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John McKay
Landlord
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John McKay

From: John McKay 06 February 2024 06:59 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 13 November 2023 07:44 AM

John McKay
Agreed that everything is about supply and demand. When S24 was introduced (along with the other extra taxes), the LL haters were all laughing and crying that we'd all go bankrupt because rents couldn't rise above where they were then. They're not laughing quite so much now are they? Rents had to rise to cover costs and hopefully provide a small profit. Those that could not make the numbers work or had had enough, started getting out and that has fueled the imbalance between supply and demand. With the prospect of Labour getting into power, more will be selling up. Others will be hiking rents when they would not have otherwise done so. I'm one of them. One important factor that is not often talked about are the landlords with impressively large portfolios, like Fergus Wilson for example, who at his peak had something like 1000 properties in a relatively small area. If Fergus was to wake up one morning and decide he's going to hike rents by 10% above market rate then that becomes the new market rate as 1000 tenants will not be able to find alternative accommodation in the area. Sure, some may move further afield but most will be tied to the area they are in. So isn't it interesting that Government is encouraging the big BTR companies that will be the market makers. Yes they may well offer gyms and concierges etc (which put up their costs) but the point is that it isn't better for tenants, it is worse. But back to your point about flats and the RRB. I agree that the bill will help to push landlords out and that makes it even easier for the big boys to control the market pricing. I don't personally see a significant drop in demand coming any time soon unless 'world events' take a really bad turn for the worse. Unfortunately that is quite possible though.

From: John McKay 03 November 2023 08:20 AM

John McKay
@ Ellie. I don't think Landlord Today will give me enough room to go into all the detail I can on this but starting with our favourite charity, they supported the introduction of S24 claiming that it wouldn't affect many LLs but at the same time it would raise enough money to have a meaningful effect on HB. No reason was given to say why they thought Government would increase HB. They also admitted that S24 may well push up rents so they were backing something they knew would be detrimental to the people they are supposed to represent. Isn't it interesting that at that time L&G were one of Shelter's corporate sponsors? The 'charity's' annual accounts even stated that L&G collaborate with them on policy! When Osborne announced his 3 pronged tax attack the second most senior Treasury mandarin was a guy called John Kingman (later knighted in Cameron's exit honours list). Shortly after Osborne left office Kingman went off to become Group Chairman of L&G and it was reported that he more than doubled his salary. Also in Cameron's time a senior manager from L&G took a sabbatical and ran the policy unit at No 10 for around 10 months before returning to L&G. I forget his name but could look it up if you really want to know it. The same guy was involved in a joint project with the Fabian Society (about as left wing as you can get without being communist). The project was for Shelter and as I remember it was jointly funded by them and L&G. When Osborne left office, one of the many jobs he took was one day a week at Blackstone for £650k per annum. This company is the biggest commercial residential landlord in the world and there's some great articles out there about the way they work. If you google 'The Blackstone rebellion: how one country took on the world’s biggest commercial landlord' you will find a lengthy but very interesting article by The Guardian. So in my view what Gove has said is the same old smokescreen that the Treasury has been peddling all along and I personally don't believe a word of it.

From: John McKay 29 October 2023 07:12 AM

John McKay
My view on things.... Firstly I'll zoom out' to landlords’ 'favourite' so-called 'charity' - Shelter. When S24 was announced several landlords wrote to the then CEO Campbell Robb. They forecast the significant contraction of the PRS, rising rents, rising homelessness and people having to move to smaller homes. All of which has come true. The response we got back from Robb was extraordinary as he said that Shelter supported S24 as most people want to own their own homes. He had within a couple of sentences shifted the perception of his organisation from one that supported the poorer people trying to keep a roof over their head, to one that backed wealthier families and individuals that had aspirations of owning their home. Interestingly though, his policy blogger John Bibby wrote a piece that is still on their website where he explained why Shelter supported the tax change but made no reference to his boss's reasoning. Instead he said that the tax would not affect many landlords but admitted that it would likely cause an increase in rents! He said that the additional tax revenue raised 'could' be used to increase housing benefit. He gave no reasoning why he thought this might happen. It was complete baloney! So why is all this relevant??? One of the biggest Build-To-Rent companies (B2R) in the country is Legal & General. Someone can be born in one of their properties, spend their whole life in a L&G house and then end up in one of their retirement homes. They would benefit very significantly from less competition and the subsequent rent inflation. So isn't it interesting that they were corporate sponsors of Shelter and the 'charity' stated in their annual accounts that L&G 'collaborate' with them on policy? Shortly after this was spotted and people started posting about it in various places, Shelter removed L&G's logo from their list of sponsors. As a corporate, L&G would not be hit by S24 which is a pernicious tax attack on the private rental sector. Moving on...... For a period 2016/17 a senior manager at L&G by name of John Godfrey had a sabbatical when he ran the policy unit at No 10. He then returned to L&G. At the time S24 was announced, the second most senior Treasury Mandarin was a man called John Kingman who was later knighted in David Cameron's infamous exit honours list. Shortly after Cameron and Osborne left office, Sir John also found new pastures as the Group Chairman of L&G. What an extraordinary coincidence! He more than doubled is salary in doing so. Then we come to Osborne who I though had been 'played' by being persuaded to introduce S24. A meeting that took place between him, a constituent and what was then the NLA showed he didn’t really understand the implications of the tax change but he said that he wouldn’t go back on it because he would lose face. Now I have no doubt that he wanted to achieve some fame as the one to pay down the country's deficit because he was planning on selling off many of the taxpayers profitable assets such as Land Registry, Air Traffic Control, Ordnance Survey, etc, etc, etc. Raising additional tax revenue by attacking landlords (for which he was likely to get little criticism) would help in his goal, but there's another interesting little coincidence to consider. Another huge player in the residential rental market is Blackstone, in fact it's the biggest commercial landlord worldwide.. You can read about the company if you google 'Guradian Blackstone rebellion', and whilst the article is lengthy it is well worth a read. Isn't it interesting that when Osborne left office one of his many jobs was working for Blackstone one day a week on an annual salary of £650k? Is this all coincidence???? You decide.

From: John McKay 11 April 2023 08:52 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 23 January 2023 06:55 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 11 October 2022 09:37 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 08 September 2022 09:14 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 02 September 2022 10:23 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 22 August 2022 08:34 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 22 August 2022 08:33 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 25 July 2022 11:59 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 20 June 2022 12:08 PM

John McKay

From: John McKay 13 June 2022 08:19 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 10 June 2022 08:02 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 27 April 2022 11:57 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 24 February 2022 07:55 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 14 September 2021 07:50 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 15 June 2021 07:42 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 08 January 2021 14:01 PM

John McKay

From: John McKay 02 November 2020 10:20 AM

John McKay
Legal & Tax Changes The Letting Industry Has Had Imposed In The Last 4 Years (some are currently proposed) 1. S24 (disallowing of finance costs) 2. Additional 3% SDLT on property purchase 3. Premium of 8% CGT when selling property 4. Banning of letting agent fees 5. Halving of lettings relief 6. Prospective banning of ‘No DSS’ wording in adverts 7. Promised banning of S21 notice 8. Growing trend of councils charging hefty licence fees per property 9. Changes to HMO regs including minimum room sizes 10. Right to rent checks (now shown to be discriminatory and there is no guidance on how to deal with EU immigrants) 11. Benefit tenants migrated to UC causing lengthy delays in rent payments and often substantial arrears 12. Deregulation Act 13. Scrapping of Wear & Tear allowance 14. Introduction of EPC minimum requirements (even on HMOs) which can be difficult to meet with older properties 15. Unfit for human habitation legislation 16. CO detectors must be fitted 17. 100%+ council tax on properties being refurbished between tenancies. Not even the 25% single person discount 18. Substantial increases in court costs for use of S8, thus making S21 more popular 19. Membership of compulsory redress scheme for agents (and most likely for landlords soon) 20. Limit on amount of deposit we’re allowed to take 21. Rogue landlord database 22. Proposed 3 year minimum tenancies though not sure what the value of this would be with the abolition of S21 23. Some councils now charging council tax on HMO rooms

From: John McKay 16 January 2020 12:01 PM

John McKay

From: John McKay 20 December 2019 18:18 PM

John McKay

From: John McKay 20 February 2019 18:55 PM

John McKay

From: John McKay 27 September 2018 10:09 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 16 July 2018 12:41 PM

John McKay

From: John McKay 26 July 2017 11:34 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 19 May 2016 08:53 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 21 March 2016 09:26 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 09 February 2016 10:50 AM

John McKay
Completely agree with you Adrian. Landlords have not created the phenomenal demand, they're just part of the supply chain to the end user. If you look at the statistics they're amazing. The UK population in 2001 was 59.1 million. So thousands of years of evolution, natural population growth and of course some pretty bad wars had arrived at that figure. In 2015 the figure had risen to around 65 million. That's an incredible 10% growth and 85% of that is down to immigration. I am personally completely in favour of foreigners coming to work here but Government made no provision to house these people. Where are the massive building programmes of the post war period and the 1970s??? If they'd kept up that build rate there wouldn't be a housing crisis, and you know, it could be sorted out now very easily. There are enormous brownfield sites all over the UK that are redundant MOD properties. Build on them and get the finance from the PRS by offering tax free investment plans, eg 5% annual ROI. This would divert investors money into these new-builds. If modern construction methods or timber-frame systems were used the houses could be built incredibly cheaply. The properties could still be sold at a profit to FTBs but way below comparable market value and the money raised from that could be used to make the necessary improvement to local infrastructure. All this Government want to do though is tax, tax, tax and of course sell off State assets that we've owned for hundreds of years. All to settle the deficit! The powers that be have no real interest in solving the housing crisis.

From: John McKay 13 January 2016 10:28 AM

John McKay

From: John McKay 14 July 2015 10:21 AM

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