Landlords invited to council's letting scheme launch (From Watford Observer)

Maybe if greedy landlords didn't spend the last 15 years hoovering up properties left, right and centre, then affordable housing may still have been available for all to benefit from?

Perhaps if there were no sub-prime loans and derivatives based on wrapping up the same and selling on to other institutions, landlords would not have purchased so many buy-to-let properties. Greed might have something to do with it, but so does opportunity.

If a person had selected a particular base rate tracker mortgage in 2006/7, they could be paying as little as 0.5-1.5% interest, which on a buy-to-let is tax deductible.

The financial institutions and loan companies should have been better regulated and interest only mortgage products with minimal or no deposits should not have been available.

We are now in a situation where buy-to-let rates are not as profitable, property values are barely at their 2007 levels and rents are high due to the large deposit requirements and lack of job security. People who can afford the deposits probably don't want to invest in residential property due to the uncertainty surrounding the job market.

I wouldn't invest again in Watford. The rent returns are better elsewhere and commuting costs are too high.

So, Turp, the market mechanism, lack of regulation, easy mortgages, sub-prime lending and a very liberal lending policy are more to blame than professional landlords, who were probably more cautious in their investments than new entrants to the market.

Affordable housing exited the equation from 2003 onwards. In 1998, one could pick up a one-bed flat for £60k. That flat now costs over £200k.

Those landlords that piled in with interest only mortgages and are lying on paper losses got what they deserved.

I totally don't believe in buy to let, this forces property and rent prices skyward and out of the hands of people desperate to have a property of their own,or to even rent a property, personally i think second property owners in this country to be taxed to the hilt !