x

Nick Btwo

360 Profile Views

About Me

my expertise in the industry

Nick's Recent Activity

concerning the asymmetry between renters and mortgage holders. The difference is that the renter has an infinite horizon of rents owing, the mortgage holder has a fixed sum to pay off. If a mortgage holder gets a deferral of 3 months and still has rental income (even if deferred) for those 3 months he gets to pay off the mortgage (plus a bit more interest) with 3 more rental payments. A massive regressive bung to those who already have more capital.

From: Nick Btwo 21 May 2020 11:16 AM

Hi Richard, No, not quite. It's rather unlike renting out a car. If I hire a car I'll pay more or less the same price regardless of where I am renting it. I'm not being made to pay into private hands for something which is made by society (amenity value of a location which is different everywhere). Having more money than a friend is also different, since I'm not using my money to extract money from anyone, unlike a BTL landlord. Then you say that community means nothing, revealing your true colours, but on the other hand that BTL is a m oral choice. How can it be moral if its a positional good? Your having it depends on someone else not having that "pension". You might as well say that stealing is a moral choice because the alternative is taking money from the state. As I explained above, the better alternatives are a proper pension system and a redistributed land value tax.

From: Nick Btwo 21 May 2020 11:09 AM

Gordon, if so you probably pay mortgages and the bank owns them. I note but am not surprised by the self-righteousness you nonetheless express here.

From: Nick Btwo 21 May 2020 10:18 AM

any your argument is? A BTL landlord is a leech and a parasite. This is the nature of a "rentier". Look it up. My friend may be "smart", in a sly and selfish way, it does not stop his actions from being parasitic. I note also the contradiction between approval of "hard earned" and your extolling of the rentier, who does no such thing. About as coherent as approving of someone using their hard earned cash to buy a slave.

From: Nick Btwo 21 May 2020 10:13 AM

Gordon, I put it to you that at a fair price for service provided you would not be making a "decent living" for yourself in retirement. You'll be charging market rents, more or less, which reflect amenity value of the location, not service provided to the tenant.

From: Nick Btwo 20 May 2020 11:15 AM

why "scapegoats"? You are profiting at others' expense, namely those with less capital, who are forced to pay rents out of proportion to service provided, and at the expense of the community by trousering uplifts in land value which you did nothing to produce. Calling a leech a leech is not scapegoating it, any more than calling a thief a thief, or a murderer a murderer. The lack of a good pension system in the UK partly explains the temptation to do this but does not justify participation in this racket. "My BTL is my pension" my friend said to me ... well let's all have one then .. oh, hold on there might be a problem with that ...

From: Nick Btwo 20 May 2020 10:59 AM

I would prefer to teach beyond retirement age if I have to than dip into the pockets of others who are doing productive work. Failing that, or if I cannot abide any more teaching, I will earn on the side by doing craft work. I agree that the failed pension system is partly to blame. The solution to that is political. I think the use of "investment" in this context is a misnomer. Real investment is the creation of productive capital, deferred consumption in economists' jargon. Holding a site and charging for the use of it is not productive activity. Of course, you may provide service to the tenant, but this does not explain rents, as I have explained above. In any case thanks for your engagement and civil tone, in contrast to others on this forum.

From: Nick Btwo 03 April 2020 13:41 PM

>They are used to living off the backs of others. A bit like landlords then?

From: Nick Btwo 03 April 2020 13:36 PM

Right, anyone have an actual argument? Didn't think so! Sure you have to go an offload those HMOs before they are totally worthless. And conduct other LL activities in the meantime like not fix the appliances, not renovate the premises and sit back and let the rent roll in. Unless the tenant doesn't pay, now that you can't evict them, and unless in any case there is a rent holiday. High times folks. Don't worry the EAs are still doing virtual viewings so that you can try to sell your HMO "terraced turds" online. TTFN, have to prepare my virtual classes, some of us have to do something useful.

From: Nick Btwo 29 March 2020 15:54 PM

Nonsense. Unearned rents are theft. Can't you see there's a difference between that and earned income? It's basic economics. Even Milton Friedman thought so, hardly a left winger, hence his advocacy of land value tax. And Churchill come to think of it, another notorious communist. Again, someone not paying attention in their economics class.

From: Nick Btwo 29 March 2020 00:15 AM

why would they work towards limiting it? seriously, I don't wish any ll physical harm and would not wish covid 19 - pneumonia version - on anyone. I just want rents (which arise from the amenity value of the community, not productive activity of the landlord) to be returned to the community instead of lining landlords pockets. a la land value tax.

From: Nick Btwo 28 March 2020 21:30 PM

right andrew, so it would be better if some other profession taught the kids? I'm having fun too, but it would be nice to hear someone attempt to defend themselves, this is all too easy.

From: Nick Btwo 28 March 2020 19:51 PM

@paul is that the best you can do? how about an argument? Clearly your were not paying attention to your teachers ...

From: Nick Btwo 28 March 2020 19:50 PM

good argument Terry, you need a lot of brains to be a LL obviously.

From: Nick Btwo 28 March 2020 13:45 PM

Don't like it up 'em do they? Seems you are blind to facts folks. Here are some. Average rental payment Wales £634 per month, average in London >£1600. (Statista). Average house price Wales £186k London £643k (Zoopla). You're really gonna struggle to find figures that contradict this kind of blindingly obvious reality. So yes the LL in London pays a mortgage a multiple of what the LL pays in S Wales. *IF he has a mortgage.* If he does not, the rent he charges a tenant will still be a multiple of what is charged in Wales. C'mon guys this is not difficult, it's how you scrounge and leech a living after all out of the rest of us. So this has nothing whatsoever to do with service provided to the tenant. If you own outright in London you simply cream off multiples of the rent that the guy in Wales does. Landlord 101. "ah yes but we do have mortgages"! My heart bleeds. Are you going to lower the rent once they are paid off then?! For the solution read Henry George.

From: Nick Btwo 28 March 2020 11:46 AM

what happened to my account then? ;-)

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 19:19 PM

and then the house will be on the market, contributing to excess supply. Happy days.

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 19:09 PM

@terry You know what, I have been thinking the same thing.

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 19:08 PM

I wouldn't want to, I prefer doing productive work. I've nothing against a professional landlord providing a decent service for a small charge. But that is far from the UK market reality which seems largely populated by BTL chancers, operating in a hopelessly inadequate regulatory environment, and profiting from a house price bubble and minimal taxes on unearned income. The bubble thankfully seeming to have burst, but who knows if the govt. freeze initiated today may slow its inevitable collapse.

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 19:01 PM

Well, that was fun. think I'll go and sign the Acorn petition now (thanks for providing the link). Bye everyone and good luck offloading your empty BTLs what with the tenants going back to Mum and Dad now. It's been a blast. But all good things must come to an end, like mass transfer of income from renters to BTL landlords.

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 18:55 PM

@Gordon Brown Ask your tenants if they see things the way you do.

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 18:45 PM

Since I can't afford a house locally (at least before the crash now in train) I have to rent off a guy with several properties. This did not used to be allowed - you could only have one mortgage. Saner times. He does not "provide" this property except in the sense of not calling the police to kick me out, a bit like the service a mafioso provides in its protection racket. He did not build it and it would still be there if he disappeared. The only service is things I could easily do much better myself like get the plumber in. Funny old world.

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 18:42 PM

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 18:37 PM

I was afraid I would not be able to delete my account but it seems you guys did it for me. Seems critical debate is not welcomed here, or any dissenting views on BTL etc. Explain this then: the exact same property in London rents out for a multiple of its South Wales counterpart. What difference in service is the landlord providing that accounts for this? My last LL spent most of his time cruising up and down the Thames as far as I could make out, funded by his 12 BTLs. I don't remember much "service" being provided, other than to employ an EA that took 2 weeks min to fix anything. As if I couldn't do better than that myself!

From: Nick Btwo 27 March 2020 18:36 PM

Breaking News