I don’t really know how to say this politely, so I won’t.
The housing system I operate in doesn’t feel real anymore.
It feels like something propped up. Managed. Nudged along because the alternative is too ugly to look at.
I run HMOs. Mostly council tenants. Mostly London. And once you’re deep enough into it, the contradictions are impossible to ignore.
Here’s the simplest one.
I list a studio privately.
Nothing crazy. Clean. Decent. Priced where it should be.
Barely any interest.
Same unit.
Same price.
Council nomination?
Gone immediately. Sometimes at more money.
That’s not demand.
That’s not “the market”.
That’s the state writing a cheque.
Once You See the Payer, Everything Changes
People talk about supply and demand like it’s some natural law.
At the bottom end of housing, that law is suspended.
The biggest buyer in the room isn’t a renter.
It’s the government.
Councils are legally forced to house people. When there isn’t enough stock — which there never is — price stops being the main constraint. Obligation takes over.
And landlords adapt. Obviously.
I didn’t wake up one day wanting to become part of a state-backed housing pipeline. I just followed the path of least resistance, like everyone else.
The uncomfortable part is what happens next.
Working people can’t compete with a government balance sheet.
Private renters get squeezed out.
More people qualify for support.
Councils pay more.
The system grows.
No one really decides this. It just… happens.
Everyone Argues About Morality. No One Talks About Incentives.
I find the public debate around this exhausting.
It’s always framed as:
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bad landlords
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lazy tenants
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heartless government
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bleeding-heart councils
That’s all noise.
This is an incentives problem.
If working makes your life financially harder than not working, you don’t get a “moral society”. You get rational behaviour.
London is brutal here. Housing costs are so detached from wages that the gap has to be filled somehow. Right now, that “somehow” is housing benefit.
But plugging a hole doesn’t fix the pipe.
The Part People Keep Asking Me: “Won’t This Collapse?”
Short answer: no.
At least not in the way people imagine.
Governments don’t let housing collapse. Ever. The fallout is immediate and visible. Homelessness. Court cases. Councils breaching duties. Political suicide.
So instead of collapse, you get something worse in a way:
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more rules
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more paperwork
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more compliance
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slower payments
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thinner margins
They don’t pull the plug.
They slowly tighten the screws.
That’s how this ends. Quietly. Bureaucratically. Over years.
Why I Started Buying Outside London
London is where this system is most distorted.
It’s where:
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benefit rates drift furthest from reality
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regulation lands first
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politics interferes most
So I started buying in Plymouth.
Not because it’s exciting.
Not because I think it’s the next big thing.
Because it’s normal.
The gap between benefit rent and private rent is smaller.
Studios actually let privately.
If rules change, deals bend instead of snapping.
It’s not about chasing yield.
It’s about not getting trapped.
London pays well.
Regions give you exits.
I want both.
HMOs Aren’t Sexy Anymore (Good)
Anyone still talking about HMOs like it’s 2017 is either lying or new.
Rates went up.
Licensing exploded.
Fire regs tightened.
Councils got slower and pickier.
Margins shrank.
What’s left isn’t “passive income”. It’s operations. Systems. Admin. Compliance. Relationships.
Honestly, it feels less like property investing and more like running a regulated service.
Which tells you where this is heading.
Fewer landlords.
More professional operators.
Lower returns.
More stability.
Boring people win.
What I’m Actually Watching For
Not headlines. Not speeches.
I’m watching for:
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freezes instead of cuts
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redefinitions instead of bans
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preferred-provider lists instead of open markets
That’s how big systems change when no one wants to admit they’re broken.
The danger isn’t that the money stops tomorrow.
The danger is building a portfolio that only works if today’s generosity lasts forever.
The Part I Don’t Say Out Loud Very Often
This system doesn’t need to make sense long-term.
It just needs to survive this year.
And next year.
And the year after that.
And it probably will.
So yes — I’m still investing.
But I’m not pretending this is normal.
I’m not over-leveraged.
And I’m not betting everything on one version of the rules.
That’s not fear.
That’s just what happens when you stop believing the brochure and start looking at how the machine actually runs.
