Landlords and property seen as purely investment tools to blame?

October 8, 2018

An article today by DailyMail online reports on the increasing generation of rent figures and how the Conservatives are looking to tackle this growing concern with an interest in increasing their own popularity with younger adults across the country.

Certainly today, property is far more of an investment product over being actually a home, prices driven up purely on what they can earn people / businesses with every single possible penny squeezed from them and an increasing amount of genuine first time buyers being forced out of the market and many times struggling to afford their rent.

“Under the plans, landlords would be encouraged to sell homes to tenants by being capital gains tax break.

So they would not have to pay the 28 per cent tax on their profits if the buyers had lived in the property for three years or more.”

This new scheme is initially looking at tempting landlords to sell their property portfolios with a bait of zero capital gains? Sounds a bit dodgy to me and how is that fair? What the easy solution would be of course, though many Tory MP’s have property portfolios and would not want it, is a straight and easy to understand level of tax on 2nd homes. If a landlord has has a portfolio then they are scaled up taxes so eventually after say five property it is simply uneconomical to own anymore. This would flood the property market, cause a correction in house prices, enable more genuine buyers to purchase and own a home and everyone is happy – Of course except those who see property as a business or those in rental property that should not be, ie illegal immigration.

“Theresa May has pledged to get the country building again as she makes tackling the housing crisis a key plank of her premiership.” Plank being the operative word here I think…

Christopher Walkey

Founder of Estate Agent Networking. Internationally invited speaker on how to build online target audiences using Social Media. Writes about UK property prices, housing, politics and affordable homes.

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