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Cost of Living

www.bbc.co.uk

More pain for renters as landlords look to sell up

Rising borrowing costs and plans for stricter rules are affecting the rental sector, surveyors say.
www.bbc.co.uk

The section 21 issue spoken about earlier and interest rate hikes combining to make the perfect storm.

It’s going to be a painful journey for everyone from here to a supposed utopia where the influx of discarded rental properties creates affordable opportunities for first time buyers and renters live under safeguarded tenancy agreements.

There clearly needed to be moves in that direction, but strap yourselves in for this one.
 
Here's a similar example of things over here...
There's a fairly large estate about 5 miles south of where I live in a coastal village called Laytown. (Google it - Inse Bay, Laytown)
It's new and almost all the houses are 2, 3 and 4 bedroom semis. Small front garden, small rear garden.
Like lots of estates in Ireland, looks ok during the day but at night when everyone comes home its just a fucking untidy car park with lots of houses jammed in.
Rent for a 3 bedroom house a couple of weeks ago, €2,300. A MONTH!!
That means to afford that you'd need a gross salary of €4,792 a month!!!
That's €57,500 a year, JUST TO COVER THE RENT!
That doesn't include food and fuel and bills and running a car or two...
Fucking place is rampaging down a rabbit hole fast!
 
Paul said:
Haven't Irish property prices always been exorbitant though ?
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Yes and no.... Like in the UK, they're reflective of UK salaries in general.
We bought our 4 bed Bungalow in 2012 for €175,000.
We live at #7. A few months ago, similar design, #1 was sold for €425,000!!
People who bought it moved out of Dublin and will be spending north of €100,000 doing it up. It was really dated.
But obviously wages etc haven't gone up by anything like that!
 
But I think salaries are for most jobs are higher here than in the UK.
 
You have to squeeze as many houses as possible into whatever plot is available in order to meet build targets and assist with affordability - it’s a catch 22.

If those houses are then bought by investors looking at yield then that’s another matter which just compounds the problem.

The second home taxation increases have been fairly subtle and incremental to a point most people financing (anyone but cash buyers) additional property has ceased doing so already. That has worked fairly well imo and it doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility to do something similar with taxation on ALL additional properties irrespective of finance which would gradually shift cash buyers away from property altogether freeing up homes for sale without crashing the market.

The developers get a bad rap but no amount of micro houses crammed into plots of land will sort this. You can’t build your way out of the problem. You have to free up the property that is hoarded but it has to be done in a structured way and not as some clumsy crashing byproduct of poor legislation (S21 etc) that will negatively impact many of the people it’s intended to help.
 
Bloke on the radio a couple of days ago in the medical industry (Chronic lack of GPs over here) he was based in Co. Donegal.
Looking to rent a house.
Only 1 (one) house was available and that was for €4k a month!!
It was a 5 bedroom house with 4 bathrooms, 5 receptions, stunning sea views etc., all the rest are taken by AirBNB.
The debate was centred around these houses are rented out for 4 months of the year and for the remaining 8 months stand empty.
Apparently they make so much money in those 4 months, they shut them down after the summer.
But there are hundreds of people looking to rent and there's nothing available.
 
Airbnb came out of nowhere and caught local councils and the taxman napping. No doubt a lot of owners have done quite nicely over the years, but similar to buy-to-let, if you’ve set up using finance with Airbnb as your business model you’re in squeaky bum time.

Local legislation and HMRC are coming for you. That’s another gravy train that has long since left the station and it’s no bad thing.
 
Had an email from our energy provider this morning (EON Next) telling us our bills are going down in July. According to their calculations it should be around 240 quid less over the next 12 months. Its a nice little bonus but the cynic in me wonders if they couldn't have done something sooner. Tbf I haven't been paying proper attention recently.
 
Inflation data is a fucker, just not shifting. Food still at +19% YOY - in May 2022 it was already high at 8%. So it's costing over 25% more to put food in your fridge that in was in Summer 2021. It's fucking outrageous, and it's killing people
 
It is. And the squeeze means those people lucky and generous enough to contribute can’t afford to contribute to food banks so those with nothing will really struggle to eat. It’s a disaster in the making. If I hadn’t left I shudder to think what situation I would now be in. There were many weeks where I barely ate as it was.
 
77% of people surveyed didn't know that halving inflation still means that prices are going up.

31% thought that it would mean prices would stay the same.
32% thought that it would mean prices will be lower.
14% didn't know.

As well as education, the media has a lot to answer for here as a fall in inflation is often paired with a comment that it is good news for consumers or better news for consumers.
 
I had to have that same conversation with somebody at work yesterday, who thought falling inflation would been a decrease in prices
 
Our fixed mortgage rate ends at the end of July.

Currently 1.04% but the best we can find now is 4.74% which is an extra 350 quid a month.

Pretty brutal when you factor in the 25% rise of food that Del mentions too.

Crazy times.
 
Elephant Pyjamas said:
Our fixed mortgage rate ends at the end of July.

Currently 1.04% but the best we can find now is 4.74% which is an extra 350 quid a month.

Pretty brutal when you factor in the 25% rise of food that Del mentions too.

Crazy times.
Click to expand...
I feel your pain and my figures weren't as bad as your example when I renewed in May. Energy costs to go on top of your example too. Did your current lender not offer you rates to swap products a couple of months ago when the market was lower?

Mark will be along in a minute to say that it was bad financial planning on your part.
 
Sniffer said:
I feel your pain and my figures weren't as bad as your example when I renewed in May. Energy costs to go on top of your example too.

Mark will be along in a minute to say that it was bad financial planning on your part.
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Yep, I didn't forsee an additional rise over the last few weeks. But hey ho.

We rode that 1.04% rate and loved it, now for the pain. A lot of it because of Kwarteng and Truss!
 
My fixed rate is up in October. It’s currently 1.5%. I’m going to get screwed.
 
Variable rate is about 0.5% lower.

Its a gamble, but might things settle in 12 months or so?

I guess in reality no one knows, and with an Election not that far away the banks will factor in that risk too.
 
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