x

John Wathen

Director

1017 Profile Views

About Me

50 year career in property sales in all capacities. Now director of a Private Rental company.

my expertise in the industry

Negotiator, valuer, director and auctioneer in the Home Counties and across the East Midlands.

John's Recent Activity

That salary could keep a homeless person in rented accommodation for 8 years (assuming £800 pcm) but as we all know Shelter is nothing whatsoever to do with homelessness & absolutely everything to do with warped politics!

From: John Wathen 02 May 2024 10:44 AM

Someone should tell him that prospective tenants are falling out of the sky. It’s getting the right ones that take the skill & then managing them properly. Our local very well informed agent does all that & a lot more for nothing like the fees he is suggesting. Yet another bunch of chancers pretending they’ve reinvented the wheel!

From: John Wathen 23 April 2024 14:47 PM

All that information is already required on the Property Information Form all vendors have to complete. This sounds like a Conveyancer looking for an excuse to up his fees!

From: John Wathen 22 March 2024 08:12 AM

I demand a lifetime ban on the pair of them.

From: John Wathen 19 March 2024 11:17 AM

Another Cowboy giving us all a bad name. It’s characters like this who fuel the fires of the ideology driven pressure groups intent on destroying the PRS!

From: John Wathen 21 February 2024 07:53 AM

If Generation Rent & Shelter weren’t just moaning, pointless, politically motivated pressure groups they would realise that the only reason short term Lets are thriving is because they are massively in demand & if they really want to help the homeless problem they would start directing their misguided energies into lobbying the government for a massive increase in the construction of Social Housing .

From: John Wathen 20 February 2024 12:15 PM

It would be far more accurate if your headline read,- ‘ACTIVISTS IN NEW BID TO ERADICATE THE PRIVATE RENTAL SECTOR COMPLETELY’!

From: John Wathen 12 February 2024 19:34 PM

They should change their name to Eviction Rent for clarity. Of course Section 21s have increased, because they are an integral tool for anyone wanting to be a landlord & GR & their Marxist ilk have persuaded this pathetic government that it’s needed when blatantly it is not! Sensible Landlords are getting in now to remove bad tenants before it’s too late.

From: John Wathen 09 February 2024 11:10 AM

I detect an unsavory whiff of vested interests deviously disguised as ‘saving the planet’, and what will the result be? Surprise surprise, even higher rents!

From: John Wathen 05 February 2024 08:43 AM

Oh the sweet irony. Potty-mouth Rayner blames the short supply of Private rentals for creating tenant’s misery when it’s her punitive proposals that are causing it!

From: John Wathen 31 January 2024 17:36 PM

Why not a lifetime ban? Those of us who let property fairly & legally are sick of characters like this giving us all a bad name & adding more grist to the mill of the Marxist pressure groups. He’ll need watching though, there are plenty of smuggled illegals desperate for a bed anywhere & they won’t complain about anything for obvious reasons!

From: John Wathen 19 January 2024 16:48 PM

The fixed rate interest only monthly payments on our HMO has just ended & been increased from £470 to £1700 a month. Contrary to the malicious garbage spewed out by Shelter, Generation Rent & their Marxist comrades we will not be increasing the rents. We are remortgaging at £1100 a month & running the place at a loss for a year in the hope of better times to come. Having said that, with the likelihood of a future Lab/Lib/Green government we’re not holding our breath & the future for our tenants, who we care a lot about won’t be great if we’re forced to sell up. These are the real truths the blind deaf & dumb Lefties choose to ignore!

From: John Wathen 22 December 2023 08:06 AM

It is a sick wholly unfair irony that if those thousands of rough sleepers travelled to the south coast & floated around for a bit in a dinghy they would be housed & nurtured completely free of charge.

From: John Wathen 18 December 2023 22:15 PM

Another example of a Marxist, ideologically driven gobsh. te trying to palm off every problem that the Social Housing Sector should be solving onto the Private Sector which is actually nothing to do with it. Local Authorities & Housing Associations exist to help such people with this type of problem while we are the PRIVATE sector renting out OUR properties to who the hell we like. When will these misguided fanatics (Shelter, Generation Rent et-al) stop slagging off the wrong people & concentate their bigoted venom on the true culprits?

From: John Wathen 18 December 2023 17:25 PM

Shelter should change its name to Evictor, I guarantee the majority of people who signed that petition did so with no knowledge of Section 21 or any other Section. They blindly think that if Shelter say it’s bad then it must be. In truth they are voting for less homes to rent & more homelessness!

From: John Wathen 12 December 2023 06:39 AM

All fool them, the value of investments can go down as well as up, it’s the risk you take. Plans to introduce universal Commonhold have been mooted for some time & widely publicised. Controlling Leases by owning their Freehold is an unethical way to screw money out of people whose conveyancers probably didn’t make clear the unfairness & sinister implications of the lease they were lumbering themselves with when they spent everything they had & borrowed a fortune thinking their lovely home was all theirs.

From: John Wathen 08 December 2023 16:50 PM

All these trumped up excuses for Freeholders to keep their ‘gifts that just keep giving’ simply don’t wash. In other countries with abolished Freeholds none of the problems the RFA warn of have happened. Here most get their initial investment back in no time at the expense of defenseless Leasholders having to pay ever increasing Ground Rents, over inflated maintenance charges & extortionate costs to extend the period, without which they couldn’t even sell their highly expensive property. It’s an archaic injustice with no place in the 21st century. Compensation is a joke, they’ve made their money. Now is the time to commit residential Leashold to history!

From: John Wathen 08 December 2023 15:53 PM

So the wildly out of touch Labour Party think Landlords are to blame for upward pressure on rents do they? Tell that to the prospective tenants who are overbidding

From: John Wathen 06 December 2023 21:01 PM

If there wasn’t an eager, continuing demand for quality short term lets then they wouldn’t exist. The fact is they are providing a much needed service that is thriving and expanding, but as we know, politicians hate anything that succeeds without them. The Left’s odious politics of envy, should it get the chance, will put a final nail in the coffin. Look at Wales & Scotland, unmitigated disasters!

From: John Wathen 28 November 2023 08:08 AM

There is some credibility in that title, he’s certainly remote, - from reality!

From: John Wathen 22 November 2023 08:04 AM

If the bitter & twisted Lefty politicians & Marxist Pressure groups like Shelter & Generation Rent turned their attention to the real cause of housing problems i.e. the dire lack of social housing & badly run Housing Associations rather than concentrating all their venom on Landlords in the Private Sector, rents would fall & many more deserving families would have decent affordable homes to live in!

From: John Wathen 21 November 2023 09:51 AM

If it takes the tenant some weeks to realise there is a problem & they are actually living there, how the hell is the Landlord supposed to know sooner? The lunatics really have taken over the asylum!

From: John Wathen 16 November 2023 11:42 AM

I know from professional experience that the real rogue landlords don’t give two hoots about any legislation to do with the PRS because they operate entirely under the radar letting slums to illegal & other immigrants who invariably don’t speak English & are too scared to complain even if they knew how! These insidious characters work with cash only & grossly overcrowd their disgusting hovels with vulnerable, often forced, slave or sex workers & the councils know nothing about them. Meantime honest decent caring landlords are being viciously legislated against by ignorant misguided politicians!

From: John Wathen 15 November 2023 18:52 PM

Anyone who doesn’t sell up & get out before Labour get their skewed ideological mits on the PRS is very brave indeed. They are out to get us and the irreparable harm they will do to vulnerable families desperate for somewhere decent to live will, in their view be acceptable collateral damage. They will never be able to build the numbers of Social Housing needed &, as with every Labour Government since the war will eventually be kicked out leaving a far worse mess for others to clear up!

From: John Wathen 15 November 2023 14:38 PM

With 5 years of a Labour government looking increasingly likely, by 2029 the PRS will hardly exist. They forget there are other ways to invest hard earned savings & we are not a public service to be demonised & exploited. Social housing is badly run & underfunded so the prospect of mass homelessness in the near future is inevitable. Narrow minded pressure groups & misguided politicians will be entirely to blame!

From: John Wathen 06 November 2023 08:59 AM

MPs & all the Marxist pressure groups can bang on as much as they like, my Victorian terraced houses still don’t make band C with new double glazing & new (gas fired- shock horror) boilers. My Derbyshire tenants are struggling financially & I’ve not increased their rents for 5 years. We are not Social Services despite being treated as such by ignorant politicians who are now gleefully sacrificing the less well off on the altar of Net Zero & persecuting into submission the only people who can save them. Mass Homelessness is a perfect storm & the disaster is about to erupt

From: John Wathen 20 October 2023 10:10 AM

Once upon a time there was a charity set up to help the plight of homeless people on the streets. Over time it has morphed into a highly organised political pressure group with wildly overpaid executives & a hard line Marxist ideology out to crush the very people who provide many of those homes. Meantime the tatty sleeping bags & filthy blankets still strew the pavements & those smug self congratulating Shelter executives couldn’t give a damn!

From: John Wathen 17 October 2023 19:47 PM

So, when the tenants have to move out while all these upgrades are carried out will members of the Green Party offer to put them up?

From: John Wathen 09 October 2023 20:48 PM

Oh well, never mind, thanks to their actions & those like them there soon won’t be a PRS for them to get upset about!

From: John Wathen 02 October 2023 07:16 AM

It’s high time politicians, councils & banks like the coop realised they need the Private rental sector an awful lot more than us landlords need it. Interest rates are still rising and there are far less complicated & more lucrative ways for us to invest our hard earned savings. Social housing is a joke and we are being made the scapegoats. They hold up the rogue landlords as typical when the opposite is true. If they don’t back off now we will all back out & who will they blame then for the resulting unmitigated disaster?

From: John Wathen 12 September 2023 09:51 AM

Until the Marxist pressure groups and politicians of all persuasions accept that the Private Rental Sector is just that, - private and, apart from the crooks, leave it alone, rents will be constantly forced up directly due to their misguided actions. We are not Social Housing which is completely separate & actually is in dire need of their vociferous interference!

From: John Wathen 11 September 2023 13:21 PM

Personal apology eh? That’ll sort it!

From: John Wathen 18 August 2023 10:38 AM

Hypocrite Councilors? Who’d have thought! - People in glasshouses & all that.

From: John Wathen 01 August 2023 14:32 PM

I’m afraid we are totally ignoring these band C regulations for some of our properties. Try as we might these properties are still band D. We haven’t raised the rents for 6 years & our tenants who are struggling financially are grateful & being frugal with their energy usage. If & when this barmy rule comes in I guess they will have to move out & we will sell to owner occupiers who won’t have to worry about EPCs. The government & the Eco militants are destroying the lives of the very people they claim to want to help. This is the reality of this obsessive (& in our view grossly exaggerated) ideology!

From: John Wathen 26 July 2023 09:09 AM

Typical Labour, thinking they’re fixing one problem by creating a far worse one. When the tourists who play a massive part keeping the Welsh economy afloat can’t find anywhere to stay they’ll go elsewhere. Meantime the local first time buyers will still struggle to buy due to the high prices. Building lots more affordable homes is the answer but that is beyond the limited intelligence of the amateurs the people of the principality keep electing!

From: John Wathen 14 July 2023 07:39 AM

So following the warped communist ideology of this retarded bozo we could demand all tenants pay a significant share of every repair & improvement for the property they have stolen a share of! Karl Marx would be proud of him!

From: John Wathen 05 July 2023 17:46 PM

Breaking News