Ever since I got into this business I have avoided SVR (Standard Variable Rate) mortgages or discounted/fixed rate mortgage products that revert to an SVR like the plague. Now I’m not talking about bank base rate trackers or LIBOR rates, they are fine. I prefer bank base rate trackers myself but that’s another story and […]

Thousands of buy to let properties all over the country are at risk of becoming uninsurable and unmortgageable in a few months. Homes and business properties worth around £214 billion could be affected from June if the government fails to reach a new agreement with home insurance firms over flooding.

Buy to let mortgage lenders are creaming off the best borrowers and leaving the rest without any real hope of raising loans. The reality of the market is more lenders are swooping like sharks in a feeding frenzy on landlords with the best credit ratings and highest rental yields, although they would have property investors […]

The latest news and views from the property market and private rented sector. Guest columnist Roger Lancaster adds two more posts to his 21st Century Letting Agents blog and Mark Alexander shares his HMO dilemma and expertise on where to start with property due diligence.

In the last article we looked at how a 21st Century Agency can ensure the security of a landlord’s portfolio even against its own default, and how in the process it could increase income year on year as well as minimise voids and arrears. I would like to deal with the cancer that is the […]

Police are warning landlords that crime gangs are looking for rental homes to turn into cannabis factories. A clear trend is emerging as drug barons turn away from growing cannabis in bulk at single locations. The latest criminal intelligence reveals the drug dealers are favouring turning buy to let homes in to small factories to […]

Buy to let experts are transmitting mixed messages about the state of the market in two new surveys. The latest buy to let musings from the Association of Residential Letting Agents highlights the problem of sentiment surveys in the property market. In a confused rambling, ARLA suggest the market ‘may be softening’ based on month-to-month […]

Norwich City Council are now charging £1,800 for an HMO licence, a 650% increase! Extortionate I think but so far as I knew, it didn’t affect me as none of my properties are licenceable HMO’s, until… Before I go on with my story, just in case you don’t know what an HMO is it’s a property […]

How many property investors do you think are wishing they had done more due diligence before they went ahead and committed to a purchase? This post is to give you a heads up of where to begin, simply because I meet so many wannabe property investors and new landlords who just don’t know where to […]

Landlords are bracing for a flood of rent arrears cases as renters struggle with their bills over the festive period. Housing charity Shelter claims around one-in-three renters have to make a tough choice between paying their rent or spending on food.

A property developer and lawyer are starting jail sentences after admitting a series of buy to let frauds. Legal executive David Kitching and developer Franco Campagna hatched a plan to scam cash from buy to let mortgage lenders when Campagna’s property development company ran in to trouble when the property market collapsed. Campagna told Lancashire […]

In the previous article I tried to make the point that a Letting Agent should act like an Asset Manager, managing a landlord’s portfolio to maximise the benefit to the landlord. This could only happen if the interests of the landlord are directly aligned with the interests of the Letting Agent but if this did […]

News Sourced by Property118 News Team New figures from conveyancing solicitors reckon home sales are failing at twice the number of those that complete. The firm, In-Deed, claims that house sales are more likely to abort than succeed despite the claims of banks and building societies that the amount of lending to homebuyers is increasing.

The Queen is leading the Olympic rental gold rush by letting out part of the grounds of Kensington Palace to the Russians. Westminster Council is considering an application for a hospitality village on the site – and the Queen will bank a £250,000 deposit plus an undisclosed rental.

The latest news and views from the property market and private rented sector along with guest articles from industry experts. The Property Maverick brings us part two of his investment strategy and new guest columnist Roger Lancaster asks what a landlord should expect from  a 21st Century Letting Agent.

Developers are looking at renting their homes instead of selling them as demand for buy to let hots up. As property prices fall and buyers have trouble in tracking down mortgages, renting out homes gives developers a better financial return. The latest to consider switching from building or refurbishment to buy to let is Rushbond, […]

Landlords are losing cases when tenants complain about non-return of deposits because they are failing to take good property inventories. Most landlord inventories fail to stand up in court or dispute resolution, argues the Association of Independent Inventory Clerks (AIIC). The AIIC slams landlords for inventory failures and suggests they should employ professional inventory clerks […]

What should a landlord expect? ARLA have been complaining that the Government should regulate Letting Agents in the same way they have done for Estate Agents. They may have a case, but ARLA standards are still pretty minimal compared to what the best agents are providing already. Landlords often make their own bed by going […]

Buy to let lenders have fired the first shots in the battle to win the hearts and minds of property investors. Platform, the landlord loan subsidiary of the Co-operative Bank, is increasing funding in the sector by 33% from £450 million last year to £600 million in 2012.

Homes under the hammer at auctions ended the year with a widening gap compared with the prices of property sold by estate agents. December figures for homes sold at auction show 2,448 properties were sold for an average price of £139,401, according to auction monitor EI Group.

Following on from yesterday’s Property Investment Strategies part one. Assignment of Contract With “Assignment of Contract”, when done correctly, you don’t even take title of the property. It works like this. You close a deal on a below market value property, then you sell or assign your right to buy the property to another buyer […]