‘How do I survive?’: The renters and landlords losing out in the UK economic crisis - BBC Newsnight 

Great segment, it was just made 7 years too late. It’s almost as if the mortgage crisis has resulted in the media lifting up a rock they had previously ignored for the last 12 years to find desperate renters underneath, clinging on for dear life and they are like “oh! There are other people suffering too as well as homeowners!” It’s all too little too late

I don’t get this about the UK - both me and my partner came to this country dirt poor. We’ve worked our way to some of the top jobs mostly through endless dedication and this is not even our first foreign language to have to figure out. We started cleaning and serving fast food whilst studying and doing everything we can to have outstanding performance at any job. The opportunities in the UK are immense but what seems to be lacking is community. When people fall down there is nobody to pick them up! Benefits in my country of origin are even worse but people help each other, we live together in one house if difficult to afford bills. I don’t understand this obsession in the UK for people to struggle on their own and their family members doing nothing? Why would people live alone as students or as elderly parents if the bills are going up? I’ve had friends live with us until they figure things out, no question about family. We continue to help each other and invest in each other’s skills in good and bad times. We lift each other up through thick and thin. The fact that this is lacking in the UK is absolutely bizarre, people seem constantly frustrated at the government whilst failing each other. There have been days where I couldn’t find a job, so my responsibility became to help all my flatmates by preparing their lunch, pressing their shirts and creating a budget for our shopping. Always doing what you can goes a long way, people see you and appreciate you. Times are tough but people are strong, they are just looking for help in the wrong places. I wish I could invite you all in my community! I’m doing as much as I can through charity but wish I could do more…

I have very little sympathy for people with multiple properties. You were happy as larry a couple of years ago when your tenant was not only paying off the mortgage of the property you owned, but lining your pockets as well. The minute the market dips though and it's "woe is me". I feel much more sorry for the tenant who is spending their hard earned cash on someone elses mortgage because the far too over-priced housing market won't allow them to save up a deposit high enough to get on the ladder!

The buy to let scheme is one of the reasons the rental market is in such a state.

Anyone else shed a tear hearing 10 house owner Colin’s story. That poor man.

Is this really a good time to buy stocks? I know everyone says the mrkt is ripe enough for buying but will stocks tank further this year? How long until a full stock recovery? How are other people in this mrkt raking in over $250k gains within months, I'm really just confused at this point.

Houses are to live in, not an investment opportunity. We cannot choose not to live somewhere, it is not some luxury we can cut in rough times. What would we do if people or companies just bought up all the drinking water and sold that back to us for a profit, as an "investment"?

poor landlord might have to sell one of his 10 properties for a reasonable price to a first time buyer! The horror!

Ban ~3+ property ownership. Lock rent.

We’re facing the same issues in the U.S. Each year, rent on average prior to the pandemic was going up by about$100/month. Beginning this year it’s more like $300/month - I’m paying more now for half the space. I just retired and am dipping into my savings so much more than planned I’ll have to get a job to supplement. I don’t know how the younger generations are able to save.

Where are the tiny violins for the poor landlords

additionally to building council houses we could convert a lot of them mostly empty or air bnb's back to council houses.

Too many rich people protecting their investment in property has lead to this. The only reason I've got a home is due to losing one of my parents, I work full time, and I honestly don't know how anyone could survive in my area paying £500 for a single room in a house share.

This is because ( like in the US ) hedge fund managers have realised that they can buy property out from under regular people and make profits when either selling it or increasingly they are renting them out, for much higher rents than the market reasonably would have reached. Hence only the upper middle classes can afford them. Which creates even more homelessness.

Buckingham has thousands of empty rooms.

Don't look at Kitchener Ontario prices lol. That's an hr drive south of Toronto. And the avg house is over $800,000. Good luck finding rent for less than $1500 for a 1 bedroom.

It's bad everywhere, I live in California and I pay$1,350 for a bedroom

We’re bleeding ourselves dry of money, all because our government can’t get their shit together! 😢😠

Lady at the end, has pretty much hit the nail on the head, when it comes to the current changes being faced in society. She is having to choose one single priority, and then sacrificing everything else, just in order to achieve that goal.

In my town the council have built houses but still no one can afford them because the council has doubled the rent on them.

No way out, only going to get worse, Can't believe it's so expensive to live on earth 🌎, Even when you die you pay for your funeral, We pay to live on earth nothing for free.

She won't say no

The same thing is happening in the USA. Instead of Section 8 housing it's called Tax Credit communities, you'll see newer developments but most mid-level renters make too much to rent (I know that sounds absurd) in tax credit communities but not enough for "luxury" housing. I'm leaving where I am renting now because the company I lease from wants $225 more per month on the next lease renewal. It used to be like $25 and $50 increases per annual renewal, now many folks in the USA are seeing $200+ increases and that's a lot of money for many, it cuts too much into the budget with everything else inflated. Just like the landlord in this video, in USA the tax credit communities get government subsidies. To make matters worse homes are so expensive now, the few homes in the lower price range end up with bidding wars and corporate cash bidders always outbid the conventional rate folks. It's tragic and criminal.

Rent and the value of real-estate goes up 7% per year. The problem is that wages did not. That has to go wrong at some point

My rent went up by 20% this month. I’m disabled on disability support. And he’s selling too. It’s unaffordable. But there’s no where else !

Housing went stupid 40 years ago, its just that most people forgot that housing wasn't supposed to be a gigantic, impossible expense for the remainder of your life. My grandfather bought his first house for the equivalent to £15,000 and before that he rented for the equivalent to just under a days work and there were no property taxes either. The only way to do that now is to ignore every relevant law and regulation that exists and then dodge taxes like the plague..

Why is the presenter so cheery talking about the rental crisis?

How to survive: tell your landlords faces "you'll get your rent when you fix this damn door"

I have been saving up for a few years now and have a got a good lump sum for a deposit. But, with the cost of houses, I am now buying a detached house in Sweden with a 10-acre forest. No mortgage, big cities an hour away, and I can live off grid. To many people on this island, not enough houses right now or being built, & the rich buying up all the houses for their investment portfolio.

No sympathy for landlords

Poor peoples who cant afford is important to rich who own this houses they hold property price high, same with everything, lowering the price where peoples can afford means lowering their passive investment value

The guy with 10 houses, rent is not supposed to be so high it covers your mortgage and rates and fees. You are the one buying those houses, the renters are not supposed to be buying it for you. Rent is supposed to be less than cost of buying as with buying the mortgage is only for length of the loan and you owns the house. Traditional idea is you rent while save up to buy or continue to rent because you can't afford to rent. If those 10 houses are forced to sell off then the new owner would still rent out or live in them.

What about landlords ripping out tenants with more rent as per the market demand

So hard nowadays

The lack of affordable housing is and always has been a bigger problem than energy, even if that's a topical issue. We desperately need more modern apartment buildings and a better balance between houses and flats (as they do in Spain, Japan, and so many other countries). The few towers going up in London and other city centres are only for the upper-middle classes or super rich.

we are facing the same issue in hk, we actually living in the small space for family include child, 200 feet square containing 4 people, it is actually happen in hk, In this worst space, we also have to paid around 200 dollars per year,those housing problem is still happen among us.

Ah no. That poor landlord with his ten properties. Did anyone else notice that sparkle in his eye when he spoke about the good old days of throwing tenants out when they couldn't afford rent?

Yes eyes

1:56 these landlords with multiple mortgages should not exist. Simply put buy to let mortgages should not exist. That is what is causing over inflated housing prices.

UK needs to stop sending billions of pounds on weapons to Ukraine when the people need it for winter. UK first.

Stormi angry for spirit talkative in her heads

For starters - Don't dye your hair. Don't buy make-up. Don't waste your money on tattoos. Don't buy fancy toiletries when a bar of cheap, simple soap and a £1 bottle of shampoo will do. In fact, just the bar of soap will do. Fix taps if you're paying water on a meter. Open a fricking window to stop damp encouraging mould to build up - it's not been so cold you have to shut them all up yet! I'm in Scotland and we haven't even had a frost yet. Wear something warmer than flimsy cotton just because you like the skull pattern. Jumpers and wool - cheap in charity shops. On another video, I saw a man complaining he couldn't heat his house - again, he had dyed hair while he and his girlfriend were spending £4.70 each on bus fares to get to her parents to wash the baby. Now...how much would it cost to switch on a kettle for a couple of minutes? Not £9.40, I know that! Meanwhile, a bunch of people elsewhere, also complaining about the cost of living, were glugging beer and playing bingo. Get your heads into gear: You can live without alcohol, cigarettes, hair dye, make up, hairdresser appointments, tattoos, and visits to other family members (send them an email). Socialise on a pre-planned walk with your friends/relatives or round each other's houses, taking turns to switch on heating. And play board games instead of gambling your money away on things like bingo and lottery. Families - live together, instead of having one or all your kids trying to scrape together living on their own. It's obviously not the time. Bring granny into the home, so she isn't trying to cope on her own. Her additional pension will help your costs. Everyone has got something they can switch off. My neighbour complains about things being tough - and he's 'still' out there mowing his lawn once a week and driving absolutely everywhere. Him and his wife never share a car, and they never try to plan a one-trip-does-all to help themselves (which is what we do in our family. We plan when we absolutely 'need' take the car, drive it to the very edge of town, and walk the rest of the way to the shops with a shopping trolley. That saves petrol and gives us some warming exercise).

Knows some chose not

Same in Ireland

I don’t see house cost rising problems so far in Japan. However cost of commodities are gradually increasing every month even our salaries are not rising. We are struggling to live our lives as well…

My kids were all pushing 30 when they flew the nest. They had nearly a decade of hard saving each. That was the deal, pay me no board and lodgings, on condition that you get yourself financially sorted and don't end up a slave to private landlords. Luckily they all accepted the deal and are all on the housing ladder with reasonable interest rates because they had good deposits.

Bones truths

Man please,I came to the Uk 7 years ago with my wife we had nothing, today we own our own house,my wife has a great job and an electric car,I have a new van and I am self employed. I get that some people can not work but People who don’t want to work should not complain about anything wrong with this country especially on TV.I know so many people milk this country to live of benefits,these people should go see what’s it’s like in Africa when there is no work If I lose my house today I will work my But off to provide for my family.Cronic pain,depression flipping half dead dying of cancer,you won’t find me sitting complaining

at 2.50 : "A typical home here costs £163,000" Well I live up here near Durham and my house is on market for £79,950 and it certainly IS a Typical home here i.e. a miner's cottage two-up two-down, mine has the benefit of a double storey extension so the bathroom is upstairs. You can get houses up here that are much much cheaper than £163k !!

Oh my, poor "joe average" landlords, i want to donate!! thank you for bringing this to our attention, BBC!

And she

Sadly that's everywhere, here in Germany housing prices are absolutely disgusting, just to rent a tiny room and share a flat with 3 others costs you nearly 7-800€/month, just for a goddamn room. If you wanna rent 1-2bd flat are going for 1000€ where i live now. And its impossible to even consider buying it, prices are around 200-300.000€ We, the younger Generation got seriously get screwed over by the previous ones.

Something really needs to be done.

Have the landlords considered not buying so much avocado toast and Starbucks? Or pulling themselves up by their bootstraps perhaps?

No one speaks about the HMO licence that made it almost impossible for sharers to rent a property. Only families are accepted to most flats.

HongKongers: These are rookie number

2:00 LOL why is the UK government paying 475 per month???The government should build apartments and give free housing to people NOT paying rent to private individuals.Why are rents going up? Because the government is paying.Here in the EU there is no such thing, the government does not go door to door to see who has a house to rent to accommodate the lazy and poor...the poor get apartments and houses that are owned by the government never by private citizens. Private citizens rent to people who can pay rent and if they stay empty for too long, they sell them, not horde them like the guy in the video because there are taxes and if the property doesn't produce, why keep it?That's why you're going down UK, benefits upon benefits which fuels inflation and reward the lazy...you will feel it sooner or later nothing goes on forever.

And that friends is what happens when the rules of the market rule over people. Congratulations to the British for protecting the vulture funds. You are learning the lesson.

Boris will sort this mess out very quickley

The Government needs come up with a law to stop this high rent thing

Vancouver rental or even buying is expensive and everything else is also expensive. $2,400 and buying a house cost around $1,155,300 average if you want to live in nicer neighborhood with best views and less crime better school less problem from the community. Then you pay more for a home. Rest of Canada also cost more than yours market. There is always inflation year after year. The only way is to grow your money.Your salary can never cut it. Not mention starting a family or even having a pet.

I'm sure Colin can just sell 1 of those 10 properties and function again just fine. Greedy Boomers at it again moaning

I'm struggling 2 years downtown to harrow mistakes governor now

Houses are for living in not a source of 'investment'. There are always people who think they have the world beat.

my sister is stupid she brought 3 houses in Liverpool, house prices hasn't gone up as people in Liverpool mostly rely on council housing, Asians in London are booming.

1:55 When he says pay the Building Society, does he mean pay them for the mortgages on the properties that he is renting out?

I feel sooo sorry for Colin. we should skip meals to help the guy out. who's with me?

1:50 - Speaking as an almost boomer with a nice house paid in full. That landlord is full of crap. The problem we have is that there are too many landlords. We need to get rid of those middlemen leeching from society. Even if he was not raking in enough to cover the full mortgage costs each month he can flip the house and still make a large profit in 5-10 years. Who cares if he over reached and bought 10 properties. Sell them. There's plenty of people who need to buy right now. And there are plenty of other landlords raking it in on the backs of the working masses. No sympathy for that man at all. Go get a job you leech. And yes the interest rates are high, and they are likely to get higher. Interest rates hit 12% in the 80's so lets hope for all our sake that does not happen again, it would be a disaster. And who controls the interest rates? Bank of England. Who appoints the people making those decisions? The government. Might want to consider voting for Labor folks. The Torries want to snap up a whole lot of cheap housing in the next few years. You wait and see. Two more years of this at least.

Alice is so stressed about money that she spends it dying her hair green. Priorities, people!

Skilled

"You will own nothing. And be happy". - World Economic Forum

Combine self running generators and power walls in homes and businesses for seemingly endless clean energy everywhere all the time. Have a mechanical direct connect to the axle of EVs and solar, to super charge them. No more plugging in. And those are just a few technologies we already have to use to improve society greatly.

So those with property can get mortgages to buy more propertys so they can rent them out at a profit and increase their assets by owning more real estate and force people without assets to rent at high prices because of housing shortage caused by landlord monopoly on housing, which also forces house prices up making them unaffordable to ordinary people.

£1000+ a month before you can even think about buying food. It's an absolute scandal.

How interesting is it that raising interest rates reduces the amount of homes that people can build, causing an even larger shortage. The shortage drives prices up.

This is ridiculous, people struggling to make ends meet in this day & age,wages not sustaining people Must feel pointless, and affecting their mental health.

£163,000 ($252,000CDN). Here in Vancouver that would barely buy you a parking spot never mind a home.

Get rid of the conservatives

The start of the video: My impression is that there is generally a very low standard in British rental apartments. Or am I wrong? Robertsen, Norway.

keep voting Tory and this will get even 'better and better and better'. Tories favour a rentier society. the UK housing market is a prime example. unsustainable, unfair

Ireland is worse for renters average rent is €1500 per month and less than 700 rental properties available on the market for the entire country.

Its not easy to be a landlord but if you decide to go into that business then its on you. It can be a nightmare so you would be very nieve to think otherwise. When landlords start moaning it always makes me laugh. Its like a shelf stalker moaning about working in asda. You made the decision so you live with it.

My rent here in the US jumped from 2591 to 3334. It was basically madness no matter where I looked.

it's just the beginning, winter is ahead.

You can’t claim universal credit if ur a student, something fishy

After being a small landlord in U.S. for 6 years now, I can quite confidently say the pay is sht, its more like public service work. I break even paying my own bills and am actually slowly losing money. And I've got 5 rentals, which I renovated myself and paid for with money I earned working. The problem is the bills are considerable and the work and hassle and drama of renting to people is much more than you think if you haven't done it. In fact I don't want any more, because I would have no life at all. I'm doing it to be self employed, that's it. And don't give me this "You have multiple properties" business. Other families are living in those apartments, I'm not even allowed to go in them except to fix things, do all the upkeep work and I pay all the bills and taxes for them. I have multiple dependents, more like. You make very little on each, and honestly renting a single house to someone else costs more than its worth, I'd never do it. There may be rich landlords out there, but they are rich for other reasons.... have huge numbers of properties or are corporate rental giants. Period.

Oh no won't someone think of the poor landlords who can afford to buy multiple properties (removing homes from the market that young couples could buy and driving up property prices). They're the real victims in all of this economic turmoil we're currently going through.

A lot of homes need to be nationalised and turned into councils housing again energy needs to nationalised I can see by this and my gf how lucky I am to live in housing association

On universal credit yet she tells us her wages are too low…. That’s the problem !

That's what capitalism is all about. Profits. Nothing else matters.

me and my partner are now homeless and living in the car after a "no fault eviction" it was our fault alright, asking the landlord if we could have double glazing after 5 years of freezing. a man came around to measure and quote the windows, 3 days later we got our eviction notice. With no money and currently between jobs at that time we did not have any extra money for a deposit on another place or the money to move e.g. hire a van. it is very hard to get a job when you have no address! we dont have any C/O address we can use, no family and friends are not in a position to help! Ive got a stomach ulcer and hernia that need surgery, also have arthritis and my partner has sleep apnea. the council has said we are only band D so no help for us as we have to sleep in the car while they let all these immigrants come into the country and put them into hotels and the like. This country is fucked, and we have lost any love or respect for it. So much for winning the war, i bet it would be a better place today if we had lost the war, after all its all this back door bollocks with the WEF that has caused this!

If u want to save money one option is to live in a large van but first find a save place to park brilliant if the greedy scum land Lords keep demanding sky high rents this is the only way forward or even better rent caravan ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

*Why do students expect to be financially sound? The state is lending them money for their education, with no deadline on when to pay it back, they're on universal credit to pay for their day to day living (more free money) and they have no experience in the job market with which to justify a higher wage demand. Why would you expect to NOT be struggling in those circumstances? They'll all find the money for beer and weed though.*

It's almost as if the government only give a damn about the 1% and couldn't care less what happens to the peasants.

Some renters do not look after the houses they rent, removing mould can be managed with mould cleaner from supermarkets A Polish renter has just moved out and left hundreds of pounds of damage including dangerous electrics where they have fiddled with electrics, Legislation needs to be designed to protect both tenants and landlords. and agents held more accountable for documented checks, We should all be working together to ensure properties remain available, The recent social rent freeze is causing problems as landlords who are already stretched will find it difficult to maintain properties. Many are now just quitting the business.

Landlords 😳

Colin makes me sick, it's his type that make it harder.

Added to this is the fact that you have people from places like Hong Kong who can sell a tiny flat (300 square feet or there abouts) for over 500,000 UK pounds - which they can use to buy a house in the UK - and many, many are selling maybe 2 to 3 flats.

If interest rates keep going up and people like that guy with 10 properties are forced to sell then that will put downward pressure on house prices. Yeah it will suck for low income renters for a few years but that is the point of interest rate rises, to put downward pressure on prices so that everyone who earns money from wages does not go backwards in real terms.. I live in Australia and housing properties are already falling but it's still impossible to buy a 3 bedroom home for 163K pounds (300K AUD) anywhere in the country that is even remotely close to a built up area. Parts of the UK seem quite cheap in comparison.

The government has restricted landlords so much that they struggle to maintain their properties for their tenants. They have to sell up which means less rental properties or increase the rent to cover the increased mortgage rates.