Richard Blanco

1. Regulation of Buy To Let Mortgages
The rise in Buy To Let mortgages from 5% in 2009 to 16% of mortgage lending in 2016 concerned the Bank of England.  The governor argued that if the market had a downtown, lots of landlords selling all at once could seriously affect the UK economy.  Regulation by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) started on 1 January 2017 and a second phase will come into force on 30 September 2017.  Phase 1 introduces a new stress test which is […]

There was a rumour last week that the government were to propose the introduction of three year compulsory tenancy agreements in England in this week’s housing white paper. It then emerged that there would be no compulsion and the proposal was simply to promote longer tenancies in homes let by housing associations and institutional investors.  According to the white paper, finally released on 7 February 2017, the government “will consider” what more can be done for security of tenure for families in the rest of […]

The Bank of England introduced four measures last week aimed at mitigating the negative economic effects of the referendum result.  The headline grabbing cut in the Bank of England base rate from 0.5% to 0.25% is the first since 2009.  This will have a marginal effect on borrowing costs, but the bank is determined that lenders will pass it on and is providing them with £100 billion called ‘term funding’ provided they do pass on the cut to encourage them to lend.  The […]

It is nearly a year since the Summer budget when Osborne announced the first raft of punishing tax changes for the UK’s 1.7 million landlords, only to be compounded by yet more in the Autumn statement.  After much gloom had descended on the landlord community and many resolve to sell up, it was with so fantastic last week to hear the news that the Court of Appeal ruled that West Bromwich building society was not entitled to arbitrarily hike mortgage interest rates for landlords.  The […]

I spoke to many landlords at the recent Property Investor Show at Excel in London.  Here are what I think are the top ten challenges facing London landlords:
1.  Landlord Sentiment
NLA research has found that landlord confidence has fallen to a level lower than it was during the 2007/8 crash.  19% of landlords say they will sell a property in the next 12 months.  This is because of the tax changes brought in by the Chancellor in his last 3 budget statements. Mortgage Interest relief is […]