Landlords Accreditation Schemes operated by the NLA (National Landlords Association), MLAS (Midlands Landlord Accreditation Scheme) and London Landlords Accreditation are now being used to set a benchmark by some Universities (two in Birmingham) as to whether to allow landlords to advertise properties to let to their students. The schemes are education based, NOT inspection based. […]

Mortgage lenders released the purse strings on home loans slightly in August, but this year looks unlikely to equal last year’s lending. Remortgaging was up significantly, with 34,100 loans worth £4.2 billion, making both the number of loans and amount borrowed were more than 30% higher than August 2010. The number and total value of […]

Little has changed in the stagnant housing market over recent weeks, according to the latest market and price surveys. The latest UK house price statistics from the government show house prices sliding back 1.3% over the year to the end of August. The average UK house price was £208,476, says the Communities and Local Government […]

Universities in Oxford may have to put millions of pounds of developments on hold because protesters claim they have broken planning rules. Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities both signed agreements that limit the numbers of students that can live off campus – and residents have put together a census report that argues both have got […]

Cheap fixed rate and tracker buy to let mortgages may be on the way out as the rate lenders pay for money has increased. This is likely to lead to higher mortgage rates even if the Bank of England base rate stays at the record low of 0.5%. Banks and building societies pay returns based […]

“Respect seems to be like a boomerang in the sense that you must send it out before it will come back to you.” I have been giving a lot of thought to the relationship between a landlord and his tenants. Many tenants have landlord stories and many landlords have tenant stories but sadly neither seem […]

The great rush for student lettings may be ending for the big corporate developers due to fears of over exposure in the market. Property consultants EC Harris have revealed public spending cuts have drastically hit the student housing sector as universities do not have the cash to finance building more halls. Private investors are now […]

The buy to let mortgage market is set for changes as new lenders are ready to offer loans to property investors. Santander was poised to start lending last month, but has held back blaming technology problems. The bank had approached mortgage brokers with a 75 per cent loan-to-value deal for landlords with small portfolios of […]

In May of this year, Property118.com published my article entitled “How to get your property portfolio off death row”. I explained how having realised how vulnerable I was to base rate increases, I took action to dramatically improve the returns on my portfolio. Part of my strategy was “Rent to Buy”. Several people have asked […]

When a tenant has a beef with their landlord, I’m the guy they go to. My job is to either negotiate or prosecute, depending on the circumstances. This occasional and random series aims to let landlords know the common complaints that are made about them, the laws that cover them and how to deal with […]

House prices are unlikely to change for the rest of the year, according to one of the UK’s largest mortgage lenders. The housing market has stuttered along for most of the year, with insignificant rises and falls as prospective buyers turned to renting due to problems raising large cash deposits and mortgages. A general lack […]

Interest rates are to stick at 0.5% for another month as the Bank of England tries to revive the flatlining economy with another £75 billion of quantitive easing. The decision by the bank’s monetary policy committee leaves the official interest rate at the record low level for 31 months in a row. Effectively, triggering a […]

Part 10 in my Landlords Log video blog series looks at property maintenance and refurbishment, budgeting and useful calculators. I also share tips of carpet colours and talk about one of my refurb projects of a trashed property.

Buy to let lenders are making deals tougher for property investors who try and purchase off-plan or at below market value. In the latest move to fight mortgage fraud, banks and building societies want builders to tell them about any price incentives that affect the value of the property. Builders and developers must supply the […]

Rows over the future of buy to let lending are raging on as the European Union debates ways to safeguard consumers from unfair lending practices. European politicians are formulating a mortgage directive to standardise lending rules across the 27 member states, but buy to let lenders in the UK are protesting the new constraints are […]

This week we have added a new video section to our weekly eNewsletters which provides insight into the landlord mind set of our founder Mark Alexander. These videos are free to watch and are typically two to eight minutes in length. Please pose questions and comments for Mark to follow up in future videos and […]

University Students Becoming Landlords With the rising costs of university education some families of students are choosing to help their offspring through University and onto the property ladder. Property values are depressed, rental returns are high and interest rates for borrowing are at an all time low. This is a wonderful opportunity to create profits […]

A council is making a bid to bankrupt a landlord who is alleged to owe almost £25,000 in council tax. Croydon Council in South East London has made a rare move for a local authority to take over a bankruptcy petition against the landlord started by a business partner. The landlord, Mahendra Shah, of Upper […]

A landlord who ignored repeated warnings from a council that he should licence his property was fined £1,600. Leon White was also ordered to pay costs of £709 in his absence after failing to attend the hearing at Teesside Magistrates Court. He faced a charge of failing to licence a house in a selective licensing […]

I recently asked my Twitter followers to pose questions for me to answer in my daily video blogs which you can subscribe to free of charge at You Tube. My You Tube channel is called Landlords Log. Twitter follower @jonathanhorswell, an existing landlord, came back to me with a question asking “should I be adding […]