Shameless plug, for my just-released "fake home occupancy as a service", where my family and I charge you only 0.5% of the property value to satisfy the government's occupancy requirements. Contact info in my profile.
Letting someone have possession of property (yes tenants have possession) like this can be a dangerous thing to do in some jurisdictions - they can quickly gain rights to live there and you lose the rights to evict (or increase the rent - which could be a problem if they are charging you to live there!). Far more likely is that people start renting the empty property out+ - which will increase the supply in the rental market and help the housing costs... I.e. the intended effect.
EDITED
+ (with proper tenancy agreements which usually provide some balance of power between owner and tenant)
But that's the main difference to other countries. In Germany, it's the only way to get a tenant out (if they pay the rent). It's basically impossible to get a tenant out if you can't find a family member who wants to move in. It's a contract that can only be cancelled by one party (the tenant). Wouldn't call that no rights for the tenant. I can't think of other contracts that cannot ever be cancelled ordinarily by one party.
In most other countries the landlord has the right to cancel the agreement with certain notice.
In the UK the key is to make sure that the tenant is Assured Shorthold rather than Assured. Assured tenants can't be evicted (unless they don't pay rent or other similar reasons) and their rent can't be put up unless they agree to the increase. Assured shorthold puts the balance of power in favour of the landlord+. The default (since the late 1990's) is Assured Shorthold tenancy - but if someone tried to play silly legal games as joked about by the GP their tenant might accidentally become Assured.
I am not a solicitor. I am not your solicitor. If you need legal advice on any of these issues stop reading and find a solicitor.
+ (not as much as most people assume because most tenants don't know or enforce their rights - wrongly thinking that it would be difficult when in reality the landlord will usually fold after a couple of letters long before things go to court.)
Scotland and England have differing private landlord tenancy laws so it's worthwhile checking the fine details in this respect. Scotland has a similar agreement to the Assured Shorthold and Assured tenancy:
1. Short Assured Tenancy where [0]:
a) the tenant is entitled to remain in the property for at least six months provided they abide by the conditions of their lease. A landlord can only evict if there are reasonable grounds [1]
b) after the six months is up the landlord can then give notice to quit and the tenant has to leave [2]
In both cases these provide reasonable and fair conditions for both landlord and tenant.
In many cases now, most properties are let as Short Assured Tenancies. Anecdotally, my past three tenancy agreements have been Short Assured Tenancy agreements.
In Scotland:
Tenant deposits are no longer permitted to be held by landlords or agencies and should be deposited into one of three tenancy deposit schemes within 30 days of the beginning of the tenancy [6].
Landlords and agencies are no longer permitted to charge for additional "costs" such as credit checks and "administration fees" on top of a tenants deposit and first month's rent. In England this obnoxious behaviour is still a plague on tenants seeking to rent [7].
Most landlords are now required to register with the Landlord registration scheme run by the Scottish government [8]
Sure but you do get two months notice to quit which isn't too terrible. Most times you'll get a feel from the landlord whether they're serious about long term letting or whether this is a stopgap until they can sell their house for a better price. Most decent landlords are upfront about this in my experience.
If you want additional security you can always contract in for a longer minimum lease, for example twelve months. Alternatively hunt around for a property letting company who's long term business is just letting.
At the end of the day, nothing is permanent if the landlord stops paying their mortgage or other loan secured on the property you're renting.
There is also the social housing sector - Council Housing, Housing Association and Housing Co-op's. These can provide much longer term rentals, however they can be a bit harder to obtain due to lower monthly rents which can cause waiting lists. There tends to be less flexibility on property size and type, i.e. you'll get to rent what is deemed legally and healthwise necessary for your circumstances; for example if you're single don't expect to get a three bedroom home, those will be allocated to families.
> At the end of the day, nothing is permanent if the landlord stops paying their mortgage or other loan secured on the property you're renting.
In Germany, selling the house makes no nevermind to the tenants. Considering how many people rent here, it just makes sense to encourage long-term tenancies, they lead to better communities.
I would very much like that yet, like Germany's rental laws. That way, you don't develop a two tier class system of tenants with no security or attachment to their local community, and owners.
I wouldn't trust reneherse's service. My competing service, "actual home occupancy as a service", is bulletproof; we guarantee that we will occupy your house full time.
Competition is always welcome! We do however build solid relationships with the neighbors and enroll the kids in local schools to provide complete residency simulation. All for one low fee.
So you have someone pick up mail and make it look lived-in, but why would someone not just rent it out then?
Why pay for your service (assuming it's not tongue-in-cheek) when you can pay for a property manager (lets be generous and say 10%) and also get rental income to offset the investment?
Ultimately, that's why the city is doing this; Whether the property is rented or owner-occupied, there will be a consumer who is adding to the economy.
UK/London really has a problem with non-occupance - they should definitely follow suit.
Most investor owners really don't care for the yield. They want to hold for capital appreciation. And rentals are annoying, dealing with tennants. Stuff breaks.
Would you care if you purchased a $1m home cash to flip it in a few years for $1.4m?
You don't get too greedy. Usually there's a reason why bubbles form (e.g. a housing shortage in SF and London, gentrification of a certain area in a certain city etc) and often there are secondary factors as well.
Having both a clear exit price and timeframe in mind when buying is probably a good way to do it. Even if a property bubble starts to collapse, there is usually still sufficient time to get out.
Property is one of those things where people are irrational about purchasing, which is good if you want to make money. Some people don't even care about the price -- they want to buy in 201X, and buy a property they shall.
If you believe property to be (significantly) overvalued, then you should rent instead of buy. If you're at the end of a "boom", then it's not unreasonable to wait it out and see how prices progress. Low interest rates also tend to push residential prices higher, because people can pay off more principal monthly vs less if rates are higher. When buying property it's almost always better to buy when rates are high and refinance later than to buy when rates are low.
Buying high and selling low is also definitely a thing. That doesn't necessarily mean you can't find a good deal somewhere (you can), but it'll be much harder.
Tldr: Unlike what most people believe, property is not a "sure thing" investment.
This obviously depends on the investor, but yes, in many cases, knowing that your money will at least keep its value (or increase with inflation) is sufficient.
> Ultimately, that's why the city is doing this; Whether the property is rented or owner-occupied, there will be a consumer who is adding to the economy.
No, the city is doing this to increase housing supply. We do in fact have a housing crisis in Vancouver, this isn't just political rhetoric. When I was looking for an apartment about a year and a half ago, it was impossible to find one on the open market. Every open house had dozens of people showing up. I was eventually able to get a place through a personal connection; 10000 more units on the market would have made the process a whole lot easier.
I hear that some residents of Monaco who love the low taxes there are maybe not there as many days as they should be out of a given year. I hear they use timers on the lights and so forth to make their home look continuously occupied.
This more or less already exists in the form of anti-squat rental. They rent out empty houses/buildings for very low rent. The only downsides is zero renter protection, you can be kicked out at any time.
This can be a very good option if you need temporary housing. My brother did this for half a year to save on rent while his new house was being built.
Yet another HN-save-money-by-breaking-laws scheme.
The question is whether the house is a principal residence or an secondary residence/investment.
I mean, I guess you could base your business on helping people break laws, like selling dummys for getting commuters the passenger lane, but your customers are no less guilty than they already were.
