BBC wrote:The number of homes available to rent in the UK has fallen by a third over the past 18 months.
The sharp drop in the number of listings has helped drive up rents for new tenants by 11%.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65090846
Has anyone changed their mind about strangling the BTL market being a good idea?
I was a long term renter, I'm certainly glad I don't need to do that any more.
I gave up a few years ago - yields quoted are nothing like when you take off taxes and the damage caused by tenants. Letting agents in Brighton are terrible - and because of the transient population the tenants don't give a fuck.
With the new rulings and mortgage increases - and more and more people going to de-fault I think the halcyon days of property have gone. Mind you the increase in capital the house gave me, when sold , was rather nice.
BBC wrote:The number of homes available to rent in the UK has fallen by a third over the past 18 months.
The sharp drop in the number of listings has helped drive up rents for new tenants by 11%.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65090846
Has anyone changed their mind about strangling the BTL market being a good idea?
I was a long term renter, I'm certainly glad I don't need to do that any more.
Can't be bothered with the sob stories. Too many houses available to rent and not enough to buy was apparently a landlords problem, now it seems too few houses available to rent is also a landlord's problem.
I'm more interested in -why-, it seems, landlords are getting out of the renting game.
DefTrap wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 1:46 pm
I'm more interested in -why-, it seems, landlords are getting out of the renting game.
The need to bring the stock up a couple of notches on the EPC ladder can't be cheap.
Currently you can rent out any old draughty inefficient shed providing it's at least an E or better, from 2025 (or 2028 if already occupied with tenants) it's got to be C or better.
For the gaff we're living in that'd mean new windows, a new boiler, extra loft insulation and cavity wall insulation at the least.
Lots of older rental properties will need a shed load of money spent to meet the standards. No cavity means either internal or external wall insulation, both usually present significant and expensive problems.
Then there is the constant pressure to ban S21 notice to quit. No S21 means no easy way to sell with vacant posession.
If I had my money in property I would be selling up too.
My understanding was/is , if you are off a mains gas grid ( therefore limited to oil or propane heating ) , you would get an exemption with a D rated EPC ?
Treadeager wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 3:06 pm
My understanding was/is , if you are off a mains gas grid ( therefore limited to oil or propane heating ) , you would get an exemption with a D rated EPC ?
You forgot electric heating which is all I had when I had no mains gas. I suspect the answer may be to get air source heat pumps installed, you'll probably get a good EPC rating but it will be a rubbish solution.
It was a terraced house on an 80s estate, bigger houses had mains gas so I was amazed the developer could be that tight fisted not to run the gas main 100 yards further.
Treadeager wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 3:06 pm
My understanding was/is , if you are off a mains gas grid ( therefore limited to oil or propane heating ) , you would get an exemption with a D rated EPC ?
Dunno, I've not seen that, but in all honesty it wouldn't apply to me so I've not looked that hard.
Members of a trans-Pacific trade pact have agreed that Britain can proceed with its bid to join the group, Japan said on Friday, as it looks for new trading relationships after leaving the European Union.
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam.
If the UK is admitted to full membership this will include four of the Five Eyes, with the remaining 'eye' being the USA which will hopefully either become a future member, or negotiate a separate trade deal with the UK.
TOKYO, March 29 (Reuters) - The 11 members of a trans-Pacific trade pact which includes Japan and Australia are expected to soon reach broad agreement with Britain on it joining the partnership, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
An announcement is expected to be made soon, the sources added, declining to be identified because the information has not been made public.
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people." - Giordano Bruno
As fentanyl deaths surge in California, lawmakers kill bills that would punish dealers..
SACRAMENTO —
As thousands of Californians die each year from drug overdoses fueled by fentanyl, a bitter fight has emerged in Sacramento over how lawmakers can hold dealers accountable without refilling state prisons and waging another “war on drugs.”
On one side of the debate are Republicans and moderate Democrats calling for stronger criminal penalties for dealers who sell the deadly drug, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and contributed to nearly 6,000 overdose deaths in California in 2021.
On the other are left-leaning Democrats who’ve spent the last decade retooling the state’s penal code to favor treatment and rehabilitation over long prison sentences, and who are reluctant to embrace policies they fear could devastate Black and brown communities.
The disagreement reached a boiling point this week at the state Capitol, as Californians whose family members died from fentanyl overdoses packed a hearing room where Democrats voted down a bipartisan bill that would require warning convicted fentanyl dealers that they could face homicide charges if they sell it again. Meanwhile, a Democratic lawmaker shelved several other bills to increase sentences for fentanyl dealers.
“I was around during the crack cocaine epidemic, and this is really very similar to the hysteria around crack cocaine,” said Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “And we rushed to come up with a solution, instead of looking at it from both a public health crisis and a public safety crisis and to bring them both together.”
A desire to not repeat that history led him to shelve several fentanyl bills for the rest of this year, Jones-Sawyer said. He said many of the proposals focused on “how can we fill up the prisons again” instead of a long-term solution to addiction.
Jones-Sawyer said he wants the Legislature’s approach to align with recent funding and enforcement actions on fentanyl from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta. Newsom proposed nearly $100 million in the 2023-24 budget for prevention, treatment and education efforts, and expanded the California National Guard’s operations at the border. Bonta has also ramped up enforcement, leading to the increased seizure of fentanyl pills and powder.
The Legislature’s public safety committees have a record of sidelining bills that would lengthen prison sentences or create new crimes, because the Democrats who control them do not want California to incarcerate more people. But the severity of the fentanyl crisis has invited criticism of that commitment and forced a broader discussion over what role the criminal justice system should have in solving the problem.
“Fentanyl is causing an unbelievable number of deaths, and the trajectory is, unfortunately, headed in the wrong direction,” state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange) said at a hearing for Senate Bill 44 before it was voted down.
The proposal would have required courts to provide a written admonishment to those convicted of fentanyl drug offenses, warning them of criminal liabilities if they sell a fentanyl product that kills another person.
The proposal could make it easier to secure a future conviction, because the warning could be used as evidence for prosecutors to prove that a defendant was aware of the risks in drug dealing. It was modeled after the state’s DUI Advisory, which is used to deter repeated drunk driving. Two other versions of the bill have failed to pass the committee in recent years.
State Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, a Yucaipa Republican who co-authored SB 44 , fought back tears during the hearing as family members spoke of those lost to overdoses. She said she was “heartbroken” by the bill’s defeat.
“Make no mistake. A policy like SB 44 would make a difference,” Ochoa Bogh said.
Umberg asked for reconsideration of the bill, which means it could soon get another vote. But he’ll likely have to accept an amendment proposed by Democrats to limit the bill to dealers who explicitly know they are selling fentanyl or laced products — a recommendation he has so far rejected.
State Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) said the proposal was reminiscent of the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and ’90s that led to thousands of Black and brown people serving life sentences for drug offenses.
“Simply making it easier to prosecute someone for murder will not address or solve this problem,” Bradford said.
Jones-Sawyer plans to hold an informal hearing this fall, when the Legislature is not in session, at which everyone who has a stake in solving the fentanyl crisis will have a seat at the table, he says. That means holding off until then on considering legislation like Assembly Bill 367, which would have increased criminal penalties for those who sell, furnish, administer or give away fentanyl products that result in great bodily injury.
“I felt like fentanyl is such a serious issue that it could pass the committee,” said Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, a San Diego Democrat and author of AB 367.
Watching in the hearing room as the Senate panel killed SB 44 was Matt Capelouto of Riverside County. The bill is called “Alexandra’s Law” in honor of his 20-year-old daughter, who died after taking a fentanyl pill that she bought from a dealer on Snapchat while she was home from school for the holidays.
“What are the politicians of the Public Safety Committee, the people charged with protecting the lives and livelihoods of their constituents, actually doing? What are they doing about the drug dealers, the people responsible for knowingly jeopardizing the lives of the people they trade dollars for death to?” Capelouto said after the hearing.
“I’ll tell you what they’re doing,” he said. “Nothing.”
