To get you started, the boys in the office came up with the following answers: Hugh Heffner to organise the party guests Aggie and Kim (off the TV program “How Clean Is Your House) Jamie Oliver to provide the party food Bob the Builder to fix it, so they don’t have to.

You may have noticed some changes to Landlord News which include:

  This week Sarah agreed to write an exclusive article for Landlord News to explain how her latest online venture “Tepilo” can help property investors to reduce their costs by letting and/or selling their properties for FREE. Some quotes from Sarah:  “If buyers and tenants are heading directly to the internet why is it really […]

This rule of thumb is very simple.  If you have £100,000 of buy to let mortgages you should have £20,000 in the bank. This article was written to show you a safe strategy that you may never have considered before.  If you don’t have the right level of liquidity reserve, don’t panic.  There are ways […]

Tenants struggling to pay rent arrears to buy to let landlords have rocketed by 20% in a year, according to the Citizen’s Advice Bureaux (CAB).  The free access advice centres across England and Wales dealt with 20 rent arrears inquiries every day during the three months ending September 30.

Business is booming for student landlords as rents, property values and returns are all increasing. The average student landlord benefitted from a 13.5% return on investment in the year ending September 30, reports estate agents Knight Frank in their annual student property survey.

Up to 3,000 cases currently before the courts are likely to be withdrawn by lenders who will have to start proceedings all over again as a result of the Supreme Court ruling that found lawyers have not served the right paperwork on homeowners in arrears with loans secured against their properties.

Letting agents expect buy to let rents to keep edging higher as more tenants snap up the few available rental properties. Four out of 10 letting agents reported seeing an increase in rents over the quarter ending October 31, according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) residential lettings survey – while some (27%) […]

Private landlords may have to bear in mind their tenant’s human rights before they can evict them, according to the latest court ruling. Lawyers are likely to thrash out the implications of the case that could undermine a landlord’s ability to repossess a property in the New Year.

England faces a worsening housing crisis as house building is drastically out of pace with the demand for new homes.  The nation’s appetite for homes will run at about 250,000 a year for the next 25 years mainly due to the needs of a growing population, according to the latest government figures. 

A flurry of results and reviews about borrowing, the economy and tax that show the current state of the UK’s finances is pretty steady, if uninspiring, are now out. Building society gross lending was down nearly 10% in October – at £1.96 billion compared with £2.17 billion in September. 

Property prices in small market towns outstrip those of most nearby towns and cities by an average of £30,000, according to Lloyds TSB. House prices in English market towns are, on average, £29,319 (14%) higher than the surrounding counties.

What’s the cheekiest/craziest request you’ve received from a tenant?

A new rent survey based on the average cost of renting compared to buying a similar home on an interest only mortgage at 5%. Aberdeen is the cheapest place in the country to let a home, with rents 22% below the average cost of buying a similar home on an interest only mortgage at 5%.

Buy to let landlords making big rental profits and looking to save tax often flirt with the idea of running their business through a limited company. The main benefit is a company can be a tax-effective way of managing income.

Paying tradesmen for cash in the hand jobs seems like a good idea at the time – but ends up costing landlords more. The problem is only the tradesmen win when a landlord hands over cash for a job in return for a discount. The discount is generally equal to VAT the tradesman will not […]

Buy to let specialist lender Paragon Mortgages has announced a 32% rise in profits as the firm looks to reassert its former position as a major funder of professional landlords by lending £1 billion. After nearly three years away from the market, the lender has opened for new business after securing £200 million backing from […]

Tenants have lost two landmark appeals in cases that have rendered tenancy deposit legislation more or less useless. The ruling means that the current 14-day time limit on protecting a deposit imposed on landlords is merely an administrative requirement and not enforceable in law.

Buy to let lending has risen by 12% supported by ongoing demand for rental property fuelled by potential homeowners who have to rent because they cannot buy. There were 26,900 buy to let loans worth £2.8 billion advanced in the three months ending September 30, according to the latest figures from the Council of Mortgage […]

Time is running out in some cities for house in multiple occupation (HMO) investors to expand their property portfolios. The repeal of HMO planning rules by Housing Minister Grant Shapps has given property investors who want to open new shared houses or extend existing properties a window of opportunity.

Link to the original Mortgage Strategy article which reads as follows: Three people, including a former police financial investigator were sentenced yesterday to almost ten years imprisonment in total for defrauding mortgage providers of £4.6m. Charles Overend, a former police financial investigator, defrauded mortgage providers by hiding discounts he had received on the price of […]