we rent out ours while renting ourselves. I'm happy as long as the mortgage/insurance is covered, with a little extra to go towards any unexpected costs. I'm getting that now and consider it a fair rate compared to the market. I don't plan on putting it up any time soon, perhaps if base rate (and therefore my mortgage) goes up considerably, I will do, but I'll have the conversation with my Tennant first.

I make sure any problems are dealt with quickly. I have boiler cover to make sure someone will be round within 24 hours if it breaks, etc.

There are landlords out there who will up the rent every year/renewal without fail and won't fix problems for weeks. I'm glad my tennant isn't with one of them.

[contractorinatractor]

Every country has seen population growth, Germany 1m+ and is coping.

Truth be told UK government is building far less houses than ever before. If companies were scrambling over themselves these statistics would look a lot different.

I'm not sure this is a fair representation of house building.

Being the average, it's likely that some massing housing undertaking bled into (or out of) one government to the next. My guess would be that the conservative averages listed benefit from previous legislation leading to it appearing that the conservatives build a reasonable volume of housing, averaged over their terms, particularly the longer terms. The labour builds bleed into the tory terms, whereas during labour governments they inherited low house building. The average doesn't show this. A yearly breakdown does.

[unixman]

I guess it's just me but I find the idea of owning houses for profit slightly immoral. Yes, fine for business/student rents but generally making a few quid where really the tenants would rather own the house than pay you but have no choice. I've looked into BTLs and for the sake for a few grand a year (where I can invoice this in less than a week) hardly seems worth the ball ache.

Point taken. On the other hand, you are providing affordable, decent housing for people. I rented for 10 years, and didn't feel bad towards the landladys/lords. The last 5 years in a flat where I paid 17k rent. I got a place, they got their income, win-win.

Just wish I had accepted the landlady's offer to buy for 31k, circa 1999.

[Lance]

Bitcoin donations gladly received!

18BZ2ojk64NqKkJmTmrPrA8z4syJTVAb86

Whoooaa there.
Are you not nervous that Drei will steal all your coins now?

[scooterscot]

Whoooaa there.
Are you not nervous that Drei will steal all your coins now?

[lukemg]

Wow - some excellent advice on here alongside the stampede of stupid money heading in the wrong direction.
Couple of episodes of any landlord nightmare programme is enough to put me off BTL and I don't care how many people you know who have 'no problems'.
I understand the temptation, property works due to leverage, you only kick over a deposit but take all the gains. Good luck to anyone doing this, I know many have done well but defo not for me or an easy life, especially now the squeeze is on and the 'accidental landlords' tell me it doesn't just go up. I don't want to fix stuff on my own house let alone a BTL.
So, want property exposure ? Chuck some at a REIT, it will kick you a dividend and never call you to fix a leaky shower tray AND you can sell in 10 seconds for a tenner. My house is a massive commitment to property, why would I commit any more ?
I would get a global shares fund/etf ISA or SIPP (incidentally, your family dont lose the lot if you carc it after 5 years, that is only if you buy an annuity), drip feed (use PCA or Value cost averaging) and forget about it.
It's a slow start but once the snowball starts rolling, you won't believe how big it gets.
Crypto - PLEASE don't commit anything more than chuck away money you can shrug off if it disappears.
Another shout for Malkiels - A randon walk down wall st, makes it all clear...
GLA

[Fred Bloggs]

Wow - some excellent advice on here alongside the stampede of stupid money heading in the wrong direction.
Couple of episodes of any landlord nightmare programme is enough to put me off BTL and I don't care how many people you know who have 'no problems'.
I understand the temptation, property works due to leverage, you only kick over a deposit but take all the gains. Good luck to anyone doing this, I know many have done well but defo not for me or an easy life, especially now the squeeze is on and the 'accidental landlords' tell me it doesn't just go up. I don't want to fix stuff on my own house let alone a BTL.
So, want property exposure ? Chuck some at a REIT, it will kick you a dividend and never call you to fix a leaky shower tray AND you can sell in 10 seconds for a tenner. My house is a massive commitment to property, why would I commit any more ?
I would get a global shares fund/etf ISA or SIPP (incidentally, your family dont lose the lot if you carc it after 5 years, that is only if you buy an annuity), drip feed (use PCA or Value cost averaging) and forget about it.
It's a slow start but once the snowball starts rolling, you won't believe how big it gets.
Crypto - PLEASE don't commit anything more than chuck away money you can shrug off if it disappears.
Another shout for Malkiels - A randon walk down wall st, makes it all clear...
GLA

Pssstt...... You're right. Look up there some place. Regional REIT, >8% dividend, tax free in an ISA. But don't tell everyone.

[d000hg]

If you can buy a house for cash you can get 4% return from rent easily - factoring in fees and costs. If you choose more carefully then probably more like double; we bought a nice flat for £160k in Cornwall that rents for £650pcm but closer to home we could buy a house for £60k and get £400-450pcm for it.

[ChimpMaster]

I'm not sure how BTL can be profitable unless your just banking on the property being worth more at the point of selling it years down the line?

We rent out our first house (and have done for about the past 5 years, owned it for 10years) although I'm strongly thinking of selling it now due to the changes in the ability to offset your mortgage interest.

We bought the house in 2008 right at the peak of the housing bubble and paid £225k for it and I envisage it probably worth about that now (but I've not had a valuation). As we're in a little village in Derbyshire its not going to be worth a massive amount more I doubt even if we held onto it for another 20 years.

So the thinking/sums behind getting rid are as follows
Rental Income £700/month
Mortgage Interest £350/month
Insurance costs etc £30/month
"Profit" £320/month (less anything that needs fixing)

However with the recent changes to offsetting mortgage payments and being in the 40% tax bracket it means that now I'll be taxed approx. £ £270/month on the £700 month income leaving me with approx. £50/month "profit".

and for £50/month(best case scenario) I could do without the hassle of having to manage it if and when things fixing. TBH the tenants are pretty good but its just a hassle and a worry I could do with out. Certainly when its for such a tiny amount of return.

Has anyone else found themselves thinking/doing the same?

I think you have the section 24 tax calculations incorrect there. I work your 40% tax to be £212. But remember that it's a staggered reduction on the tax relief over the next couple of years.

Look for news in the budget this year too. There are murmurings of some allowances being given to landlords who give out longer tenancies.