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John McKay
Landlord
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John McKay

From: John McKay 17 July 2023 07:42 AM

John McKay
At last a sensible article on house building problems. I can't speak for anyone else but it is only very recently I've noticed comments on inflation of materials, which will surely worsen if there's a major push with house-building. Some suggestions for Mr Gove.... 1. Scrap the attacks on the private rented sector as the contraction is forcing tens of thousands of households into homelessness. 2. Re-form Development Corporations. 3. Stop selling Government owned land to developers that then land bank or use it for other reasons than housing. Gift the land to the DCs and reform PP for this land. 4. Make use of crowd-funding. Offer the public Development Bonds that pay somewhere above bank rates but make interest tax free. Perhaps 5% would be a good starting point. This will then mean the DCs have seed capital and the Treasury doesn't have to dig into its coffers. 5. Use modular construction methods which have been proven to save time and money in builds. This is extremely important as if you launch a major house-building plan using conventional means the price of materials and labour will escalate quickly, making houses even more unaffordable. 6. Make it possible for immigrants to have easier access to mortgages. This may mean developing some system to access their credit history (if they have one) in their country of birth. 7. Genuine first time buyers can be offered seriously impressive discounts, selling to them at cost of build. There would of course need to be some tie-in period so they can't just sell on. Any other purchasers pay market value. 8. Profit from the sale to non FTBs can be fed back to local and central Government to improve infrastructure. 9. Any immigrant, not just those that buy houses, that wants to return home after they have been in the country for 'x' years should be assisted in doing so in some financial way. There could perhaps be a points system so those that have been employed as key workers would benefit greatest. This would mean they would not be a burden on the state and NHS in their later life. 10. Bring in SDLT reforms so that any retiree can downsize without having to fork out many thousands of pounds. Currently many are locked into homes that are just too big for them. Free up that housing.

From: John McKay 04 November 2022 07:46 AM

John McKay
"On top of that, the additional homes stamp duty surcharge appears to have led to an exodus of landlords" No, not at all true. The exodus of landlords has been caused by S24 - the phased restriction of mortgage interest relief. In addition it is the additional SDLT, combined with S24 that is preventing landlords buying properties. Some landlords have bought of course but as there are 46,000 fewer properties in the PRS than this time last year, over 50,000 families have been displaced. Many of them are on low incomes and struggling to find somewhere else to call home in a shrinking market. The very predictable result is a massive surge in councils using emergency accommodation. The BBC reports "Costs rose from £460m to £690m over the period, freedom of information figures from 31 (London) councils show". If you extrapolate that across the country but knock a bit off because London is likely to have a greater problem then we're looking at something like £1.75bn. Not a bad result if you happen to own a B&B and will take council tenants. On the other hand if you're a tenant then you've lost your home. You might very well have had to dispose of most of your possessions as you can't take them into a Travelodge. Even if the Council then find you somewhere to live how will you ever get back on your feet? You might have no furniture, no crockery, no bedding and little left of the kids toys. The only people that will do well from that situation will be the doorstep lenders as people will doubtless borrow to buy the necessities of life. My own view is that Osborne's attacks were about short-term tax take but it's costing a fortune and less tax is now being taken. The tax that will be still taken will generally fall on the less well-off as tenants find their rents rising. If you believe the guff from Osborne and the Treasury that it is all about increasing the number of owner-occupiers then what we have is a clear case of social cleansing. I'd never have thought we'd see that in the UK. It's a disgrace.

From: John McKay 13 August 2018 08:17 AM

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