Has The Private Rented Sector Peaked?
February 11, 2016
We had a great debate at an NLA meeting in Tower Hamlets in the heart of London’s East End last Thursday, reflecting on the recent tax changes and their broader impact on the Private Rented Sector. My hypothesis is that the 3% SDLT surcharge which the chancellor is levying on landlords from 1 April 2016 and the restrictions on mortgage interest tax relief from 2017 will deter future investment and prompt some landlords to sell. Richard Lambert, CEO of the NLA said that […]
Imagine a perfect world where all properties were freehold. Unfortunately in England, this scenario doesn’t exist. The main advantage of buying freehold is that you have total control – but with that comes all of the maintenance bills of course. I fully appreciate that sometimes we have to buy a leasehold property because the budget we have for a particular location will not stretch to a self contained building on its own plot. Beware of the pitfalls though – here are ten to consider:
Do you remember the news headlines about interest rates just over a month ago? On 17 July 2015, The Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney warned the nation that the decision to raise interest rates “will likely come into sharper relief around the turn of the year.” Unemployment figures for July had plateaued at 5.6% and with some sectors claiming they were struggling to recruit, wage rises had crept up to 3%. The current inflation rate of 0.1% has largely reflected falls in […]
The chancellor pulled a number of rabbits out of the hat in his Summer 2015 budget statement. Although many column inches had been dedicated to the loss of buy to let tax ‘perks,’ the landlord community was not expecting the measure to actually materialise. Until April 2017, landlords will be able to set all mortgage finance costs against rental income, but thereafter relief will only be applicable at the basic tax rate, albeit phased in over 4 years. The big questions are who will this […]
I’m always keen to encourage people to research their own buy to let mortgages, but there’s no doubt it can be very daunting. There are a few key concepts you need to understand and I’m going to outline them here for you. First let’s take a quick look at the history of the buy to let mortgage and how it came about.