A man who owns multiple homes has slammed the government’s Autumn Budget as “an attack on landlords”.
Ahmed Khan already has a property portfolio worth over £4m under his belt, despite being just 29-years-old.
The developer, from Hertfordshire, previously made headlines after revealing the key to his success was living at home for free with his parents.
But now the savvy property owner is hitting out at the government for doing “nothing to improve the affordability for first time buyers or younger people”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves yesterday (30 October) delivered Labour’s first Budget since 2010, after the party’s return to power in July’s general election.
She announced tax rises worth £40bn to fund the NHS and other public services, as well as a hefty increase to 5% on stamp duty for those buying a second home.
“As a landlord, like most of us, I thought they would do something that would be against us,” he told Absolutely Business.
“We’ve been seeing it over the past few years and it was obvious something was going to happen.
“But I assumed it would just be capital gains tax that would go up, not stamp duty too.
“It only went up a few years ago.
“Once again, landlords have been made to look like the bad guys – they’ve penalised us.
“And at the same time, these measures won’t deter big developers, only smaller landlords.”
Purchasing a second home used to be subject to a 2% stamp duty.
Now, on a property costing £250,0000, an extra £5,000 will be added to the cost.
Ahmed said: “I feel like it’s another policy which appears to the public like they’re doing their bit for equal distribution and less private ownership.
“But not much actually changes for the companies who could make a difference to this.
“When you have something like stamp duty going up, alongside the cost of labour and inflation, it makes it harder to develop.
“It’s already hard enough, as there’s only so much of a margin.
“There’s a misconception landlords make millions, but it’s like any other business – the more you squeeze that margin, the more you’ve got to weigh up the risk.
“When there’s hardly any money at the end of it, what’s the point?”
Ahmed says the policies introduced by the government will eventually lead to many houses being left empty and renters having to fork out more.
He added: “Big homes right now, like five or six bedrooms, aren’t suitable for families anymore.
“So developers buy these to turn them into flats.
“But if they can’t make the numbers work, then they won’t be interested, and so they’ll just be left empty as it’s no longer feasible.
“The government has a target of building 300,000 homes a year – but I’ve just finished a house conversion and it was really hard.
“If this continues to happen, then property prices will just increase, rather than come down, like this measure intends.
“The public think they’re stopping landlords, but the real ones aren’t the guys with three houses, it’s the big organisations.
“I don’t think they’ve done anything to improve the affordability for first time buyers or younger people.
“And if they can’t buy, then rents will creep up due to the demand.
“All this budget does is try to make landlords the scapegoat; but in the long run, it will have the opposite effect to what it had intended.
“Bigger landlords will only get bigger – and it’s the smaller ones trying to make an extra stream of income that will suffer.”
