Virtually from the day we were born, we have been told
that everyone should own their own home. In 1971, around 50% of people owned
their own home and, as the baby-boomers got better jobs and pay, that
proportion of home owners rose to 69% by 2001. Homeownership was here to
stay as many baby boomers assumed it’s very much a cultural thing here in
Britain to own your own home.
But on the back of TV programmes like Homes Under the
Hammer, these same baby boomers started to jump on the band wagon of Edinburgh
buy to let properties as an investment. Edinburgh first time buyers were
in competition with Edinburgh landlords to buy these smaller starter homes… pushing
house prices up in the 2000’s (as mentioned in Part One) beyond
the reach of first time buyers. Alas, it is not as simple as that. Many factors
come into play, such as economics, the banks and government policy. But are Edinburgh
landlords fanning the flames of the Edinburgh housing crisis bonfire?
I believe that the landlords of the 56,507 Edinburgh
rental properties are not exploitive and are in fact, making many positive
contributions to Edinburgh and the people of Edinburgh. Like I have said before,
Edinburgh (and the rest of Scotland and the UK) isn’t building enough
properties to keep up the demand; with high birth rate, job mobility, growing
population and longer life expectancy.
For Scotland to standstill and meet current demand, the
country needs to be building 30,000 new households each and every year.
Nationally, we are currently running at 16,270 and in the early part of this
decade were running at around 14,000.
So let us look at what this means for Edinburgh…
For Edinburgh to meet its obligation on the building of
new homes, Edinburgh would need to build 2,729 households each year. Yet, we
are missing that figure by around 1,249 households a year.
For the Government to buy the land and build those
additional 1,249 households, it would need to spend £251,313,163 a year in Edinburgh
alone. Add up all the additional households required over the whole of Scotland
as well the UK and the Government would need to spend £1.86bn and £23.31bn respectively
each year… the Country hasn’t got that sort of money!
With these problems, it is the property developers who
are buying the old run-down houses and office blocks which are deemed
uninhabitable by the local authority, and turning them into new attractive
homes to either be rented privately to Edinburgh families or Edinburgh people
who need council housing because the local authority hasn’t got enough
properties to go around.
The bottom line is that, as the population grows, there
aren’t enough properties being built for everyone to have a roof over their
head. The regulation that the Scottish Government is introducing into the
Private Rented Sector in Scotland should put rogue landlords out of business
and give tenants the more regulated rental market they should be able to expect,
with greater security for tenants, where they can rely on good landlords
providing them high standards from their safe and modernised home. As in
Europe, where most people rent rather than buy, it doesn’t matter who owns the
house – all people want is a clean, decent roof over their head at a reasonable
rent.
So only you, the reader, can decide if buy to let is
immoral, but first let me ask this question – if the private buy to let
landlords had not taken up the slack and provided a roof over these people’s
heads over the last decade… where would these tenants be living now? because
the alternative doesn’t even bear thinking about!
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