The post you are reporting:
Is it reasonable to suppose, from what you say Steve, that eleven out of the twelve flats have been purchased with a mortgage (perhaps bought by the one-time Council Tenant at some discount)?
The rents charged are set so that the mortgage is covered, with perhaps a little left over for 'profit'? [not to mention covering the letting-agent's fees]
What with the current job market as it is and the wage levels as they are it must be difficult to plan ahead. For any would-be tenant earning enough to pay such rents must also know that for about the same money they too could join the housing ladder. So, if the properties are to be let and the go-getting ex-tenants - now property tycoons, are to realise their dreams of profiting off the efforts of others... Where are tenants to be found?
If we assume that go-getting types are those we all should aspire to be. Then must we not agree that the way forward is to be in a situation where profit is to be made from the efforts of others?
Who are these others to be?
Is it not now essential that a separate sort of person must be created, one with the wherewithal to pay high rents, but not the gumption to follow the go-getter into property to-let ownership?
BUT. Hey-ho... To cut to the chase.
On the one hand there are people, though unwilling or unable to toil for a £ in order to pay rent of just under a £ (or a £+), that still need a roof over their heads.
On the other hand there are people who have been (part) gifted a property and think it their due to receive in rent sufficient £s for their own needs (and a little bit extra) Or, more generally, those who have made an investment and therefore require a profit.
What a pity that the answers that spring to mind are such as would have the properties empty, the families homeless and the 'investor' severely out of pocket.
If only somebody had thought to build blocks of flats specifically for rent, at reasonable/low rents, to the very people who could work and live fairly well in a low pay - low rent fashion?