I was talking about the property market in a general sense and what the 'gains' actually represent.

I wouldn't say I miscalled anything. I've never claimed to be a property 'investor'. To be honest it wasn't until 2011 that I felt I had saved enough to be able to buy then I was ill and had a year off work studying. If I have miscalled anything it wasn't the 'market', but it was the extraordinary and unprecedented lengths the state would go to to keep the 'market' inflated, using its instruments and financial muscle to protect an owning sectional interest at the expense of others. I've been working and saving prudently for about 10 years, although a good amount of that was on low pay so didn't save loads some years. That doesn't seem to be enough in your neoliberal utopia.

 

Quite right too! You should have worked harder rather than buggering off to study some nonsense like Sociology.

 

Property carries an element of luck; the inlaws have made a net fortune, my parents have swung from enormous returns to losses. Overall they haven't made a lot but I can say with confidence that very few people do up a house to a higher standard than my Dad.

 

When I was at skool people took sociology for A level only because it had the shortest syllabus of any subject available

Didn't even know it was possible to get a degree in it

 

Surly everyone who has piled into BTL to be protected by the state is an investment genius surpassing Warren Buffet?!

 

Only if you believe that it's only an exploitative, cynical and indefensible way to make a living that does nothing more than to turn this country into a "quasi-feudal society where a few are licensed to parasitically live off the sweat of the precarious rest." You fuel it by choosing to rent, if you feel so strongly against it, well then don't do it, no one is forcing you to sign the tenancy agreement.

 

Shelter is a human need.

 

You're right, it is, but renting isn't.

 

I don't feel exploited renting. It's fine by us ;-)

 

Given the institution of private property one can either rent or buy. To buy you need enough cash or credit. It isn't a question of just choosing to or not.

 

Well you have a good deal. Anyway even if you don't accept that renting id inherently exploitative then perhaps we can agree that a speculative property bubble which serves to raise rents is? I can't think of a single social good that is caused by a speculative bubble raising rents. To top it off the state is promoting it. The people renting see no benefit just less money in their pockets.

 

You could have stayed with your parents until you've saved enough cash if you wanted to buy.

 

You obviously don't know my parents.

Besides if everyone did that it would only make prices higher.

Shelter is a need I am afraid, or at least basic shelter. This is how property owners make their money.

 

I have a few friends who are landlords and none of them deliberately 'bought to let', they either inherited an extra property or they have gone through marriage break-ups and then got with a new partner and kept their old house on.
We are actually in a situation at the minute where a family member has died and left a house, it's been up for sale for a year at £69k (three-bed semi) with not a sniff of interest.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that people cannot afford what they think they deserve. I deal with pensioners on a weekly basis and most of them started out in one-bed flats and worked their way up the ladder gradually. Of course in those days they weren't paying out for iphones and Subarus and they didn't expect their rooms to look like a page from the Next catalogue...

 

Hey we do own a home outright. It's a VW California camper with sleeping for four, a kitchen and a sort of living room.

errmmmm, that doesn't really count does it?

 

Entitlement!!!!! The scourge of modern society

IMO, when every single person on this beautiful planet of ours is born they are entitled to nothing and everything at the same time

 

The benefit of this though is not always so one sided as you make out, well at the very least from my experience. Renting gave me the benefit to be socially and economically mobile early on in my working life.

 

And a speculative BTL bubble helps this in no way.

 

And so is sexual intercourse, but you probably rent that as well

 

Interesting post that I missed. Three bed semi for £69k?!!! My word that is a fraction of what one would cost here and shows how utterly ludicrous prices are around this area.

Your second paragraph is completely correct.

 

That amounts to slander!!!
Lol...