Resident leaseholder complaints are only too familiar. Whenever anyone sells up in my block, the first question their neighbours ask (apart from what the flat went for, of course) is, are the new people going to live there? It’s a question asked with dread – and, having had two consecutive sets of trainee DJs renting the flat above me, both maintaining it was their right to play music into the early hours, it’s a dread I understand too well.

But the problems go beyond noise, drunken parties and a transient population. All the legislation the government has passed since 2002 assumes blocks of flats are communities, with leaseholders working together to achieve good management. But if only a few leaseholders are resident, everything – from drumming up participants for enfranchisement to finding volunteers to serve on the residents’ management company (RMC) board – becomes much more difficult. And it’s not a comforting thought that the building you regard as home is just a cash cow to some.

Dead money

But is the massive increase in small private landlords (one million already or three per cent of all homeowners with one million more looking to rent out a second property by 2010) providing the sort of living accommodation we want or need? Most people grow out of flat sharing. And most of the young Londoners I talk to about affordable housing describe rent as dead money that they’d rather be paying towards a mortgage.

For, while blocks lose out on a sense of community, the real losers of the buy-to-let boom are first-time buyers. The National Landlords Association may deny that buy-to-letters are competing with first-time buyers for the same properties. But they are. And, since they mostly have greater resources and in some cases even get tax relief on their mortgage interest, there’s no contest.

Just as City bonuses and the multi-national mega-rich have pushed up the market at the top end, so buy-to-letters have hiked it up at the bottom. Of course they aren’t the only reason house prices have been rising seven times faster than incomes – land shortages, an increase in single-person households, immigration and growing second-home ownership are factors. But buy-to-let is a factor too.

And it helps drive a further madness in our housing market. While the crying need is for homes people can afford – shared ownership and social rented housing – in London we’re building, for every three of these homes, seven luxury flats. Buy-to-letters lower the chances these proportions can ever be reversed by sustaining the market in these private-sale flats. Some buy-to-letters are forgetting about the ‘to let’ part – ever-increasing equity means it’s profitable to leave the flat empty, without the hassle of finding tenants.

The craze for property investment

Such is the British craze for property investment that buy-to-let has spread throughout Europe and even to Mongolia. The chronic housing shortage in Ulan Bataar is no deterrent to British buy-to-letters snapping up flats at bargain Mongolian prices to let to visiting businessmen.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents denies there is an oversupply of private rented flats – on the contrary, it says demand has never been stronger. But there are clouds on the horizon. From the Federation of Private Residents’ Associations to the government development body English Partnerships, voices are at last airing concerns about the effect of buy-to-let on communities.

There are signs, except in severely overheated prime central London, of a slowing in the market, making investment less of a sure thing. A further rise in the mortgage rate, which must come sooner or later, will leave some buy-to-letters severely overstretched. And 80,000 of them are being chased by the Revenue for unpaid tax.

Of course, not all buy-to-letters are irresponsible landlords. And not all subtenants are trainee DJs. All the same, if buy-to-letters start selling up, it could bring prices down at the lower end of the market. And it could mean blocks become better places to live.