Official bank rates will stay at 0.5% after the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted for no change for a record 29th month in a row. They also agreed to keep quantitive easing at £200 billion. Buy to let landlords are concerned that mortgage interest rate rises could drive them out of business, according […]

Yorkshire Building Society is taking a tentative step in to buy to let lending with a limited range of mortgages for landlords. Buy to let borrowing will be available through the building society’s subsidiary Accord Mortgages. The plan is for a ‘suck it and see’ approach for the Yorkshire’s first foray in to the buy […]

Up to seven new tenants are competing to rent each home- and the gap between available properties and the number of tenants who can’t find a home is widening. The number of tenants seeking a home has jumped by 15% during the three months ending June 30 compared with the same period last year, according […]

Residents are failing to take a shine to glass and steel tower blocks to house students in university towns and cities. ‘Town v gown’ upsets are setting neighbours against each other in some communities in angry rows over noise, anti-social behaviour and falling housing standards. With around 3 million students at the UK’s universities and […]

London buy to let landlords may soon have to fight toe-to-toe with institutional investors for prime residential property. Soaring rents and a shift from owning a home to renting a home for younger adults is triggering fresh interest in residential investment from pension funds and property companies ready to pour millions into housing in the […]

The Property Ombudsman finally has government go-ahead to tighten up on rogue letting agents who exploit landlords and tenants. After two years of trying, the Office of Fair Trading has given the nod to the ombudsman to introduce a lettings code for agents. The aim is to give better financial and legal protection to some […]

Forget the odd moans and gripes between those traditional enemies landlords and tenants – the majority get on just fine. Nearly every landlord has a good relationship with their tenants, according to the latest survey from the National Landlords Association. Six out of 10 landlords described claimed they got on ‘very well’ with tenants, while […]

Crooked property investors who lied on mortgage applications to finance 19 buy to let homes have to pay back £200,000 of rents in six months or face longer in jail. John and Helen Rose, 45, from Doncaster, were sentenced in February last year, for fraud following an 18 month investigation by South Yorkshire Police. They […]

The tax man is under orders to beef up customer service after an investigation by MPs revealed the frustration of taxpayers dealing with HM Revenue and Customs. MPs sitting on the Treasury Committee have reported on the administration and effectiveness of HMRC – and found the tax man wanting in several areas. HMRC blames PAYE […]

This Video only got half as many hits as the talking dog…….. ….. but 28 million people can’t be wrong!

The average cost of a home bought at auction is 25% below market value, according to new research. The same figures relased in June appeared to be at 32%. The latest Land Registry average price of a home in England and Wales for June is £161,479, compared with the average cost of a residential auction […]

Buy to let mortgage specialist Paragon has announced completing new lending of £65.7 million for the second quarter of 2011. The firm disclosed this is around two-thirds of buy to let completions by Paragon Mortgages since the firm reopened lending books on October 1st last year, after a lengthy absence from the market due to […]

Pets are suffering from a raw deal in the buy to let boom as landlords refuse to allow them to move in with their owners. Letting agents and landlords are experiencing record rents and swarms of tenants chasing fewer properties as the number of homes for rent dries up. The huge increase in tenants seeking […]

Ringing HM Revenue and Customs to try to find a sensible answer to a pressing tax problem is never easy. Promising to answer calls when they ring is not the same as giving a reasonable answer to a taxpayer’s questions. Landlords suffer as much as anyone else from the frustration of dealing with HMRC. Many […]

So the property market is stuck in a rut and prices and mortgage lending bottom out, according to the latest surveys. Looking at the housing market from a seller’s point of view, fewer houses are taking longer to sell mainly because mortgage lenders are keeping their cash.

Property investors with homes near East London’s Olympic Stadium are seeing house prices sprint ahead of the rest of the country. Prices have raced up in value by an average £60,000 to £266,730 since London as awarded the games in July 2005 – equivalent to an extra £192 per week. The medal winning postcodes saw […]

Oxford homes are the most overpriced in the country, according to an online survey. Two thirds of people think homes in the city are not worth the asking prices, research by online property portal Rightmove found. Around 63% of people consider homes in Greater London are also too expensive, says the survey. But homes in […]

Thank you to Susanne, a landlord known to us via the Property tribes forum, for sharing the following story with us.

Earlier this week I wrote a Blog about my my Twitter account getting hacked. Changing the password fixed it. Since then spam attacks on Property118.com have increased 2000%. Fortunately, none of the attacks have penetrated our security at Property118.com but it has increased resource requirements for our moderators as they still need to read through […]

Councillors want to dabble in property investment by spending millions on purchasing ‘substandard’ buy to let homes. The plan is for Newham Council, East London, to buy and let the homes to improve housing standards – and to make a killing on capital appreciation as well. The council is banking on cheap borrowing rates offered […]

A landlord who lived a lavish millionaire lifestyle and drove a Mercedes, has to pay £40,000 for renting out death trap flats even after tenants were banned from living in them. The terraced houses he rented out had water dripping through light fittings and live electrical wires hanging out of the walls, a judge sitting […]