Most landlords aren’t rich. Most have one place. Maybe two. A lot bought them as a pension. Some barely make anything most months. The whole “fat cat landlord” thing just isn’t true.
Landlords didn’t cause the lack of housing. Policy did.
Everyone forgets Right to Buy. Sounded great at the time. And for some people it was. But the houses were sold and never replaced. That’s the bit people skip past.
Now the government can’t build enough homes and somehow landlords still get the blame. I genuinely don’t see how that makes sense.
If landlords packed it in tomorrow, where do people live?
The government doesn’t have the stock. Councils don’t either. People still need homes. That doesn’t magically change.
Yet landlords get taxed more, regulated more, blamed more, while quietly being relied on to house millions of people.
And then there’s the “it’s not a job” line.
Try 3am phone calls.
Floods.
Police needing access.
People locked out on Christmas Day.
Bills, compliance, repairs, constant costs.
Funny how none of that ever gets mentioned.
Are there bad landlords? Of course there are. Same as any industry. That’s not going away.
But pretending landlords are the problem doesn’t fix housing.
It just gives people someone easy to shout at.
