StraferJack

". But ?200? ?300? Quantifying that value is difficult." only if you are greedy and you let it It's nothing to do with politics and everything to do with not being a bad human being. If you are taking a decision which effectively makes a family homeless you are quantifiably a Bad Person If you have an empty house and you choose to let at market rates preventing some families from renting it, that is different. Nothing was taken away that they already had But if you are a tenant and your landlord forces you out for no reason other than greed? Irredeemable (and I'm not speaking from no experience. I was that landlord with that possibility of triple figure increases) markets operate to keep the cost of food down. But they are operating to push house prices up and up (with a customer base that has extremely polarised opinion of wether that is a good or bad thing). So you can't compare the two

"Appealling to people's better nature to charge a fair price." well for a start there ARE good and decent landlords out there who don't charge market rates. Not enough IMO but they do exist market forces aren't a binary use/ignore option either. By all means use the market but as with all manner of market activity you can have boundaries and regulations. The whole buy-to-let market could be discouraged for a start. You could cap rents at a % above your mortage payments rent controls existed in this country before and in many others - it's not science fiction to suggest them "but why would you want them?" To take the heat out of both buying/renting markets. To allow more people to spend less of their monthly income on them. To reduce the government/council overhead on paying dodgy landlords.

"As Jeremy pointed out, the market dictates the rent" No it doesn't. the market informs you what rent you could get. It doesn't dictate anything

"Surely rent is driven by supply/demand, not by landlords deciding they need a certain percentage of the property value every month?" With sitting tenants? rent is driven by supply and demand? So becuse you CAN charge more, wether they can afford it or not is moot? If the landlord isn't an investor but is doing it for lifestyle reasons/nest egg then why would they be interested in chucking someone out for more dosh?

You don't have to go to extremes (government owning all property?) to find a more stable middle ground Not sure if it's as true as it used to be but there appears to be a particularly avaricious property market in this country compared to many others - the mindset is what needs to change. have you (not you Londonmix -a rhetorical "you) got a house? well done, now chill, don't buy anymore and let other people find their own way. This idea that you need to invest in property doesn't need to trouble you. Buy to Let schemese - are they as aggressively markets and used in other countries? They are distorting the market The idea that if I owned a second property and after 5 years found it was worth twice what it was, I would ask my tenants for double the rent? ick...

or more specifically, it shouldn't be

"Its a business. " no, no it isn't

"so are you saying the rents should be kept the same while everything else was going up ..wages and prices too " I didn't say that - link it to inflation/some measure by all means. BUt to keep upping it by the value of the house? How is a tenant meant to keep up with that? I can well believe that a landlord buying a place with a view to letting it isn't going to see much in the way of profit for the forseeable. But, linked to the above, teh value of the property wil lbe rising over the long term. So even if the landlord doesn't make dime one over the whole period of letting it, they still end up eventually with a mortageg free propert worth $$$$$$$$$$$$

The profit comes when the tenants have payed the mortage for the landlord that he/she couldn't do themselves surely? Thiss 500k property - is that the worth now or when landlord took the mortgage? If the mortgage was taken when the propert was worth 150k, is 2500 still "fair"?

I don't think anyone is trying to say there was a golden age when it was easy giggirl But there is a a difference between "hard but doable" to "not even remotely possible" in your scenario, SE22 is the Hampstead Heath role, and somewhere else is the Stokey/ED role, so it all sounds plausible and doable But if you aren't already on the ladder I don't see where you could go to reenact your story. I've seen all the places others have mentioned (Norwood etc) but even on a salary of say 40k you ain't going to be able to get a house anywhere even BEFORE you get to the cereal-with-water-3-times-a-day diet struggling with payments

when this housing crash comes it's going to be messy The demand might be outsripping supply at the moment but that demand is leveraged beyond breaking point from the get go - when those interest rates go up again...

"It happended to be Hither Green near Lewisham, a considerable step down in terms of buzz and excitement but there you go, it was a 2 up 2 down and it was our first home." It's a well worn path Mick but as others have pointed out, moving up the ladders has become less do-able in the last couple of years I suspect most of the people saying "it is what it is, not really a problem " are well ensconsed in current homes and won't realise how things have changed unless they try and move

oh well played max

oops - there goes the day http://labs.tineye.com/multicolr/#colors=55b4c7,a26095,e73843,205c31;weights=25,25,25,25;

I wouldn't say my 2 year old suddenly hates nursery but she has become more vocal about saying she doesn't like going in the morning and how she doesn't like x or y (who used to be "best friends") From the way she tries to explain I get the impression she is just trying to take control of her universe a bit and hasn't fallen out with anyone - she is just building a story with the cast list and locations she knows. I'm not saying she is making everything up, but she does seem to be running with ideas

Willing to bet anyone going to that 1100 flat will find out a few significant problems But hey it's only 1100 English pounds. Every month Nothing to worry about

Not knocking you at all belle, just mildly nostalgic

With cabs otta, with cabs ;-)

that HO wasn't this month tho

The irony of her now preferring to travel "on daddie's shoulders" is not lost on me either

Before having a baby I assumed they all had a crawling stage but when my daughter got to similar 10 months stage, not only was she not interested in crawling and insistent on trying to walk, but speaking to other parents it seemed to be a common enough thing So what I did was: did my back in for 5 months helping her learn. That seemed to do the trick

Good article on the subject here http://nyti.ms/19zTaq0

See that thread about 10 down from this one? You'll find the reasons why it won't happen there

.

Edited because I can't find a way to make my point without being a snarky git