A new range of six buy to let mortgage products has been released by Paragon’s Mortgage Trust today, as well as two ‘Rapid Remortgage’ deals. The three fixed mortgage rates range from 4.89% to 5.09% with three tracker rates between 4.3% and 4.5%, they will only be available via intermediaries for purchase and remortgage.

It’s official – thousands more tenants are chasing fewer buy to lets as online property portal Rightmove reports searches for homes to let are up 66% over the past two years. In the same time, the number of available homes has dropped by 25%.

Property prices are unlikely to bounce back strongly regardless of how the economy improves over the rest of the year, predicts mortgage lender Nationwide. The latest survey from the building society shows house prices increased by 0.3% from April to May, but the average home is worth around 1.2% less than a year ago at […]

Special thanks to David Humphries of buy-to-let.com for giving us permission to shine the spotlight on two excellent video’s he’s produced about purchasing property at auction. I first met David in 1995, as David recalls, before the phrase “buy-to-let” was a twinkle in the eye of it’s founders the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA).

I regularly give talks all around the country at landlord forums and property events. At the beginning of a talk, I usually ask landlords to raise their hands if they are using a letting agent. Over the last couple of years, there has been a noticeable shift where more landlords are beginning to self-manage their […]

Tenants’ lives were at risk when gas was reconnected to dangerous fittings after a safety engineer cut off the supply The landlord ignored warnings fittings were faulty – including a flue that was fitted back to front. Asif Azam of Whitelands Road, High Wycombe, was fined £800 and ordered to pay £2,000 costs after he […]

Fraud investigators are warning landlords to watch out for crooks trying to cheat them out of cash. The overseas gangs are targeting buy to let and holiday let landlords with variations of a common fee scam. The fraudsters will contact landlords to make a corporate booking – often for a charity or religious organisation.

In the previous two articles in his series, Bill Main-Ian recalled the accident that saw him lose one of his legs in a car accident and then fight for his perfect house which led to him becoming a property investor. The story of how Bill got into property investing and triumphed through adversity is being […]

One of the leading buy to let industry lenders, BM Solutions, has released two new Remortgage only buy to let products that must complete on the draw down of funds by 30/06/2011.

The Mortgage Works (TMW) has cut interest rates across some buy to let mortgages and launched a new fixed rate deal. Rates are down by 0.5% on mortgages for first landlords, let to buy borrowers and those offering free valuations and legal fees. The new fixed rate is 4.99% at 50% loan-to-value over five years […]

According to The Association of Independent Inventory Clerks (AIIC), poor and inadequate photographs are being used in property inventories at both check-in and check-out, leaving landlords exposed to potentially costly disputes with tenants over wear and tear.

The property market looks to have settled as house sales and mortgage lending seem to follow trends set over the past few months. Estate agents sold an average eight homes a branch in April – the same as February and March – says the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA). A lack of mortgage funding […]

Buy to let lender Paragon Mortgages is about to test how markets react to fears about toxic mortgage debt by issuing £250 million in bonds. The lender had to stop mortgage lending when funding for securitisation of mortgage loans dried up in the credit crunch – but the firm feels banks may now be ready […]

A landlord who ignored council orders to improve his property was fined £2,000 for putting their lives at risk. He repeatedly breached fire safety rules and let tenants live in damp rooms. Mokhtar Pouri denied seven offences of ignoring council improvement notices and admitted three further similar offences.

If you’re into statistics about the private rental sector the latest report from Paragon will keep you happy for quite some time.  The report, which is 32 pages long, has been summarised below.  A PDF of the report can be downloaded here. Paragon also released their half year trading figures today, download the PDF here.

A landlord was cleared of harassment after his son tried to evict two tenants from a shared house at knife-point with a gang of men. The case arose from a dispute over an illegal eviction from a house in multiple occupation (HMO) Mohammed Qureshi managed for his niece in Peterborough.

Property investors are being scammed by firms whose bosses tell their land banking sales people they can make a guaranteed £1 million in 12 months. Land banking firms typically sell small tracts of undeveloped land on the premise that the value will soar as the plot lies in the path of a new development. But […]

You have a desire to build a rental property portfolio but you don’t know where to start. Does this sounds familiar? Well I can help but please don’t just take my word for it. If you’re new to the property investment business and need property investment advice or you are considering employing the services of […]

Mortgage lending fell again last month – down 14% from March, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. The total of new mortgages fell from £11.35 billion in March to £9.8 billion in April. The CML, the industry voice of all the UK’s major bank and building society lenders, predicts little change in interest rates […]

Rents have bounced back to a record high as the mortgage squeeze forces would-be buyers to rent a home and into the hands of buy to let landlords. Average rents in England and Wales in April hit £692 a month – a peak last seen in November, according to LSL Property Services, one of the UK’s largest […]

Thousands of landlords have been left out of pocket with worthless contracts as emergency repair firm Homecall+ has collapsed. Homecall+ appears to have continued taking on new business since December 2010 without the permission of regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which failed to publicise a warning about the firm despite highlighting concerns.