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Effects of the buy-to-let craze - my neighbours at the back

My previous neighbours at the back had a nice garden and grew a lot of vegetables. Then they moved and the house was bought by a builder who destroyed the garden and paved it over. Then it was bought by somebody who has just let it and the tenants use it to store their rubbish, which there is a lot of. Which has not improved my view.

Buy-to-let has been a disaster for areas like this, as stable communities have been replaced by people who are on the move and don't care about where they live. The government has made matters worse by encouraging it. The effect has been to stoke up house prices beyond the reach of people who want to buy them to live in. This has helped to inflate the house-price-bubble.

Of course, it is not the price of houses that has risen, it is the price of the land upon which they stand. Like all bubbles, it will burst, the only question is when? Then the places will just stand empty and deteriorate.

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