BTL is back with a vengeance and MEANER than ever

Turnbull2000

http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/buy-to-let-investments/12943/buytolet-is-back-and-its-meaner-than-ever?source=uoofolrf0010002

I’ve got bad news for anybody who dreamed of getting onto the property ladder in their lifetime. You’ve got competition, and it’s bigger and badder than you are.

It is called buy-to-let, and it’s back with a vengeance.

Buy-to-let took a thumping in the financial crisis. Lenders fled the arena. Investors lost their nerve. Naive spectators like me expressed the hope that house prices might slide to levels where young people could afford them again.

It didn’t happen. House prices dipped, but not enough to make them affordable for newbie buyers. Worse, nervy lenders started demanding that buyers produce vast deposits.

To buy a modestly-priced £150,000 first-time buyer property, you would have to slap down at least £37,500. Few young people can afford that, unless they have a sweet line of credit from the Bank of Mum and Dad. No wonder the average first-time buyer is now 37 years old, going on 43, according to the National Housing Federation.

Even all-time low mortgage rates haven’t helped.

Amateur hour

This isn’t a problem for the buy-to-let investor. Many are now remortgaging their existing deals and using the funds to top up their portfolios. With base rates likely to stay low until 2014, they’d be mad not to.


Who can blame them? This is a great time to be a buy-to-let investor. Everything is moving in their favour. Finance is cheap and readily available (to them). House prices are weak yet rock bottom base rates should spare us a housing crash. Yields are soaring, thanks to record demand from tenants.


Given the lousy returns on cash and the ongoing stock market horrorshow, you can see why more and more people are backing buy-to-let.

nearlynew

Have you bought one then turnbull?

Blacklight

The very same thing would have happened if prices had fallen.

ruggedtoast

They may be gloating now, but the landlord classes were gloating just before the cultural revolution. Some mainline Maoism soon changed their minds.

abaxas

Owww a class of people who cannot liquidate assets quickly..... ripe for taxation.

the_flying_pig

I’m thinking about buying a new house. We spoke to a financial advisor [who’s attached to an estate/letting agency] about mortgages etc. He was on about us keeping our old property on as a buy-to-let. Clearly a VI since he’d get both a backhander from whoever sold us our buy-to-let mortgage and, he’d no doubt hope, his agency would be in a prime position to be the letting agent.

He gave some half plausible-sounding advice on the best LTV [not too high, otherwise rates would go up] and some slightly less plausible-sounding advice on interest only vs. repayment for the BTL. He seemed to be skirting round a couple of potentially vital elephants in the room such as residential mortgage rates being lower & possible rental yields.

At some point he casually mentioned that his letting agency fees were 16% [not clear what this covered]. Yes, that’s sixteen percent. I think his plan was to initially quote a very high figure so that we’d feel like we’d got a good deal after haggling a few percentage points off it. But it had a quite different effect.

geneer

Nice headline.
Shame the facts don't back the thesis up.

Harvey studies English Literature though, so I'm sure he knows his stuff.

Like this article from aug 2009 where he talks about the buy-to-let apocalypse and tells us they got what they deserved.
http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/buy-to-let-investments/3732/its-a-buytolet-apocalypse

Or this one where he says you must be mad to be a buy to let landlord.
http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/buy-to-let-investments/4636/you-must-be-mad-to-be-a-buytolet-landlord

Or this one where he says buy to let landlords are getting what they deserve.
http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/buy-to-let-investments/3424/buytolet-investors-are-getting-what-they-deserve

geneer

Looks like you backed the wrong lovemoney horse Turnbull.

Maybe you should try this one.

19th November 2009. THE FUTURES BRIGHT FOR BUY TO LET.
http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/buy-to-let-investments/4188/the-futures-bright-for-buytolet

Or maybe not.

2nd November 2009. BUT TO LET INVESTORS ARE KIDDING THEMSELVES.
http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/buy-to-let-investments/4118/buytolet-investors-are-kidding-themselves




:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Don't suppose they're just hacks paid to fill up column inches eh.

de1amo

İm looking for direction with respect to being a BTL landlord.-i own an appartment in the uk which is worth about 170k with a rental value of 775pcm. i live abroad but have a small mortgage on the uk property of 55k-its just left vacant with family members residing there as hoc'--i would like to raise capital on it for purchasing abroad and getting it let out properly.--reading this thread it suggests that now is a good time??-i contacted a fsa in the uk but he seemed to be luke warm on my 'plans'--dont know why i see them as legal and practical!

robmatic

£775pm is not a great yield to be honest.

de1amo

my wife ties me to owning this property! she is foreign and insists i own my bit of england'-i do endless 'sums' and cant see the sense in not selling this property but at the moment 775 is better than leaving it empty!-i would get 8pc interest on the money after the sale which is far better than i see prices fairing in the uk --i do wonder why landlords want to invest in this market with all the portences for price drops??