Remortgage For A 2nd Home To Rent

seraphina

I'm writing this from my perspective as a tenant. Please forgive me if this is harsh but I think it needs to be said

Can you afford to keep at least £5,000 aside for emergencies? Given that you can't afford the 15% deposit, I doubt it.

So what are you planning on doing when your tenant's boiler is condemned in the middle of winter? If it were my house, I wouldn't mind too much wrapping up warm and having sponge baths for a few weeks (months?) until we could afford to get it replaced, but as a tenant I expect it replaced pronto, by qualified fitters - that's what I'm paying my rent for.

What about when the pipe taking the bath waste cracks away from the plughole and an entire bath's worth of water is dumped over the living room. You can't just let it go mouldy and deal with it when you have the cash - this is someone's home you are talking about.

Both of the above happened to us within a fortnight this year. Our landlord and letting agent, who have been great (touch wood), had the boiler completely replaced 4 days after it was condemned and the bath fixed the day after the leak. Redecorating the living room took a little longer but was accomplished ASAP. I saw the bills for these works and there was not much change from £4000.

If you can't afford to deal with situations like the above, you have no business being a landlord.

jamesd

Jorgan, I agree about a free market. Would be nice to see one. At present we have buy to let subsidised with deduction of interest from pre-tax income while buying to live in isn't similarly treated but instead comes from post-tax income.

It would be interesting to see how the competition between buy to let and buy to live in purchasers changed if both were treated similarly and rental income was added to pre-tax income, tax paid, then mortgage interest and upkeep paid out of the after-tax income.

regularsaver1

seraphina - i agree with you in one way. i saw this lady yesterday that lets two properties. we were discussing her insurance ect and i asked if her properties had smoke alarms ect - she said she didn't know!!!! erm what!! isn't it a requirement???
she also didn't have it managed. i don't know what she would have done if the boiler failed ect

robwend

usually if its with a letting agent you can have some of the rent bagged up for any problems that arise, saves forking out lumps