Updating post from Reddit.
Have they tried cancelling their netflix and eating less avocado toast?
I have no awards to give. If I did, it would be to you.
It's a free one, but I got ya bud
Oh, well played.
That advice is good for defaulting tenants too.
Did you... think that that wasn't a joke?
The actual story here when you dig into it is that letting agents fees ‘soared’ according to the Macraes, so they sacked them and do the maintenance on 60 properties themselves. They probably are leveraged to the hilt, so need to save every penny, but nobody is ‘forcing’ them to work full time - they are working at their own business, which they could close tomorrow, sell everything and even with CGT make a profit.
Considering they’d need to have 25% equity in all these properties they don’t need to work. They just know they make more money than selling and gaining 7-8 figures in the equity back.
If on 60 properties they could sell into 0 money that simply means they spent it all already and made a series of extremely poor financial decisions. I too can buy a few lambos and stay at 1k a night hotels and run out of money. Didn’t mean I was poor. They’d have to have bought long ago very cheap with huge CGT and massive debts to end up with actually nothing. Aka spunked 7 figures up the wall.
They’re upset it’s not passive income where 6 figures hits their bank a year. They make it sound like they’re going to work stacking shelves at Tesco having lost it all lmao. No they’re still wealthy. If you can fuck up 60 properties into nothing you’re a special type of stupid.
Based on a quicj search average 2 bed is terraced is worth 250k x 60 and they've got 30% equity that's 4.5 million.
They could easily sell and see the rest of their days out even after tax
Not any more they can't, the capital gains tax has increased.
They'll still be incredibly well off, they just won't have their infinite money machine anymore
How has the capital gains tax on residential property increased from the 24% it was before the budget?
Not on residential property it hasn't.
Stamp duty has for second+ homes, but that affects buyers.
I never understand how landlords end up with so many leveraged properties. To me the beauty of btl is how it trickles away in the background and yes you occasionally get a call from an agent or tenant, but largely you just need to sit in the market and let it do it's thing.
Having 60 properties just seems like an incredible headache, the phone must ring every day for something. To think people get to that point through leveraging themselves so they can't even retire is utterly tragic. They could have had 5 properties paid off and be very comfortable.
People like this want you to think that they're special because they're small business owners and they risked it all so that's why they shouldn't pay taxes blah fucking blah. They don't want to take any responsibility for ANYTHING. With 60 properties, at that point you scale up your operation and hire full time property managers instead of getting a third party to do it if you think they're expensive.. like, fucking SNOWFLAKES, holy shit.. as you said, they're just mad it's not an easy passive income. Fucking leaches
Yep. Let's be honest here - they bought one type of asset in one area (totally undiversified) on leverage, didn't account for costs or the risk of regulatory or market changes. And they have significant equity, they're just whinging that they actually have to put some effort into it, rather than getting houses for free.
It's wild the delusion and entitlement. I could go into my SIPP, buy a bunch of leveraged options in one narrow sector and then complain that I have to come out of retirement if it all goes south - but you'd rightly say it was my fault.
BTL isn't some state-guaranteed welfare fund - it carries risk and variables. If someone YOLOs their whole pension into it, then that's their free market choice but it's also their risk, not ours.
"We didn't factor in the need to pay someone to maintain and manage the properties, so now the joke's on us"
We honestly thought we could let the houses fall down around our tenants while increasing the rent every year.
They presumed the tenants maintained properties.
They're improving their investment
Interesting. Many commentards on this here reddit believe residential LLs don't do any work. They just "invest" and let the profits "roll in". Goodness knows how the things get done that need to be done (as per this example) in order that a LL can continue this work-free life 🤦
I have never seen my landlord in the 4 years I have lived in my current property, no improvements or fixes have been made even though I have requested it multiple times, the landlord has done nothing. This has been the case for pretty much every rental property I've been in
[deleted]
I guess that hand would start to ache after a while
how da fuck do they have over 60 properties and arent making a profit?
thats just a bad businessman.
two words.
interest only
makes sense, am going to rent my property.
the difference between repayment or interest only was £100 per month.
but thats a consideration you have to take into acc.
its mad who some people do b2l
I mean i would have assumed over that many properties and that much time that they'd save some of the profits for a rainy day
Even still, house prices (in most places) have increased massively over the last few years, so even with a 100% interest only mortgage I'd expect them to have 10% equity. Unless they keep remortgaging and spending all of the equity, in which case they are awful at running a business.
Its the mainstream media mate. Its fucking rubbish. Dont let it get under your skin.
Exactly. They must have been too busy telling their mates about the headline figures while completely ignoring the accountants shaking their heads.
i mean the tone deafness of "sell their boat"
like brah
So they are selling 60 properties and somehow have to go back to work? Did they buy all of these properties on 100% LTV mortgages??
They ain’t selling shit. They sacked their agents and now manage the properties themselves which is what “going back to work” means in this case. Because agents were eating too much into their profit margins.
Lol its actually laughable how they’ve tried to sell this story.
These people are in their 60s, could sell up and retire but noooooo, i have to go back to “work” because im fucking greedy and selling 60 properties was never my plan. I wanted them all for myself, 100 properties, 1000 properties, its never enough, filthy hobbisses.
Your last line is perfect :)
Don't forget they've sold their boat, written to the telegraph and had a photo shoot done within 18 hours of the budget yesterday. That's some fucking going.
Oh and they're not getting a winter fuel payment, it's all Rachel Reeves fault!
Ah I misread, they have to sell their boat! What an absolute non-story, I'm certain this is just inter generational bait.
Why don't they eat brioche?
Buy-to-Let is not easy and Buy-to-Let Landlords are not rich.
As Buy-to-Let is not a get-rich-quick solution.
Highly Leveraged Buy-to-Let Mortgage are a means to buy, not a means to retire on.
No one told John, however if he sold 30 of this 60. Then they would be mortgage-free (or very low LTV) and he'd be raking it in. Especialy if the houses have gone up in value, or he can renovate them before sale.
Yes but to even buy 60+ properties requires massive amounts of cash just to cover deposits.
Remortgage one to buy the second remortgage that to buy the third as long as property continues to rise you can keep buying you don’t need to find 25% cash each time. It’s not a great way to do it but is done.
I imagine these two are actually quite well off but worth a bleat.
Can you give a worked examples? Surely prices don't rise fast enough to keep recycling via remortgages?
This was a legitimate trick around 10-15yrs ago. But near as i understand it the gains don’t happen so quick and with stamp duty alone it really doesn’t work any more.
Also current interest rates mean that getting over leveraged would be a potential nightmare scenario
There was one where you'd come out with cash after a purchase. All that was tightened up in '08.
One at a time and you’d have been fine.
You're assuming money has been put down. There was a time (pre 2008) when many people were buying BTL without any or very low deposits. I presume their portfolio has been built up over 20 odd years.
Either way, I'd love to be as hard up as them 👍🏾
Knew someone who lost all his houses from not doing what you wrote in the 2008 crash!
The biggest benefit in property to counter balance the shit tax situation is leverage.
Owning outright is ok but there's much better places to park cash
A BTL landlord with 60 properties is every metric of rich.
If they can’t be profitable which is different they call sell the assets, realise any losses and keep the capital. They still won’t be working minimum wage at Tesco.
They’re also old. So it was far easier to leverage the shit out of it to capitalise on massive appreciation to expand or equity release. If they equity released 7 figures then that’s just bad business and they should suffer. It’s not a policy problem. All bad businesses should fail. They clearly could only handle it at low interest and rampant appreciation when the money was printing itself.
Anyone with an iota of business sense with 60 properties they haven’t horrendously mismanaged can come out the other side not so poor they need to work minimum wage. Yes maybe not racking it in like 2019 but still not poor.
Maybe if the money hadn’t been so free for so long they’d have basic business acumen.
I meant liquid-rich. Asset-rich is not accessible wealth, especially if the assets are leveraged.
I have no sympathy for these types of LLs. Buying up so much property is just driven by greed, particularly when you think time just passive. Understandable if you have a small portfolio but anything of that size you’re either winning whilst screwing people over or losing very badly. I can’t imagine what state properties are in especially if they’ve been mortgaged to the hilt as well
Self managing them aswell, not a chance they are responding to have the maintenence issues
“These fecking peasants expect US to go and sort the loose roof tiles? Why can’t they just pay their rent in full and go live on a boat like we do? We should charge them extra for the free light coming through the roof”
I think there is a lot of information they aren't telling us for this to be true.
Telegraph photographer “Sorry Mr and Mrs Macrae, you’re still just looking a bit too rich and smug, can you try looking a bit more sad so that people think the government hate old people. Ok nice, now hold it.”
r/compoface I’ve had to start working on my 60 BTL properties compoface.
Ye gods, I know this isn’t r/ukhousing, but it is incredibly difficult not to be anti-landlord in cases like this. I can’t imagine making such a series of foolish decisions and then going to the Telegraph to put on my compoface.
When the stories we hear are these types of selfish rich arseholes it certainly is. Had to sell their boat? 60 properties? Supplement their pension? It's pantomime villain stuff.
Instead of that boat and massive house, pay down the mortgages towards tour retirement so you have a smaller portfolio with no debt, then you can rent a boat instead.
Sounds like they need to sell up and retire to their boat with a pile of cash
I would like to hear what the tenants have to say about the upkeep of the properties that they are letting.
Good. Climb off your pile of filthy lucre you hoarding old dragons.
Did they watch one of the tictoc YouTube landlords 'how to' videos or something? That's one huge risk.
Greedy people
I don't actually think we're becoming stupider as a species, it's just we give idiots a platform to yap.
Pensions have 60 properties, have a boat cruise the world, but were upset the govt didnt pay 300 for fuel
But in positive news the tiny violin manufacturing sector is forecasting exponential growth for the next four years.
They made a bad decision based on greed. Time to sell up.
Hopefully they’ll lose everything and end up eating beans in a bedsit for the rest of their lives.
There’s no fool like an old fool. And it’s two for the price of one here.
Please Keep it Civil
Their strategy worked for awhile. Unfortuantely, they need to let a lot of their properties go because the circumstances and maybe take some huge losses, as well. They are not very screwed. They can still enjoy a good retirement, but probably they are disappointed because they worked so hard to get to a certain point and probably thought they will attain a dream retirement.
I will not judge them. But I would judge their actions and expectations - they are probably too leveraged at their age. We have no control of the outcomes no matter how good we think our startegy is. And especially when you get to retirment age, you will need to de-risk and shift to capital presevation more than growth.
Would of felt sorry for them if it was 1 or 2 props…. I had to re-read to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. 60 properties - wtf
Lol fuck em.
They've hung themselves up to dry by being greedy fucks.
Dig deep and a different story emerges. Just another cherry-picked Telegraph BS tale.
They voted for Brexit, it’s fucked the country and now they can’t live without their £300 winter handout 🤷
Just sell up and go to the Bahamas. You don't have much time left at those ages.
Zero sympathy
Fuck them
Please Keep it Civil
How do they have 60 properties and not making shit loads of money?
Lots of reasons but on that stands out - if they are in personal name, tax is based on revenue and not profit since George Osborne. If they are leveraged (mortgaged) then a lot of their income is going out in expences.
I like how instead of plowing a load of money into the S&P or anything like that, they decided to buy 60 houses, I mean I get that that's diversification of a sort but come *on*
Parasites
Oh look, the Telegraph “news”paper complaining about rich people become a little less rich. 🎻
I can't get my head around how a couple with a 60-property portfolio would struggle without the £300 winter fuel allowance.
They wouldn't, pure greed
Story reads like "entitled boomers already have it all and have voted away everyone else rights and ability to do the same are now furious the mess they voted for is having to be fixed"
I can see quotes like "how dare the gubermint give people advantages I benefited from, we got ours, hands off"
Y'all got 60 properties, cry us a river
They're annoyed about this budget? Not the ones 30-40 years ago where renting stopped being insanely lucrative? Talk about slow.
The Telegraph becomes more moronic by the day.
🎻
60 buy to let properties!?!?. Cry me a river.
Out of touch.
60 properties owned but we need the help from the government
fuck off
I wish I was this poor....
1/ Don't sell the boat 2/ sell some of the houses. Initially 10. This leaves 50 to pass on to their kids* 3/ go sailing.
- Personally I'd sell them all as obvs they get more money and less stress when they're all gone. Greed is a terrible thing.
60 buy to let properties is obscene and frankly stupid. Fuck em.
It’s the Torygraph interviewing a couple of Torygraph reading c….s
Good riddance. Get a real job!
Greedy sods.
These are the worst Tories ever! All they need to do is squeeze more rent out of the oiks living in their properties and they'll be in clover
Everyone needs to diversify. Having a portfolio in a market such as this where mortgage rates and government rules can change on a whim is stupid
That £300 is the difference between a life of leisure and having to work...
My heart bleeds for them.
What a pair of fools. Had they stopped at 10 and paid down the mortgages instead of leveraging to the max to buy as many as possible, they'd probably be mortgage free and bringing in well over £100k/year.
Maybe if they hadn't be so greedy in the first place. They could sell up and be well off and not have to work.
They worked their whole lives, saved and invested hard along the way with a plan of X amount profit/income for them to feel comfortable. With the goal posts being moved they now are no longer at their expected mark so are having to go back to save costs.
Obviously they are a lot better off then many of the “10 million” pensioners the article mentions in the same breath but you can’t begrudge them for working hard and investing well.
Yes I can, people like this are leeches