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 Bo’ness
buy to let properties as an investment. Bo’ness first time buyers were in
competition with Bo’ness 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 Bo’ness
landlords fanning the flames of the Bo’ness housing crisis bonfire?
I believe that the landlords of the 655 Bo’ness rental
properties are not exploitive and are in fact, making many positive
contributions to Bo’ness and the people of Bo’ness. Like I have said before, Bo’ness
(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 Bo’ness…
For Bo’ness to meet its obligation on the building of new
homes, Bo’ness would need to build 85 households each year. Yet, we are missing
that figure by around 39 households a year.
For the Government to buy the land and build those
additional 39 households, it would need to spend £3,991,748 a year in Bo’ness
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 Bo’ness families or Bo’ness 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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