> Even the poor can get a loan from the bank and do it.

You usually need a deposit for a loan. Poor people generally don't have huge amounts of savings.

I think you can start with buying smaller things first, and build up from that. Like buying something for 100000$. Then you don't need as big of a loan.

Also, isn't that an argument for providing housing to rent. If poor people can't afford to buy houses, where would they live, if there weren't houses to rent?

I think we have very different definitions of poor. $100k with a LTV of 10% means savings of $10k (besides the other fees of buying a place). Poor people don't have that.

A quick Google showed that the median savings account balance across American households is $4,830. And when you have a median that's considerably lower than the average, it means that the poor people are doing worse. The likelihood is they're in debt.

And as an aside, seeing as this is the UK, $100k wouldn't buy a house in an area that is desirable or has jobs, so you'd struggle to live there or rent it out.

How many people are poor like that? And the amount of money they hold seems a poor indicator, too. People who have paid off half their million dollar house, and have an income of 20k/month would count as poor.

If the average household has 5k in savings, pool with your parents to get to 10k.

Or take on some night time job once per week, to earn an extra 400$ per month, and save for 2 years.

And you don't have to buy a whole house, a small flat can be a sufficient start.

I have to say I have never done this, but I was recently in talks with people who propose doing that and help people who do it. It sounded plausible - why not? You can buy a rented flat (that already has tenants who pay rent). So the numbers are pretty much clear.

They told me the bank doesn't count the rent as your income, though. That is the catch. So for your first investment like that, you have to be creditworthy on your own. However, after a while you can build trust with the bank (they see the rent from the tenants keeps coming on a regular basis), and get more credit. Then you can start the next project.

You don't have to invest in a desirable area, as you don't want to live there yourself.

Nevertheless, I am still not convinced it is for me. I worry too much about bad tenants, things breaking on the property and so on. I have almost no knowledge about housing properties (like to how do you recognize damage to the property before buying it, how much do repairs cost, and so on).

> How many people are poor like that?

My experience is that it is a significant percentage (i.e. more than 10%)... And about your point about home owners being poor - not everybody owns their own home (stats show it's about 2/3rds). I just don't see BTL as realistic for people struggling to make ends meet.

I said the metric of "money held in the bank" would count many home owners as poor, even if they own a house that is worth 1 million dollars. Not that they are actually poor - that is the point. The metric may not be very useful.