All of the U.K. (I assume) pays for the Olympic games, while landlords in London get windfall profits. If only there were some way to reimburse the treasury a portion of the money that is falling unearned into landlord's laps...

'Unearned' is such an ugly word.

I have no problem with this.

Same thing happened here in Vancouver 2 years ago.

Ya know, I was contemplating going to England for a few weeks, but I think I'll put that off until well after the Olympics.

Not much has changed in a millenium. It's still good to be a landowner in England - not so good to be a tenant.

I'm surprised the landlords haven't started demanding acts of fealty.

They're going to be in for a surprise when they get American renters. Ask any hotel maid.

Hey England! That's the AMERICAN way. Cut it out.

Wouldn't the squatters right they have over there offset this? Swap places with someone else who got evicted, magically come up with a lease for the new place, and by the time they can get you out of the new place, its too late. Seems to work for the gypsies, who I assume are already trying to wiggle in on the nice locations.

jaylectricity: Hopefully they make enough to retire because it would be despicable if anybody else rented from them ever again. Is there a housing shortage in London?

I predict unpleasant things happening to people who just happen to have vacancies once the olympic tourists have cleared off.

jaylectricity: Hopefully they make enough to retire because it would be despicable if anybody else rented from them ever again. Is there a housing shortage in London?

yes.

and little in the way of rent control laws.

And then the tourists will leave and they'll try and keep getting paid outlandish dosh from locals. Ah, ha ha. Can you say "vacancies"?

Nobody's forcing them to live there. If you can't afford your rent, move somewhere you can afford.

Simon Brown, a British soldier shot in the head while serving in Iraq, has been chosen as one of the 2012 Olympic torch bearers.

How much of an honor is it to be one of 2,012 torch bearers?

/no, not really

The same thing happened in Knoxville in 1982 with the World's Fair. This is not a new idea.

84Charlie: I have no problem with this.

Well that didn't take long, only four posts to find the asshat scouting party.

How many more of you are coming?

/you're just trolling I'm betting
//wonder how long it'll take the real asshat's who'll actually defend the landowner's bullshiat to show up

Callous disregard for the lives of average people in the pursuit of obscene profits wasn't invented by the United States.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

bunner: And then the tourists will leave and they'll try and keep getting paid outlandish dosh from locals. Ah, ha ha. Can you say "vacancies"?

Probably not - once the Olympic tourists are gone, they'll likely go back to market rates pretty quickly. Unless they're completely retarded (and this move shows they aren't, just pure capitalists) they'll realize that this was a short term windfall. No different than folks renting out their houses for ungodly amounts when other events occur (like those who live on golf courses that have tournaments on them - many folks will rent them out during that time and go on an extended vacation).

stiletto_the_wise: Nobody's forcing them to live there. If you can't afford your rent, move somewhere you can afford.

We'll that makes two. 84Charlie beat you here, but maybe if you two join forces you can convince the rest of us you're not trolls.

indylaw: Callous disregard for the lives of average people in the pursuit of obscene profits wasn't invented was perfected by the United States.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

Agent Smiths Laugh: stiletto_the_wise: Nobody's forcing them to live there. If you can't afford your rent, move somewhere you can afford.

We'll that makes two. 84Charlie beat you here, but maybe if you two join forces you can convince the rest of us you're not trolls.

Yeah... I can't wait for the pendulum to complete the swing and that clapped out, "hooray for me, too bad for you" pose comes back to bite the malevolently greedy on the ass. I'll make hors d'oeuvres. It'll be better than Escape From New York.

I wish I owned a house in that area. Would be a perfect time to take a small vacation while renting the house out for an obscene amount of money.

Reading even a 5 year old can do it.

Discussion = OMG they are EVICTING people!!!!!

Article = Landlords are not renewing a lease during this period.

So, does that mean the average age here is below 5 y.o.?

Nexzus: Same thing happened here in Vancouver 2 years ago.

and Atlanta when it was there. hell, i knew people in the DC area who were already prepping and planning to rent out their homes just because DC was trying (and thankfully failed) to the bid.

I don't get how this works if you own an empty apartment, gaining $0 rent, in the months before and after the Olympics.

Wouldn't it be cost effective to pay the tenants a month's rent or even two for temporarily vacating?

Agent Smiths Laugh: stiletto_the_wise: Nobody's forcing them to live there. If you can't afford your rent, move somewhere you can afford.

We'll that makes two. 84Charlie beat you here, but maybe if you two join forces you can convince the rest of us you're not trolls.

Maybe you can convince me that it is against the law to charge higher rent. Renters rent, not own. Spare me your rent control bullshiat.

Agent Smiths Laugh: We'll that makes two. 84Charlie beat you here, but maybe if you two join forces you can convince the rest of us you're not trolls.

You're the landlord. When comparable rents in a neighborhood are $2000 a month, you're going to ask for $400 a month?

Sounds like Augusta GA during the Masters.

Agent Smiths Laugh: 84Charlie: I have no problem with this.

Well that didn't take long, only four posts to find the asshat scouting party.

How many more of you are coming?

/you're just trolling I'm betting
//wonder how long it'll take the real asshat's who'll actually defend the landowner's bullshiat to show up

Renters have no say in what a landlord charger for rents on his property, thats why they are renters.

grimlock1972: shortage of housing yes, but a surplus of greedy jerks.

Cheap rent is not a right.

ronaprhys: bunner: And then the tourists will leave and they'll try and keep getting paid outlandish dosh from locals. Ah, ha ha. Can you say "vacancies"?

Probably not - once the Olympic tourists are gone, they'll likely go back to market rates pretty quickly. Unless they're completely retarded (and this move shows they aren't, just pure capitalists) they'll realize that this was a short term windfall. No different than folks renting out their houses for ungodly amounts when other events occur (like those who live on golf courses that have tournaments on them - many folks will rent them out during that time and go on an extended vacation).

actually, they will try to charge the same or close to the same rates, in hope that they get 1/4 the amount of previous tenants, this allows them to make the same money with less work, AND write off the vacant appartments as losses to offset taxes.

Thats what happened in the last city I lived in when they were scrambling to rip off the temporary contractors for a large refinery upgrade projects. Rent went from 500 to over 1200 almost overnight, and it's till around 1000 now.

CSB time:

I was living in a shiatty studio apartment in SLC in 2002, and was even scheduled to work at the Winter Olympics, when my landlord tried to evict us all (there were 6 apartments in this building), but as the flier read, "you're more than welcome to come back after next month and resume your stay with us."

I went to the press.

After 2 extremely negative stories on the guy on two different channels, the guy backed down.

I hope it works out the same way for these folks.

NURBS: I wish I owned a house in that area. Would be a perfect time to take a small vacation while renting the house out for an obscene amount of money.

I know a guy who does that during New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest.

He stays with a friend for April and May and rents out his little house by the week. I'm guessing he makes enough to pay 6 months' mortgage.

nobody11155: Reading even a 5 year old can do it.

Discussion = OMG they are EVICTING people!!!!!

Article = Landlords are not renewing a lease during this period.

So, does that mean the average age here is below 5 y.o.?

Too bad trolls can't write.

Step 1: Maintain tenancy
Step 2: Sublet
Step 3: Act as valet
Step 4: Profit!

Maybe I missed this from the article, but if someone had a signed lease which covered the time period during the Olympics they can't get kicked out, right?

Even if you had a lease that was expiring, say, now. If you were told to GTFO via a huge rent spike, no one else would want to pay that rent until you get a few months closer to the start of the Olympics when the "rich" Olympic people would start knocking. That's a few months of zero rent paid. Would that be worth the effort and balance out? It doesn't seem like they'd be making THAT much more money for such a short period of time.

nobody11155: Reading even a 5 year old can do it.

Discussion = OMG they are EVICTING people!!!!!

Article = Landlords are not renewing a lease during this period.

So, does that mean the average age here is below 5 y.o.?

New to Fark, I presume (since you had to ask that question)?

And the Lord said "go and grasp and covet the bounties of the earth and clasp them to your bosom and mercilessly take from the poor who need the meager crumbs of that bounty and become fat and and flatulent with avarice and gold and concubines". Or maybe it was something else. Hard to say. It's a very old book.

This is a pretty stupid thing for a landlord to do.

I find it very hard to believe that the windfall over the Olympics would outweigh the costs of doing this. How much extra money is it going to bring in? Maybe a couple of thousand pound. Then they're going to have to re-let the property on a long term basis just as demand crashes and a huge glut of other rental properties are coming on the market at the same time. Half of the landlords that do this will still have houses sitting empty at Christmas. Then add in the cost of redecorating after the holiday renters have wrecked the place and the agency fees for finding and processing new tenants and that rather small amount of extra money they made will disappear in a hurry.

Here in Lexington, a couple of years ago we had the World Equestrian Games.

Despite most people in this city having never heard of it, we kept being told by city government how it was almost as big as the Olympics and it would bring tourists from around the world to central Kentucky.

Of course, everybody and his brother wanted to rent out their house to tourists for a couple of weeks in the fall of 2010, at vastly inflated rates.

Supposedly the games had good turnout, but not a lot of that was seen by the city. Yeah, lots of tourists came from Europe to the games (the first time they were held outside Europe), but they tended to just go between their hotels and the Kentucky Horse Park where the games were held.

All the people trying to jack up rental rates to make money off the games didn't get squat, as the tourists all booked hotel rooms, and since Lexington hideously overbuilt on hotel rooms in the previous decade (and kept on building once the games were announced, with the idea that somehow entire hotels would pay for themselves by being sold out for a two-week event), nobody was renting houses for several times the market rate.

This happens WHEREVER the Olympics go, every time. The Olympics suck. In fact, whichever city hosts them ends up demolishing the housing market for years in the wake of the event. Think about it: You own a modest, 30 year old, 3 bedroom, 1600 square foot house worth $200,000. The Olympics come to town, and all of the low-end housing is demolished/renovated into luxury condos so rich tourists can have somewhere to stay for two weeks. Then everyone leaves. Now there is a glut of empty luxury housing in your market, and what was the mid-market house you owned is suddenly the crappiest, most blighted, bottom-basement option to buyers. It is nothing for people to lose 20% of the value of their homes because the Olympics came to town. I NEVER want them anywhere near me, and I cannot comprehend why cities actually bid to host them.

MrT: This is a pretty stupid thing for a landlord to do.

I find it very hard to believe that the windfall over the Olympics would outweigh the costs of doing this. How much extra money is it going to bring in? Maybe a couple of thousand pound. Then they're going to have to re-let the property on a long term basis just as demand crashes and a huge glut of other rental properties are coming on the market at the same time. Half of the landlords that do this will still have houses sitting empty at Christmas. Then add in the cost of redecorating after the holiday renters have wrecked the place and the agency fees for finding and processing new tenants and that rather small amount of extra money they made will disappear in a hurry.

I know someone who worked at the slopes that the Vancouver winter games were held at. She had been renting the same condo year to year for five years. The Landlord put in a clause that she had to vacate for the two weeks that those slopes were in use. She pays 2,000/month. He charged 30,000/week for that unit.

/He got it too

some places up to 15,000$ per week? does a hotel in london cost 2000$ per night?

Yay for the 1%!! Yaay!!