New EU mortgage rules to hit btl

cepheus

Strange how these papers can support house prices and reject immigration, bit of a dilemma? Anyway I digress....

How the Daily Express invented another EU-storm on houses

by Tim Fenton
November 13, 2011 at 11:14 am

Both the Mail and Express are equally hostile to the EU. Both are also alert to any threat to house prices.

So a story that coupled both the EU and a threat to house prices would be a perfect storm of frightening. Yesterday, the Express did just that as its front cover thundered ‘EU Rules To Slash House Prices’.

Except – no surprise here – it’s not true.

What the Express is alluding to is the proposed (as in only being discussed right now) Mortgage Credit Directive, which is to do with responsible lending, balanced and clear marketing of mortgage products, comparable and clear pre-contractual information, sound financial advice, good creditworthiness assessments, and supervision of brokers and other intermediaries.

However, eagle-eyed observers will have noted the date on the document: 31st March this year. So the proposal has been around for seven and a half months before the Express has hit the panic button. Why should this be? Ah well. Someone at the paper has discovered that buy-to-let mortgages could, maybe, no longer be based on projected rental income.

And it is this group that the Express is now championing unequivocally, telling that this would “force hundreds of thousands of people to sell up”, which, if they had already secured mortgages on their properties, it would not.
Moreover, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has made its own submission, working with the Treasury.

The FSA has put at the top of the list of changes it would like to see “the exclusion of ‘niche products’ from the scope of the directive … such as buy-to-let lending”. And the news coming out of discussions on the proposal suggests that buy-to-let will indeed be exempted.

But none of this is disclosed by the Express to its dwindling band of readers.
Instead, there is the usual frothing pundit from UKIP, and comments from the Building Societies’ Association and the Association of Residential Letting Agents which are suitably qualified and give the impression that both spokesmen were fed the story as the Express has published it.

geneer

heathcote123 wrote: »

Where does a massive load of money for social housing usually come from?

Dunno, don't recall it happening recently. Do you?

:rotfl:https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3608505

British ministers are drawing up plans for a £50 billion housing and road-building programme harnessing private sector money, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Sunday Times said Osborne wants private sector money held by pension fund managers and insurance companies to fund the infrastructure programme to boost the recovery.

His plan is designed to prompt a surge of housebuilding and public sector construction projects, including power stations, social housing, super-fast broadband and toll roads, it said.

These would be on top of 40 infrastructure projects already in the pipeline, including rail, road and national electricity grid improvements, which the government plans to speed up

Its on the tip of my tounge heathcote.

Rhymes with CHOOM BEDPOTT!

wotsthat

geneer wrote: »

In addition, economically things look to be getting worse not better.
The gov may well decide that a programme of infrastructure construction is required.

Nice prediction about the infrastructure project - I'm well impressed.

Would have been more impressed if it hadn't been all over the news today.

Mr_Mumble

cepheus wrote: »

Strange how these papers can support house prices and reject immigration, bit of a dilemma? Anyway I digress....

Ugh, that liberalconspiracy blog says the Express are not telling the truth (i.e. lying) and then says nothing to back this wild assertion up. You can disagree with the conclusions the Express draw from the policy (and I personally do) but there is no 'lying' here.

cotleigh

ILW wrote: »

I get the impression that if any party stood on a platform of reducing rents by 50%, they could be onto a winner.

Well, that's fairly obvious.

If you promise to rob Peter and pay Paul, you've always got Paul's vote!

The problem then would be that there would end up being far fewer places for rent, because it would no longer be worth doing.

ILW

cotleigh wrote: »

Well, that's fairly obvious.

If you promise to rob Peter and pay Paul, you've always got Paul's vote!

The problem then would be that there would end up being far fewer places for rent, because it would no longer be worth doing.

I doubt the properties would stand empty, they would just be lived in by different people. It is not as if BTL has resulted in many extra homes to speak of. A system which encouraged build to rent may be worth looking at though.

heathcote123

geneer wrote: »

:rotfl:https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3608505



Its on the tip of my tounge heathcote.

Rhymes with CHOOM BEDPOTT!

If you had a pound for every time a minister had an impressive sounding plan, you could buy a flat by now.

I'd put the cork back in and wait for some detail if I were you - they are politicians y'know.

heathcote123

ILW wrote: »

It is not as if BTL has resulted in many extra homes to speak of. A system which encouraged build to rent may be worth looking at though.

Much of the preoperty built during the boom was because of investor demand.

geneer

heathcote123 wrote: »

If you had a pound for every time a minister had an impressive sounding plan, you could buy a flat by now.

I'd put the cork back in and wait for some detail if I were you - they are politicians y'know.

ha ha. Admit it. The timing of that bit of news was exquisite.

RenovationMan

There probably won't be an EU in a couple of years, leastways the last thing they will be concerning themseves with is house rentals.