Upbeat or Downbeat?
May 18, 2017
I recently spent two days at the Property Investor Show, held twice a year at Excel in East London. Footfall was noticeably lighter that at events in 2016. I gave two talks and was sat on a panel called ‘The Great Landlord Debate’ about the state of the market and forthcoming regulation.
There’s a lot of sobering data around at the moment. House prices are falling, rental demand has slowed significantly and rents are falling in many parts of London. NLA research tells us […]
Theresa May’s snap election has knocked housing well and truly off the news agenda for the time being and I am now fascinated by the politics of what lies ahead. Firstly the question of why she called the election. I thought it was astonishing that she claimed that there was too much opposition in the House of Commons and the House of Lords to her vision of Brexit, when debate is Parliament’s raison d’etre and she had won recent Brexit votes comfortably. With […]
1. Regulation of Buy To Let Mortgages
Big changes are afoot with buy to let lending that will make it increasingly difficult to get a loan. If like me, you refinance several loans a year as discounted products come to an end, then you need to take a long hard look at the changes and start planning, particularly if you were hoping to raise more money.
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 […]