He bought property A and lived in it. He paid a deposit to buy the property and he borrowed the mortgage. He repaid his mortgage while he lived there, this is the cost of having a roof over his head - not an investment into a pension.
His partner/wife did the same with property B. They then rented these out and bought property C, they paid a deposit and borrowed the rest for this.
This is their family home, the one where they live with their children, in the city where they work. In 7 years they have repaid 20k off the loan - or 283 Euro per month.
They will not "lose" this as they are living in the home,
They are in negative equity to the tune of a six figure sum : they will be better off financially - not difficult as now I understand from what the OP wrote that his liabilities greatly exceed his assets - if they went to Britain ( like so many others ) and got this debt wiped off.
most people living in the home of their choice would do very well to have this luxury for 283 euro per month.
you forget he would have paid interest as well as paying off the capital amount. Living in the home - rightly - cost a lot more than 283 a month.
You do realise that most people have to pay to have the roof over their heads don't you?
of course, did I ever suggest otherwise? And I also think people should pay for their pension. It cannot come too easy and I think the OP may have expected it too easy.
You don't seem to understand the difference between investing and gambling.
Investing is when you can afford to lose the money you are using.
Gambling is when you can't.
a thin line at times. Investors in banks in cyprus lost money, as well as some investors in Irish banks in the past.
One dictionary definition of investing is "
1.
the investing of
money or capital in order to
gain profitable returns, as
interest, income, or appreciation in
value. "
Gambling is To bet on an uncertain outcome, as of a contest.
b. To play a game of chance for stakes.
2. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage or a benefit.
3. To engage in reckless or hazardous behavior: You are gambling with your health by continuing to smoke.
All pension funds include a percentage of their funds in property : do you think they are "gamblers"?
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, its easy to see how foolish it was to "invest" in property in a poorly regulated, poorly planned and poorly governed economy, but it did not seem like that at the time, and for decades returns on property outpaced returns from many other types of investment, or at least kept up with inflation, unlike your prize bonds etc
What he did, like so many others, was to borrow the money to buy property and hope that the rent would pay the mortgage, and then sell it for a huge amount of money a few years later.
In fairness to the OP he did not mention he wanted to sell the property "a few years" after buying it. Definition of few:
"Amounting to or consisting of a small number: one of my few bad habits.
2. Being more than one but indefinitely small in number: bowled a few strings."
Most people who bought property to rent out , or to have as their pension, done so as a long term thing. There were high transaction cost charged by the government eg stamp duty to discourage people holding property for only "a few" years. In fact, when the government decided it wanted people to invest in section 23 / 27 properties for their pensions / long term saving, they discouraged greatly the sale of such properties within ten years, by having a clawback of tax incentives within ten years if the property was sold.
The Section 23's (that you're so fond of) insured that the cost to the buyer was as little as possible and insured tax free rental income for years. Maintenance, refurbishment etc, all written off by this incentive.
I do not think "Maintenance, refurbishment etc, all written off by this incentive."...I think the property owner still had to pay this.
He chose to take a gamble and unfortunately it didn't work out for him.
It was a gamble, but unless you have a permanent and pensionable job many people have found their finances have been a gamble. He should have disregard the government property incentive and invested some of his savings for the future outside the country, perhaps through a pension fund ; or else got a job with a defined benefit pension. Not everyone can have a defined benefit pension worth the 1.5 million the OP gripes about, though.
The costs he incurred was minimal because the first two houses were not bought as BTL's - they were bought as homes.
.
I doubt the costs were "minimal"; they probably spent tens of thousands through deposits , stamp duty, solicitors fees, outfitting, leases, initial mortgage repayments, etc.
Anyway, I am fed up playing devils advocate, and there are questions only the OP can answer eg how much extra per month did he invest in the extra 2 properties etc. However he is where he is: I think judging from his posts he thinks the playing field is not level?
Please Honest try to respond to the actual points I'm making.
I think I have always responded to your actual points. Anyway I have tried to be fair, and to see all points of view. I do not believe in bashing people when they are down, especially if they are decent hard-working people ( and I have no reason to suspect otherwise) who acted in good faith but were possibly unlucky / foolish / misled or whatever. I am not posting on this thread any more and let the OP explain things if he wants.
That's what got the OP into the mess in the first place - yeah you're great keep putting all your savings into property, sure what could go wrong?