Second property

PropertyGuru_Wannabe

The higher stamp duty and the rental income that can push you into higher tax bracket makes property investment unviable unless through the ltd company route.  You will also need to become well versed in buy to let regulations and conforming to requirements because if you do not and your tenant decides the property is their home without further payment, you will find it extremely difficult to get them to move out.  Do your own research and not to rely on others.

ReadySteadyPop

Herzlos said:

What do you want your pension to look like?

How much income do you need (a) now and (b) when you can access your pension fund?

£75k works out at about £4.5k/month, so you're saving towards half of that and presumably means your outgoings now are about £3-4k/month between you. Do you need to sustain that going forward?

Given your salary, age, etc. can you get away with just dropping your hours drastically? Assuming a 9-5 mon-fri job you'd lose £15k (pre-tax) for each additional day off you work, but realistically less due to tax. 

Property will probably result in the highest percentage yield but will require some work and money being fed back into it for upgrades. A management agent can take some of the work away for a fee but they rarely have a good reputation and you'll still need to pay for stuff like kitchens and roof repairs. 

Why are BTL landlords supposedly selling up in great numbers in that case? 

ReadySteadyPop

mlz1413 said:

On the 2nd property idea, I recently did a few figures on this and found that as a rental a profit is only made with interest only mortgages. So the asset is never yours.
  Ok it is expected that the property will go up in value, but when the mortgage period ends (say 20 years) you will have to decide what to do.

If you buy a flat then long term the management fees and repairs are an unknown.  With a freehold there is more control on costs.  Both will need work in 20 years as the mortgage ends.

A bit like renting a landlord certificate from the bank I suppose? The landlords who are doing OK bought in the 80`s 90`s and early 2000`s, they can afford to keep rents sensible to attract long term tenants, with all the double council tax stuff that is going on now voids are going to be very costly on that alone, not to mention higher mortgage rates.