Is Britain headed for a retirement renting crisis?

0:02Welcome to This Is Money podcast sponsored by Trading 212. Download the Trading 212 app today and open a cash ISA with promo code TIM to get the 12 month bonus promo rate of 4.61%. Terms apply. I'm Georgie Frost and joining me and Helen Crane today is pensions and investments guru Tanya Jefferies. And coming up, could delaying your state pension come back to bite you? Government plans to introduce a new income tax waiver for poorer pensioners could open up a whole can of water. worms, Tanya explains all. Also today, with the number of people renting in old rage on the rise, we look at how much more you'd need to save to cover it.

0:39Plus one in four flats on the market, a former landlord properties. What does that mean for renters? And does anyone actually want to buy a flat? And could you get some money for an old Argos catalogue? Should you have one lying around? Don't forget you can stay up to date with all the latest breaking money news. Just go to This is money.co.uk or download the app. But first, from next year, those in receipt of the full state pension will have to start giving some of it back to the government. Thanks to the triple lock, the full rate state pension is expected to hit around 13 ,000 in April, while the basic rate threshold has been frozen at£12 ,570 since 2021 and remains so for another five years.

1:22So the Treasury has a plan. Unfortunately, one industry study suggested this one in 18 pensioners would benefit from said plan. So under the proposal, those that would miss out would include anyone who chose to defer their state pension, something that's traditionally been seen as a financially rather sensible thing to do if you can afford it. And anyone with even just a quid of extra income. Tanya. Helen, welcome. Tanya, firstly, what is the issue here that the government or the Treasury is looking to address? The issue is that the full state pension, the headline rate, is going to be higher than the personal allowance, which is the threshold at which you start paying income tax.

2:07Now, it should be stressed that pensioners do pay income tax in lots of different scenarios, especially anyone who's got a private pension or anyone who earned a really big top-up pension under the pre-2016 system where you could earn really big extra sums. But this is going to be the first time the headline rate under the triple lock is going to be so high it busts the personal allowance. And it basically means that the government is going to be handing out full state pensions to lots of people and then taking it back off them. Another arm of them is going to be taking it back off them. And so it doesn't look good.

2:51And that is why in the budget last year, when they were making all the various announcements and announcing things about the state pension, then they specifically said that if your sole income is the state pension, the headline state pension rate then you will be let off paying any income tax which sounds really great but it's only going to affect a small amount of people because lots of people get the state pension lots of people get the full state pension rate but not many people just get it and nothing else although there are there are a sizable cohort who would benefit um the the trouble the trouble with it Well, there's quite a few different problems with it, to be honest, but it's going to get more expensive as time goes on over the years.

3:44Now, that industry study that you mentioned, that was actually carried out by our pension expert, Steve Webb's company, LCP, where he's a partner. And they worked out how much it was going to cost roughly year by year,£88 a year in the first year. doesn't sound too much,£153 in the second year and£220 by the third year. So you can see how it's going to mount up and is going to become more and more of a desirable thing to not have to pay income tax. So that could lead to people changing their behaviour in various ways in order to get this. And it's also going to be very hard once it's started for the government to just axe it.

4:38We all know how everyone now loves the triple lock and don't want to let go of it. Well, certainly if you're getting the stake pension, you're getting your triple locked increases, you don't want it to go. And this could be another thing that sounds good at the time, but becomes increasingly inexpensive and increasingly hard to get rid of. But there are other issues as well. One of them is the kind of people that will be excluded from it. I mean, obviously people who are in private pensions and anybody who gets any kind of increment. And as we've discovered, a reader wrote into us, said, hang on, I get an extra£11 or so a week because I delayed my state pension.

5:19so as a result I'm going to be unfairly barred from getting this waiver. Which is unfair isn't it because you know actually this is money that they would have got they've just delayed taking it so it's not like they're getting more money it's just they didn't get it earlier. Yes and arguably they should get it. I think I'll be reluctant to start making exceptions though because well where do the exceptions then end? Saying you only get let off income tax if your only income is a sole state pension. That sounds fairly straightforward, but if there start being exceptions, also it could start getting expensive.

5:56This chap is getting£11 extra, but some people delay for a very long time and get large amounts. There's also, rather confusingly, two different systems for deferring or state pension. One applied to people who reached state pension age before April 2016 and one after. And there are people that in that earlier group who still haven't claimed their state pension we do hear from them they get an extra 10.4 percent a year added to their state pension or they can take a lump sum plus interest the system got less generous after 2016 and now it's 5.8 a year extra which our reader who wrote into us that's the system he he retired under and you don't get the lump sum option.

6:41So you can see how if they started making exception, it could become very complicated very quickly. And finally, well, maybe not finally, perhaps other people are sitting there jumping up and down saying, oh, I can see lots of holes in this. But one that I really want to highlight is it's going to set people against each other. People are going to feel it's unfair. Just because I did X, that means I'm not let off income tax. This group of pensioners over here are going to be let off income tax and I don't think that's fair and either there's nothing I can do about it now not fair or there is something I can do about it now and I'm going to go to all sorts of lengths potentially in a counterproductive way to join that group and that might happen in future if it goes on yeah but then if they take it away then you might have done it all for nothing can you see why this is a can of worms.

7:33The more you think about it, the more you see the holes in it, and it's going to be really, really tricky to implement, which Steve Webb, our columnist, pointed out straight away as soon as it was announced. He immediately sent out something the very afternoon and said, this is going to be rather tricky, or what's to that effect? Because he's a sensible man who knows all the sort of context in which we're sort of dropping a policy change. I mean, I'm wondering if they're using something to fix the wrong problem, because isn't the problem the fact that we've got frozen personal allowance thresholds for so, so long that we're in this bind?

8:13Is it not overly simplified? Yes, it is. But I thought I'd say anyway, let's scrap the triple log. Let's just keep it in line with the personal allowance. and that way everybody's fighting together. Workers want that personal allowance raised. Pensioners will want that allowance raised. Well, I honestly don't know if that would work, whether it would be a good idea or not. There might be lots of good reasons not to do it that way. But the triple lock is obviously going to be increasingly difficult because it has a ratchet effect because there's three elements to it and it's always by the highest of the three, you can see how it goes up and up and up and why people say, use the word unsustainable in connection with it.

9:02And one of the reasons that the government is still sticking to it and I think feels it can still afford it is because income tax, the threshold is frozen until 2031, they're clawing it back off the better off pensioners with the higher incomes already. And that is kind of offsetting some of the cost. It's just that now the headline rate is going to be over a threshold. That looks really bad. And lots of people have noticed already, but now they're really noticing. It's not like anyone saw that coming, though, really. You guys have been talking about that for, well, five years. Yes, yes. People could see it coming for a long way off, but now it has arrived.

9:47What do you do then? Tanya, if you are someone who is thinking, should I defer? I could do. I could do for a year. I can afford to do so. But what if I'm shooting myself in the foot? Oh, God, what do I do? It is really difficult because they've said that they're committed to it, but they haven't announced the details yet. So we don't actually know. They might not include the people who have deferred. After all, they might find some way so that they join the group with the waiver as well. but I think if you're considering deferring people who defer tend to do so for really good reasons first of all they think they're healthy enough to break even because they're going to live long enough to earn it all back over time but also one of the main reasons that people do it is they're still working or they've still got an income coming in that is actually going to put them in a higher tax bracket and they're going to pay more tax as a result of taking their state pension so they put off taking it so if you're in that situation then looking ahead to earning the kind of amounts what being let off the kind of amounts I was talking about at the beginning potentially rising to 220 pounds a year in three years time and that's if they don't have second thoughts and get rid of it then you might decide that it's better to go go with your original plan just because this is what suits you.

11:19This is the best financial plan for you now. It's really, I would, I don't give financial advice anyway, but I'd always hesitate to tell people to do something based on what the government might do. But I do feel for people who are looking at the headlines about this and saying, hang on, should I delay taking my state pension after all? Helen, I'm going to sound really cynical. now. I would have thought it'd be in the government's interest to have people defer the state pension because I'm going to say it, they might die. And then they don't have to pay out so much state pension, you know. So actually disincentivising people to wait might be a bad thing.

12:02What do you reckon is the fix here? Is this a income tax threshold freezing issue? Is this a triple lock issue? What is the answer?

12:11Helen Crane: Well, first of all, yeah, you're right to say it's not something that's a very nice thing to say but that that is why the option of deferring your pension is offered they'll defer thinking that they'll live for quite a long time and then they don't and the the government ends up paying less so it's been kind of encouraged in the past and you know as Tanya said people do it for good reasons maybe to reduce the income tax they pay if they're still working or just to to know that they'll get a slightly higher income when when they're a bit older. What is a solution? It's a really tricky one. I do think we talk so much about frozen income tax thresholds.

12:52Helen Crane: And it's one of the things that just kind of creeps up on people. And I think until they kind of bump their head up against it, they don't realise that it's a problem. The fact that pensioners on the basic pension are so close to being eligible for paying income tax is it does seem quite crazy to me. As Tanya said, next year, we could see them having to pay that. Of course, this is why this kind of waiver has come in. But I've got people that I know who, close to a time, will be on this basic state pension and then only a small private pension. And they're thinking, God, I've never done a tax return in my life.

13:32Helen Crane: Am I going to have to do it how do i do it what's you know what's this all about and i think i do think it's an issue with the phrasing thresholds but it's such a boring thing to try and explain to people isn't it until it directly affects them the triple lock yes one of those things that i think the debate is just going to kind of rage on and on really only the government this government's not going to do anything about it i know no the government wants to scrap the triple lock it's something that could go some way to solving this kind of situation. But I almost kind of think we should just forget talking about it because no government's going to be brave enough to ever scrap it, surely.

14:11Yeah, I do feel a bit like a broken record on this podcast going, what's going to happen to the triple lock? Nothing, nothing at the moment until someone's going to be brave enough to stand up and do something about it, even though everybody knows it's blimmin' expensive.

14:22Helen Crane: And then immediately get voted out of office. Well, yes, do it really early on and hopefully everyone forgets by the time you actually come to vote for someone else. But this is not the only issue facing us as we get older. When it comes to how much we need for a comfortable retirement, our pension system has largely been built on the assumption that by that stage in our lives, we will own our own home and therefore housing costs will have fallen. But the number of older tenants is rising. And by 2044, it's predicted that one in three retired households could be renting. So how much do we really need to save for a comfortable retirement.

15:00Now, I have often wondered about these pension statistics that we read, Helen, and how much we will need in retirement, because they assume often that you will be a homeowner. Now, it's because I'm a sort of dyed-in-the-wool renter. I do now own a home eventually. But I'm very aware of the fact that there will be a lot of people who, and the statistics are now bearing that out, who will be needing to rent in their retirement. And so it seems remiss that we haven't kind of got that down in the pension statistics. So when we're telling people how much do you really need to, no, no, tell me how much I really need to save under all circumstances.

15:38It slightly frustrates me that that's been the assumption.

15:42Helen Crane: Yes, I completely agree. And I think part of the reason for that is the companies that put out these kind of statistics about how much you might need to have in retirement are the kind of companies whose customers tend to be wealthier people. So, you know, they might be pension firms or wealth managers or, you know, the kind of firms who their customers tend to be people who do own their house, people who have private pensions, who have investments. So they kind of assume that within their calculations. But you're right, it makes a huge difference. And if you don't own your home and particularly if you rent privately um the calculations will be completely different for you in in many cases into the hundreds of thousands uh you know we're talking about that this is how much more money you might need if you're going to be renting in the private sector in retirement and particularly if you live in a more expensive area of the country um the sums can make very very different to someone who owns their home and has paid off the mortgage and that's actually another key thing is if you own your home but you don't think you're going to pay off the mortgage by retirement you're in a slightly better position probably than someone who thinks they're going to be renting throughout their whole retirement but that's still something that you need to think about um so in terms it's a trend that we've been seeing over years and years and years It used to be that more people owned their homes or more people lived in social rented accommodations.

17:20Helen Crane: So if we go back to, say, 1950s, you tended to either own a home or if you rented, you'd be quite likely to be in council housing or in social housing. Whereas now that has completely changed. So not only have rates of home ownership gone down, not hugely, but slightly over the decades, But many more people who rent are in renting from private landlords where rents are higher. You don't have the same kind of protections. Things aren't subsidized and there's less kind of help available to you. People are also getting on the housing ladder later and houses are more expensive, which means that people are likely to carry more housing debts into later life.

18:04Helen Crane: And, you know, even if they have paid off their mortgage by the time they retire, they might have done that at the expense of paying more into their pension or, you know, making other savings or putting money into investments. So all these things have kind of come together. And I think we're looking at a situation where we're going to have pensioners who are a lot less sort of financially comfortable or have less financial protections and sort of buffers than they do today. Which makes the story, Tanya, that we were just talking about then even more pertinent, doesn't it? But Helen's absolutely right there.

18:39I mean, this is not just about renting. You know, people are having mortgages, 70s, 80s even at the moment. How much more then? How much are the official figures of how much we would need to save for a comfortable retirement? And how much more would we need to save if we haven't owned our own home? the basic amount that just covers the essentials is about 13 000 but the study that has been done about how much extra you need is by standard life they've just looked at average rents and calculated about how they would go up 3.8 percent a year obviously it might be more it might be less but over a 20-year retirement and then extrapolated the figures from there.

19:28So they're actually saying that that would be£419 ,000 over the 20-year retirement. Obviously, then you take the income from that, either as an annuity, presumably, or from an invested pension. But that's how much we're pulling in the pockets of landlords, potentially. Needless to say, it's a lot higher in London. it's 860 ,000 in London. So that's pretty grim. The thing is, though, that people actually won't be able to afford that. Most people wouldn't be able to afford that. If you're only aiming for a basic lifestyle in retirement, which lots of people who are still renting are only going to be affording the basic lifestyle, they're very likely to have to fall back on housing benefit, which is paid to older people.

20:17If you're under state pension age, it's rolled into universal credit. But if you're over state pension age, you can still make a new claim if everyone in your household reaches state pension age. That's obviously going to be a burden on taxpayers that we're going to have to face up to. But I can't also tell people exactly how much housing benefit is worth because there's no set amount. There's lots of variables. to it. It's more straightforward if you're in social housing, but if you're renting privately, it depends on where you live and what the average rent is in your area. That's how variable it can be.

20:56And it depends on how much you've got in savings and your living arrangements and so on. There's an awful lot of factors that go into it. But the reason I'm explaining housing benefits at some length is really because people are either going to have to save a lot more or that that's what they're going to be facing in later life. When it comes to saving harder, this is what we always say when it comes to putting more into your pensions. And, well, the fact is, though, that the more that you put in your pension, the better, because while you're still working, you're getting the free contributions from your employer, unless you're self-employed, obviously, in which case you have to cover it.

21:36But even if you're self-employed, everybody will get the tax relief from the government, which you know does chop it up a lot so if you're listening to this and and thinking goodness that this sounds terrible another thing that I need to worry about well I just can't even think about it while you're still working planning as much as you can afford into your pension while you're getting those top-ups is probably the the best solution. Tanya can I ask you a difficult question. I don't want to be all doomy and gloomy about this or doomsday-ish about it even. Are we underestimating the scale of the problem that lies ahead?

22:17Because this many people renting that much extra money, the end of DB pensions, are we right to be very concerned about this? And are we concerned enough even? Well, yes and no. You've also got to remember that there's an awful lot of housing wealth in this country tied up in the older generations which is going to come down the generations so a lot of the people who are going to be renting possibly into later life are going to come into an inheritance and we might find that a lot of people use their inheritance to suddenly buy a property even a small one that means that that takes them out of the rental market potentially quite late in life but they decide that that's what they're going to to do with it and it's going to help a lot of people pay off their mortgage as well a lot of people use inheritance to do that so that sounds a bit bleak for the people who don't have

23:13Helen Crane: parents handing on housing wealth but that doesn't mean that we're all going to be necessarily destitute um and living hands of health in retirement it's not as bad as that We laugh out of nerves here. We laugh out of nerves. Anxious laughter. Exactly. It was a horrible question to ask. But Helen, I do want to stick with the property side of this, because we're talking about renters. But actually, we've got a bit of a problem with renting at the moment, in as much as it seems that landlords are absolutely desperate to offload their flats. Not all of them, but quite a substantial number of them.

23:54Because according to exclusive data from estate agent Hamptons, some 26.7 % of flats, around a quarter of flats currently on the market, were previously rented out compared to 16 % of flats at the same point in 2018. So not even 10 years ago. That's a huge jump. So while landlords are selling other type of properties, the rise is not as drastic as with flats. So what is going on here? Is anyone going to buy these flats? and what does it mean for renters?

24:25Helen Crane: So it's a combination of a few different things. Most recently it's the Renters' Rights Act. So this is the legislation that came in earlier this year, gives renters raft of new protections against things like being evicted for no good reason, against rent rises, even sort of smaller things like they're now more likely to be able to have a dog or a cat and it basically makes renting a better deal for a lot of people which landlords not all landlords some landlords understandably don't like they're looking at it being more difficult to evict sort of problem tenants they're not gonna be able to put the rent up as often perhaps and they're just thinking do you know what I'm gonna get out of the game so that's part of the reason but there's a sort of longer tale to this which is that for the last sort of 15 years successive governments have just been kind of chipping away at landlords and doing little things that just make it slightly less lucrative slightly less profitable so higher taxes on the rent that they earn they used to be able to offset their mortgage interest against their tax payments they can't do that anymore they face having to sort of register with the local council if they want to be a landlord on special sort of landlord registers just drip drip of things that have just made it you know less less attractive for some landlords so so that's part of it as well why we're talking about flats specifically is that there are now problems with flats that houses uh don't have as much so we're looking at things like service charges, which we've been hearing about loads in recent months.

26:13Helen Crane: These are getting higher and higher because of, partly because of just the general cost of stuff is getting higher due to inflation. So the kind of things that service charges in blocks of flats pay for, like, you know, the salaries of people who work on the reception, if there is one, and the cost of having a cleaner to clean the communal areas, and all those kind of things are going up. So service charges are are kind of creeping up as well. And also leasehold, people less keen to own leasehold properties now, which most flats are. So all of those general problems with flats are affecting landlords that own flats as well.

26:52Helen Crane: So all of that kind of put together is why a lot of landlords are just thinking, do you know what, not for me anymore. I was just thinking that this is something that would impact, and we've talked about older people there, obviously people downsizing, and And also traditionally, first time getting onto the property ladder, so younger people. But actually, everything you've described there, you sort of think, God, when you tot it all up, traditionally flats were viewed as sort of the cheaper option. But actually, when you tot it all up and the service charges and all that sort of thing, you think, is it?

27:22What do all these stats tell us when you put them all together, shake it all about the state of the housing market at the moment?

27:29Helen Crane: I think it's partly that cost thing. So it's different depending on where you live. So for example, if you live in a big expensive city, if you live in, I don't know, London or Oxford or Brighton, the price difference between flats and houses is so much that you might only be able to afford a flat. But if you live in somewhere a property is slightly more affordable, you might be looking at the price of a flat. And the price of flats have gone down because of all the issues that I just mentioned. But the price of houses has kind of gone, stayed vaguely flat as well. So if you're a little more affordable wearer, you might be looking at the price of a flat and the price of a house and think actually, do you know what, the difference isn't that much.

28:08Helen Crane: If the difference is saving up another year, two years for a deposit, and it means I don't have all these problems with service charge and leasehold, I think a lot of people are thinking, do you know what, maybe that's worth doing. And also people tend to be getting on the ladder much later in life. So the difference between getting on the property ladder when you're, I don't know, 24 and you're just in your first job, you're single and getting on the property ladder when you're 34, you might be married, you might have children, you might be thinking about having children. or you might just be at a point in your life where you think actually I work hard I'd quite like a sort of bigger property to spend my free time in so I think it's kind of a societal change as well but it really sort of depends on location and you know I'm kind of loathe to say that flats are always a bad investment I mean full disclosure as I always say I own a flat but I do think there's flats and there's flats I would certainly caution anyone against buying a flat where you know you've seen the service charge go up year on year on year and it's maybe not in a great location it's sort of maybe looking a bit there you just have to always think would someone want to buy this flat from me I guess it's just always a sensible place to start but you know as we were sort of talking about with the renting in retirement story you know if you were saying your 50s and your options were get on the property ladder but in a flat because you can't stretch to a house or don't get on the property ladder and spend that extra 400 000 pounds renting throughout your retirement I think I know what I'd rather do not everyone has the luxury of the choice between a house and a flat and I do think personally they can still be a good bet for a first-time buyer You know, we've actually got a piece that is coming up in the next few days about some first-time buyers who did just that.

30:01Helen Crane: You know, they targeted these flats that landlords were selling as a way to get on the ladder. You know, they previously thought they might be able to afford to. But having seen landlords in their area being, I wouldn't say desperate, but very keen to sell their flats, they thought, do you know what, maybe this is an opportunity for us to get on the ladder at a cheaper price. If we go to them and say, we're first-time buyers, we don't have a chain, we'll offer you on this flat. It looks like it's been on the market for a while. We'll offer you£50 ,000 less than the asking price. Now's as good a time as any.

30:34Helen Crane: The landlord's probably in a lot of situations quite likely to say yes. So obviously always be aware of things like the service charge and how long the lease is. Don't just go into it thinking, oh, this is an absolute bargain because there's reasons why it might not be. But if you've researched it, you could get a really good deal. It's something to think about if the alternative is still renting when you don't want to. Well, absolutely right. Helen, you mentioned investing in a flat and you presume you personally buying a place to live as an investment in your future. But in terms of sort of buy to let and whether it's worth it, I did a podcast with Rob Dix, who's this property guy.

31:13He does a podcast, you know, written all the books about it. And I'm not sure he meant for me to feel this way. But afterwards, and having read his books in preparation, I thought, my God, I'm never, ever going to do that. It sounds the worst, basically, because I'm too lazy, but also because I just don't see how you could make money from it. But then I'm not that way inclined. I don't have the entrepreneurial spirit of it. But is there an idea that actually what we're seeing happening is a lot of the landlords that are leaving the market are perhaps people who thought it would make a good sort of supplement to their retirement income or, you know, they just own one property, thought a flat was a good idea, bought when rates were very low and money was cheap.

31:57and actually we're thinking now we just don't want to do it. So are we seeing then not the sort of demise of renting, but actually more the professionalisation? Are we seeing perhaps some of these properties being bought up by big corporations? And there are pros and there are cons, I think. I've lived as a renter under both. But is this a changing moment, do you think, in the rental market? Because clearly it's going nowhere. We've just had a story right at the top saying that more and more people are going to be renting into old rage. So as an investment vehicle, you'd think this is a pretty decent one.

32:31I just can't be bothered with the admin and the things going wrong and all that sort of jazz. But are we seeing a change in the market, do you think?

32:37Helen Crane: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I just think that this sort of image of buy to let and the idea of buy to let has changed. So in the article, we've got about so many flats being sold by landlords. Ed, our reporter, has spoken to the director of an estate agent in Birmingham, Philip Jackson, and his comments were so interesting. So Birmingham is a city that I know quite well and I can absolutely imagine the blocks of flats that he's talking about when he says this. So he says that in sort of decades past, it was a really trendy place to buy to let. So Birmingham city centre, property was really cheap.

33:14Helen Crane: You know, these sort of blocks were going up and landlords who probably lived in the suburbs of Birmingham, You know, they're nice houses in Sutton Coldfield or Solihull. Probably thought, do you know what? I'll have me a bit of that. That seems like a good deal. You know, there's a lot of young people moving to the city centre. That could make me a bit of money. So he says there are a vast number of buy-to-let man-laws. He bought flats in Birmingham City Centre more than a decade ago, often as an investment for retirement. He says they've been hit in recent years with increasing mortgage costs, high annual service charges and associated property maintenance and management costs.

33:45Helen Crane: They've also seen weak capital growth and rental returns. So in one of these blocks, he says there are 32 one-bed apartments available for sale in an development of 320 flats. So that's 10 % of them currently on the market. And I think he's so right because there was a time when blocks of flats in city centres were really built with landlords in mind. It was a really trendy investment to make. It was seen as a really hot ticket. You know, if you had some money to invest in your retirement, property was a really good bet. And I think that is not the case anymore. As I said, all these new regulations, rules are good for tenants.

34:27Helen Crane: I don't think that these changes shouldn't have been made. But I do think they just affect the margins of landlords, particularly if you've only got one or two flats. I think the way it's going is these build to rent companies that we now see a lot, which are businesses like pension funds and insurers. They will pay for a block of flats to be built. And instead of selling it on as an asset, they will just keep it. And the way they will make their money is by renting out to tenants over many, many years. And they'll use that sort of regular income to pay out money to, for example, their pension savers.

35:01Helen Crane: The reason that business model has done so well is because there are so many more people renting, in general, renting into later life. And, you know, it's not necessarily a bad thing. People who live in these kinds of developments say they're really professionally run. Maybe I've got really nice sort of facilities because it benefits the owners for people to sort of stay there for a long time. However, a lot of them are still really, really expensive. so I think that is what has to change if we want this sort of business model to properly get off the ground but I think in general buy to let now is a game for volume if you have a lot of flats you can kind of absorb those costs a bit better you know if you're losing money on some of your flats you'll be making money on other ones and you can ride that out but I do think if you just own one or two flats and something goes wrong I don't know you a tenant leaves or you need to do big repairs it can just wipe out your returns for for a really long time so i can see why those kind of people are getting out of the game yeah yeah see you've just proved to me i'm too lazy for that finally we've spoken a lot about sort of negative stuff i feel like that we don't have any money but actually you might have money just just lying around the house not like behind the back of the sofa or anything i mean in little trainers little trainers as in little I remember reading this, right?

36:22Little have done trade anyway. To pizza menus, no less. Don't throw them away. All that junk you get in the post. Keep it. This story is for the hoarders out there. Even Argos Catalogue. Who on earth still has an Argos Catalogue somewhere in their home? I don't know. But you have a piece on your website, Helen, from your resident expert, Dan Hatfield, on the everyday items, and we mean everyday items here, that could be tomorrow's, could be, my emphasis, tomorrow's collectibles. I'll bet Lee absolutely loved this story. But what of my junk should I not be throwing out? I have to confess, I'm a bit of a Marie Kondo type.

37:02I wouldn't even go as far as it doesn't bring me joy. Chuck it out. Just chuck it out if it's been there too long. And I think this is a renter's mentality because I move so often. I think the longest I've ever stayed in a place is a year and a half. I get rid of my rubbish regularly. You know, I could happily live in, I pretty much do happily live in a couple of suitcases. but what should I not be throwing out?

37:21Helen Crane: Oh, Georgia, I'm the complete opposite. I love junk. I actually nearly bought the Lidl trainers. You have to explain Lidl trainers. I feel like I must have been out of the country when this happened. Are you talking about literally things you wear on your feet from Lidl? Yeah. So in the middle of Lidl, a few years ago, they bought out loads of Lidl branded merch. Right. I think people are wearing it kind of ironically. You know when people have an Ikea bag and they think it's kind of cool, I don't know why like those Ikea bucket hats it's in that sort of vein of I'm not embarrassed that I love shopping at Lidl and Ikea yeah they're just trainers but they're in like the Lidl colours so like red and blue and yellow and they have the Lidl logo on them when I saw them I was like these are absolutely great I want to buy them but my other half was like absolutely not I'm like not being seen dead with you in a pair of ironic Lidl trainers so no I didn't but you know well he's mapping now because I could have been making an absolute mint on them according to Dan Hatfield.

38:19Well, I'm looking here now, Lidl Trainers, rare 2025 drop£312.70 on eBay. Now, to be clear, what it suggests on eBay is the price doesn't mean what someone's going to actually pay for it. I mean, you could put it up for£3 million. But yeah, there's quite a variety here. They didn't just do one. There's a load of them here. And£100,£200,£60,£150.

38:40Helen Crane: Yeah, I think they're about 12 pounds when I saw them in the shop as well so that's quite a good return you know don't don't get me wrong money doesn't always equal quality but there's something about shoes for me and I don't want to go too deep into this one but I want shoes that are gonna protect me probably because I have quite a serious back injury so that's my excuse for being a snob when it comes to shoes but I cannot imagine doing any running in a pair of 12 pound little trainers but we're not just talking about trainers because actually these are quite functional i mean you walk around the shops with them yeah fine uh pizza menus who on earth is gonna buy a pizza menu from you tell me tell me helen well dan hatfield's point is that these things define an era right so i think it wouldn't be you know no one's gonna buy just a domino's menu from last week but it's nostalgia right so in a few years say I don't know x pizza chain isn't around anymore and you dig out an old menu and it makes you think oh I remember when I used to get a pizza from x pizza chain oh that was yeah did you remember oh yeah I remember that and the theory is that people will pay money for those things that like bring back a moment in time that isn't there anymore so he's talked about the argos catalog as well and i kind of get this because i remember when i was a kid how excited i was to go and get the argos catalog and then i sit through and i'd circle all the stuff that i wanted for christmas and like if i saw that now with all the like silly 90s toys in it i i just think i'd find that absolutely fascinating maybe it's just me definitely not it's all about nostalgia and things that used to be really important i wouldn't get them all just to be clear it is interesting i'd i'd really just having you read through um this article because it it just kind of says something about what people value nowadays i suppose and he talks about more recent things as well that he thinks might go up in value so things like collaborations um anything that brings two sort of iconic brands together so he mentions greg's clothing that watch that came out I think earlier this year this Swatch watch that was like a plastic pocket watch and it was a partnership with this luxury watchmaker.

41:01Helen Crane: Just things that people look back and think oh yeah I remember that like god the 2020s was a crazy time. I think it's an interesting idea. Helen it's Crane's compliment or complaint of the week. I'm going to go for a compliment Georgie and I'm going to compliment I'm going to compliment Sainsbury's this week people might have heard we've had these statistics about young people being out of employment or work the number of needs as they call them has gone up the reason I'm praising Sainsbury's is because it's actually trying to do something about it so this week it's launched a new work experience scheme which is going to offer 10 ,000 young people the chance to come into Sainsbury's and see what the world of work is actually like.

41:49Helen Crane: Obviously not going to solve all our problems, but I think fair play. Put your money where your mouth is. And yeah, I think more big retailers should do something similar. Absolutely right. And I like the fact that you picked a compliment of the week. I feel like we needed that. All right, that's it. Thank you very much, Helen. Thank you very much, Tanya. And thank you, of course, for listening. You can keep up to date with all the latest Breaking Money news. Just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app. And if you have any comments or questions steam or anything you'd like them to look into, Helen?

42:18Helen Crane: You can email us at podcast at thisismoney.co.uk, tweet us at thisismoney or join the debate in the reader comments. Lovely, and if you like our podcast, why not rate us wherever you found us? It helps other people find us too.