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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Right wing attack on “profiteering” landlords who should be “curbed”

A senior figure at the right wing magazine The Spectator has slammed landlords for blatant profiteering.

The magazine’s assistant online editor says her own rent has been hiked by nearly 30 per cent, despite unspecified maintenance issues, and that tenants as a group have been the worst hit by the cost of living crisis.

“The blatant profiteering in the rental market, driven by landlords taking advantage of the economic environment, must be curbed” writes Lisa Haseldine.

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She says the situation is most acute in London where demand far exceeds supply.

Haseldine is just as critical of letting agents who, she claims, have an attitude towards tenants of “if you don’t like it, find somewhere else.”

Perhaps surprisingly the article in the magazine - once edited by Boris Johnson - goes on to heap praise on the demands made by London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, who wants the power to impose rent controls.

Haseldine writes: “Rent controls already exist in various forms around the world, in New York and Germany, for instance.”

And while she accepts that rent controls may lead to reduced investment in rental properties, she asks whether that would be such a bad thing.

“The current housing market is severely choked. Disincentivising people from purchasing property as investments would free up the market, house prices would realign and drop, thereby becoming more affordable. While the rental housing pool would potentially shrink, the pool of properties for sale would grow” she argues.

It’s a lengthy article and you can see it in full here.

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

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    Would I be selling up if BTL was lucrative? Of course not.

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    Let’s see shelter , generation idle and the spectator house these people as the choice and the rental stock quickly dwindle. People who write this rubbish do far more harm than good. Why do they do it? Oh yes they get paid and PROFIT from writing it.

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    Loads and loads of it as well. They get more thousand and thousands than their customers could ever dream on......

     
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    Another one talking through her cap, huge numbers of landlords haven’t increased rent at all and are well below the market no mention of that.
    We bailed out the Pandemic while filling Council pockets with licensing fee, regulatory requirements and huge costs, now hit with S.24 and rampant interest rises like everyone else, singled out for the highest C/gains tax and Mr G
    Osborne’s double Stamp Duty take, need I go on and you’re complaining about your Rent, do you still not know that all those factors had a massive affect Rents.
    Anyway I am glad your rent is gone up, the Mayor & yourself are well matched bringing the economy to its knees, you’ll have everyone on strike and jobs hitting the buffers, any chance of saying something
    positive.

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    The only reason LLs can put up rents hugely is because of the lack of properties caused by the anti LL policies & extra regulation foisted on us. If you drive decent LLs out of the market expect the ones left behind to increase rents significantly.

    Once again the PRS is being confused with Social Housing.

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    Exactly right Tricia!

     
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    A right wing magazine with left wing views. We are all doomed.

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    It is simply a matter of supply and demand. The Government have only themselves to blame of the lack of supply.

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    Profit is such an ugly word to these people

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    Happy Birthday Andrew!

     
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    You remembered Ellie, thank you

     
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    And many many more Andrew. Happy birthday.

     
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    Like price controls on the energy market ? Went well that did. She's looking for a free property, isnt she ?

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    Andrew, Congratulations I seen that yesterday Ellie on the ball, best wishes to fellow suffering landlord have a good one and leave the worries to next generation we done more than out share.

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    I would politely suggest that Lisa Haseldine researches a little deeper. It is tenant demand pushing up market rental values, as they fall over each other offering way above asking prices to secure a property, in a market place of dwindling supply.
    Lisa may be renewing, but if she cares to look at comparable rents she will realise she is paying market rent (maybe less). Inflation is in double figures, interest rates are rising and that has consequences for everyone, including tenants.
    The question Lisa should be asking is why is rental stock so low? (....the worst i have ever seen it in my 35 years in the industry).
    We are seeing the unintended consequences of demonising landlords, ever increasing bureaucracy and punitive landlord costs in the private rental sector. If those too quick to moan and denigrate had taken time to listen to landlords, rather than attempt to bully them, then they wouldn't be is this situation.
    Lisa - it is not as if you weren't warned!!!

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    Wonder how much the price of the spectator has gone up by ? Further when Thatcher flogged off the energy companies, for a song, they increased their prices first,.No one could compete with the CEGB electricity prices, they were too cheap. I've worked in the energy industry most of my life !

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    Do the attack’s ever stop 😱, they are killing the golden goose.

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    Just another hack journalist that is incapable of investigating the true cause behind the headline. I thought Soectator was supposed to be more intelligent than this.

  • jeremy clarke

    “The current housing market is severely choked. Disincentivising people from purchasing property as investments would free up the market, house prices would realign and drop, thereby becoming more affordable. While the rental housing pool would potentially shrink, the pool of properties for sale would grow” she argues.
    What utter rubbish, if people didn't buy as investments tenants like her would have nowhere to live! Not every tenant can or wants to buy a house. If the rental housing pool shrinks much more, her rent is likely to go up even more as demand continues to outstrip supply, she obviously didn't study basic economics at her school/college/uni!

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    It would be hilarious if her landlord were to see this and sell
    Up as a result. Well, it’s what she would’ve wanted…!

     
  • John Ahmed

    The woman simply does not know what she is talking about.....there are camels on the Horizon though.

  • George Dawes

    I’d hardly call the spectator right wing it’s about as right wing as the guardian 🤦‍♀️

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    Lisa Haseldine( in her search for public oxygen to elevate herself above the masses), attacks landlords only of the PRS, as we are the scapegoat of the liberal illiterate, morally superior whets, us PRS are an easy target for the ignorant hate outbursts her ilk are fond of, a real job requires winning, losing, learning and developing. She hasn't a clue of the financial and legislative tsunami the PRS Landlords are under and the cost implications of each measure.
    Before our interest rates have recently sky rocketed, we've suffered a mountain of costly legislation, then the illogical assault by HMRC of taxing us on income, (S24) NOT profit as every other business in the history of England has been taxed, income, less costs equals taxable profit. If taxi drivers, airlines, truckers, and a myriad of other businesses weren't allowed to offset their fuel costs, maintenance and other costs before arriving at a taxable figure, they would all go bust within weeks. Why is the PRS treated so unfairly and so differently than any other business? Envy? Hatred? Distraction? Distortion, Deflection?
    Do the Lisa Hazledines not think for a second/ Every measure that takes money from a landlord in the PRS takes money from and makes renting to tenants more expensive, that's where all of a landlords income comes from "for goodness sake"
    this faux concern for renters (attention seeking) is shown up when these Einsteins then call for the PRS to be drastically reduced so first time buyers can get an affordable home! Ah ha ha ha ha ha, what utter lunacy, KICK THE tenants out and offer the house to a first time buyer.
    you stupid stupid people, your faux concern of others is so weak, pathetic and self serving, if only you could see yourselves.

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    Nailed!

     
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    Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Poor Haseldine doesn’t seem well and has managed to express every infantile and ill-informed trope about landlords in just one sentence. She complains that demand is outstripping supply but thinks the answer to this is… errr… cutting supply further. Just remind me people… she’s asst ed of the Spectator? Seriously? You’re not joking when you say that, no???

  • Bill Wood

    I'm not blatantly profiteering, and I resent the idea that I may be. And I bet most here are not profiteering either.
    In fact I'm sacrificing £20K income a year to give my tenants a good home that they can afford.

  • PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    The Spectator, like much of the ' Conservative ' [sic] party have moved so far to the left, they've pushed labour out of bed !

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    Rent Controls do not work! It is currently in Ireland (Rep) where I also let and limited to 4% every 2 years. This year alone sales of buy to let are up 58%. last week there was a queue of over 100 prospective tenants in Dublin for a 2 bed house at €1700 pcm. Bargain !!
    The Deputy PM Leo Varadkar has admitted in the upcoming budget they will have to incentivize landlords to stay in the market using perhaps a new tax rate or tax credits.ly
    we also had an equivalent of section 24 and they soon got rid of that when it had the same selling effect. So, if rent controls come in, unfortunately the rents will rise

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