Will lifetime renting in Ireland become viable?

steddyeddy wrote: »

Will we ever be happy to give up ownership aspirations like they do in other countries and be happy to rent for life? I personally think for that to happen the concept of a rented accommodation as a home has to be accepted by landlord and tenant.

Lifetime renting would be more viable now if there wasn't such a squeeze on the housing stock.

I have some sympathy with your second point - housing shouldn't be seen purely as an investment but that's precisely what a BTL is from a landlord's perspective and there's no getting around that.

I will be a landlord soon enough, semi intentionally and I am half scared shítless that when I need to move back into the house in a few years time I will be unable to do so without a huge battle due to overly tenant biased regulations.

Frostybrew wrote: »

I agree landlords should be able to evict non paying tenants who don't engage. But non paying tenants isn't a major problem, as this type of situation is only relevant to about 1% of tenancies. It doesn't apply to the vast majority of tenants who do pay their rent, and is really a borderline red herring argument.

You must also remember that landlords also have to also agree to long term tenancies and I honestly can't see the majority of landlords doing this.

Landlords are not getting beaten by the government with regulation. What has happened is a completely unregulated sector is now starting to get the legislation that it should have had years ago and those used to the old regime aren't able for it. The legislation is very necessary as most landlords (up to 85%) were paying no tax whatsoever on their rental earnings, and the standard of a sizeable minority of rentals was diabolical.

As for those leaving in droves, any landlord who is unable to manage the very high rents that they are receiving should not be in the business of providing rental accommodation. I suspect though that most of those who are leaving are doing so to liquify capital gains as they believe that the housing market has peaked. They'll more than likely buy back property at a lower price in the years ahead.

According to you I have been marvellously unlucky with tenants not paying their rent on time or fully. Tenants regularly skip payments with most not paying their last months rent so as to avoid deposit deductions. Where you got 1% is a mystery. When it does happen the lost to a landlord is at least a years rent.

Nonsense about avoiding tax. The government has increased tax and charges and changed regulations all to favour tenants and adding costs to landlords while restricting rent increases. How that is not hammering landlords. Costs and charges mean many tenants are paying more rent while the landlord makes less profit.

Landlords leaving the market aren't coming back they are leaving due to regulations.

steddyeddy wrote: »

Well then why move out? It seems like you want to have your cake and eat it.

Because work is taking me abroad for a few years and the mortgage still needs to be paid.

Ray Palmer wrote: »

According to you I have been marvellously unlucky with tenants not paying their rent on time or fully. Tenants regularly skip payments with most not paying their last months rent so as to avoid deposit deductions. Where you got 1% is a mystery. When it does happen the lost to a landlord is at least a years rent.

Nonsense about avoiding tax. The government has increased tax and charges and changed regulations all to favour tenants and adding costs to landlords while restricting rent increases. How that is not hammering landlords. Costs and charges mean many tenants are paying more rent while the landlord makes less profit.

Landlords leaving the market aren't coming back they are leaving due to regulations.

You may have been unlucky. We can't say for sure as we don't know your situation. There's a also good chance that you may have been incredibly stupid and inexperienced as a landlord, as is often the case in these situations. Without an objective knowledge of the situation we can't really say for definite. It would be interesting to hear the tenant's side.

What we can comment on is factual percentage. According to the RTB approximately 1.2% of tenancies had disputes for over-holding and/or non payment of rent for the year ending Q2 2018. This is also probably higher than normal due to the housing crisis. Even so it is evidently not the major problem for most landlords, that many landlords would like us to believe.

As for the 85% this figure was widely publicised by revenue back in the early 2000s and is one of the reasons for the establishment of the PRTB in 2004 and the enactment of relevant legislation. Landlord tax evasion was widespread and accepted. Indeed all the places I rented till 2003 were strictly cash in hand affairs. Not a rent book to be seen anywhere.

What landlords also seem to be conveniently ignoring is the amount of support the government has given them over the last ten years, mainly by keeping a huge amount of empties out of the market through entities such as Nama, and being reluctant to impose measures that would prevent opportunistic hoarding of vacant properties. A great example of this situation is the Elysian in Cork, Ireland's tallest building. 244 units, only 20 occupied until 2017. 224 vacant from 2008 until 2017. Kept off the rental market. Had these been released onto the rental market it could have easily driven over a hundred landlords in the Cork area to bankruptcy as their substandard properties wouldn't have been able to compete with the state of the art newly built apartments in the Elysian.

Landlords are also forgetting recently enacted legislation which effectively guarantees their rental income to rise by 4% per annum. I'm not aware of any other business that receives this type of support, a guaranteed rise in income every year.

Frostybrew wrote: »

Landlords are also forgetting recently enacted legislation which effectively guarantees their rental income to rise by 4% per annum. I'm not aware of any other business that receives this type of support, a guaranteed rise in income every year.

Perhaps you should read the respective legislation again: 4% is a maximum allowed, it is not guaranteed. The LL must also prove that they are entitled to any increase at all based on market rent. Hence contrary to your assertion, the government has not helped LLs - rather the exact opposite.

The whole thing sounds both very commie and also capitalism at its very worst at the same time.

fash wrote: »

How or why would rent be lower than a mortgage repayment?
Someone borrows money to provide a service and incurs additional costs in providing that service - and should sell their services for less than cost?

As regards the general question, the only way long term rental could be a thing is if there are non-profit /local authority rentals. Anything else will have to be geared at getting a profit which means rents rising over the long term and potentially out of the range of a pensioner tenant - it doesn't make sense to rely on the rental market in that case.

This is what gets me. Every landlord feels they should be able to buy a property with a huge mortgage, rent it and make a profit every month and then when the mortgage is paid off have this asset standing them hundreds of thousands.
Rent should be cheaper than buying, if a landlord has to put a bit towards the rental income every month then that's perfectly fine because its your mortgage as the owner of the property.
And I HATE this stupid argument some people, who either own a home or are actually landlords make that people should rent for life. Bonkers argument. Nobody what's to to be paying rent till they die, if I had a rented house and I had to retire tomorrow and even with downsizing I'd still be paying a grand a month if I was lucky and my pension might be 1500 a month, yeah great life choice, everyone should do it and pay a few wealthy landlords so they can have a comfortable existence.

Geuze wrote: »

If this is the case, why do millions of Dutch, Germans and Swiss rent all their lives?

'But other people do it' is no case for it at all. As far as I can see there are plenty of reasons not to and I would hope it never becomes normalised here.

Could you maybe address some of the points that have already been made, or is 'but other people do it' the best case that can be made for it?

iamtony wrote: »

This is what gets me. Every landlord feels they should be able to buy a property with a huge mortgage, rent it and make a profit every month and then when the mortgage is paid off have this asset standing them hundreds of thousands.
Rent should be cheaper than buying, if a landlord has to put a bit towards the rental income every month then that's perfectly fine because its your mortgage as the owner of the property.
And I HATE this stupid argument some people, who either own a home or are actually landlords make that people should rent for life. Bonkers argument. Nobody what's to to be paying rent till they die, if I had a rented house and I had to retire tomorrow and even with downsizing I'd still be paying a grand a month if I was lucky and my pension might be 1500 a month, yeah great life choice, everyone should do it and pay a few wealthy landlords so they can have a comfortable existence.

Anybody who enters business does so to earn a profit. In a normal functioning market rent would be cheaper than a mortgage. However we don't have a normal functioning market.

There are costs associated with home ownership other than just the mortgage. Ironically rent could be cheaper if the tax take on the rent was not so high.

There was a consultation paper by the Minister for Housing last year on the housing crisis asking for submissions.

I as a landlord made a submission, my suggestion was to extend the rent a room scheme to landlords, this would allow tenants save for a deposit.

One of the problems with the housing market is that people want to live in specific places but don't want to pay to live there. Houses are priced because of supply and demand, one of the factors driving demand is location and the surrounding amenities.

If you want to live in an area that has all the amenities around, good transport links etc then you should expect to pay a premium above a similar house that does not have these amenities.

You could afford to rent for your life if you are willing to rent in a location that you can afford not in a location you want to live in although you can't afford it.

The Irish system is biased towards home ownership.

People rationally respond to those incentives.

As a result, home ownership rates have tended to be high.

Nothing wrong with that, broadly.

It does make the labour market somewhat less flexible, as it reduces labour mobility.

Personally, I would not rent long-term.



I'm curious as to why millions of Dutch, Germans and Swiss do. I'm not saying there system is better, I just want to know more about it.

Do they not think that "rent is dead money"?