Today.
In The Irish Times.
Colin Gleeson writes about the rental sector and residential landlords.
He writes:
Pat (66) has been a residential landlord all his life, but he’d prefer if his full name wasn’t published by The Irish Times. “Do you know the opprobrium I would get if I was identified?” he asks. “The hate mail I would get?”
After falling into the sector “by accident”, Pat at one stage had about 80 tenants on his books in 20 properties around Dublin 6 and Dublin 1. “I wouldn’t house one now,” he says. “Not one.”
This, he argues, is due to “appalling treatment” by the Government, and what he calls the “Tesco-isation” of the sector.
“What I mean by that is, the small guy who was providing accommodation was put out of business while the bigger players came in.
“These big American companies are coming in and they have no problem with compliance and all the registration and so forth. It’s easy for them because they have the scale, but, for the small guy, it’s murderous.
“Pretty soon, the only people letting properties will be the big huge companies. When tenants have a problem, they’ll ring up a number to say the toilet’s blocked, and they’ll get an answering machine somewhere in the United States.”
…The story of the housing and rental crisis has largely been told through the prism of the house buyer and the tenant, but Pat can barely contain his anger at what he perceives to be a stacked deck, and vitriol towards landlords among the public.
‘Tesco-isation’ of home rental sector driving landlords out (Colin Gleeson, The Irish Times)
Mark Stedman/Rollingnews
Lol at Sibling saying this site doesn’t do clickbait
And social justice for all
“These big American companies are coming in and they have no problem with compliance and all the registration and so forth”
http://i.imgur.com/3Ls14qY.gif
If they brought in regulations that effectively meant only global food chains like McDonalds could operate in Ireland then there would be uproar and all local restaurants would shut down. This is what they do to landlords and some people cant see the problem. Under the current laws one bad tenant can make a small landlord bankrupt yet the government is happy to see the market handed over to global funds who pay almost no taxes. most small landlords pay massive taxes on their rental income.
No, the truth is that the rental sector in Ireland has long been dominated by small landlords. Many (most?) have seen it as a way to make a quick buck and have had little interest or ability in the responsibilities of being a landlord – other than collecting rent.
I would be shocked if the ‘American operators’ and the agents they hire were worse on average than the buy-to-let boyos.
‘compliance and … registration’ is a basic part of most industries. Why should housing be different?
Which regulations do you object to specifically?
It’s good to hear the opinion of the people who actually are needed to fix the housing problem. The treatment of landlords who kept their rent for sitting tenants below the market rent has been disgraceful and has directly led to the recent sharp increases in asking rents for new lets.
I don’t think landlords are necessary to fix the housing problem.
Haha she does have a point though. Sort of.
More likely when they ring the bigger Landlord they will get through to a management company who will have fulltime tradesmen ready to fix the problem quickly instead of having to wait weeks for the smaller landlord to take the finger out and fix it.
Of course. If I walk into a McDonald’s in Dublin or Dungarvan the toilets will be clean.
“The small guy”
20 units / 80 tenants ain’t too small.
“These big American companies are coming in and they have no problem with compliance and all the registration and so forth. It’s easy for them because they have the scale, but, for the small guy, it’s murderous.”
80 tenants paying rent ought to cover an employee or at least an accountancy firm to cover some of your compliance. I guesstimate 150k per year gross at a minimum.
There are 1,000 rental properties leaving the market every month for several years now.
They are not being replaced, so although “Pat” is by no means a small landlord he makes a valid point.
20 properties isn’t small.
Also, “residential landlord all his life”?
Was he the Boss Baby? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiQR_srtc-E