Remortgage to invest?

Hi Tom,

As all the disclaimers say: “Past performance is not an indication of future performance.”

I don’t think any regulated advisor would suggest you borrow money to invest.

It would take a very small shift in any economic direction in the current climate to derail your plans. A bit like betting on Black!

Reply to the comment left by Neil Patterson at 13/05/2025 – 09:28
We have recently reconstructed both of our substantial stocks and shares ISAs built up over many years. Fortunately we did this revision during the market turmoil with Trump and his tariff changes and we bought many of our new shares at very good prices. We had been getting an overall yield of around 4.5% and we decided to change it to a high yield portfolio which now has an average yield 6.8%, or £5,000 each month in dividends completely free of tax,
We sold all our low yield shares like 3i and Astra Zeneca. We kept all shares yielding more than 5% or with the potential to be 5%+ within 3 years. We bought lots of new shares. Here are some of the epic codes. SUPR, ABDN, FGEN, FSFL, LGEN, MNG, PHP, PHNX, TRIG, PAG. etc.etc.
We have the strict rule that any share which cuts or misses a dividend gets sold immediately and gets replaced with another share. Capital appreciation is not really important, it just will increase our IHT bill. STRANGE THING HAS HAPPENED. Since beginning of April since we started with our revised portfolio we have had 9% capital appreciation in just over 6 weeks. Some shares have been phenomenal, Paragon Banking, PAG has gone up 30%, no typo, THIRTY per cent. I can only put this down to the fact that others have looked at these kind of shares, realised that interest rates will be dropping and the yields on some of these shares were and still are too good to miss.

I reluctantly decided to sell up in the face of the on-going war on small private landlords. I bought my first property in 1986 and have weathered selective licencing, nightmare tenants, loss of tax relief, insane increases in insurance costs and most recently the demands of my local fire safety officer, who seems to have as her mission the bankrupting of all private landlord “parasites”

Its not all been bad. I grew my portfolio slowly and five years ago went debt free. So mortgage rates are not an issue and loss of tax relief no longer concerns me, but, selling up has been the best thing I’ve done in years. I had to discount the properties to move them on (but that reduced my capital gains tax) and I invested the cash into a diversified shares portfolio. I now make MORE money than I did from rents but with considerably less hassle. Even the recent Trump debacle worked for me. I sold high, bought them back at the bottom and retained a cash float. I wouldn’t borrow to invest, I’d sell up and invest. PS “Borrow to invest” is one of Rachel Reeve’s policies lol so if you wanted one reason NOT to do it then there you are!

You can only Invest £20,000 each into ISA,s each year at the moment.
That may change in the summer review !

Reply to the comment left by DAMIEN RAFFERTY at 13/05/2025 – 10:52
Only possibly for cash ISAs. Government is hoping people might put at least some of their £20,000 annual allowance in to the stock market by buying shares directly or in to funds like e.g. tracker funds which invest in a spread of shares to mimic the performance of FTSE100 or FTSE 250.

Cash ISA or S & S ISA the limit will still be £20,000 at the moment
If you have large amounts of cash to Invest from selling BTL properties it will take several years to transfer the money into Tax free ISA,s

Reply to the comment left by DAMIEN RAFFERTY at 13/05/2025 – 12:03
I was taxed on my rental income so being taxed instead on investment income isn’t a real issue. however unlike rental income (which I think is going to get even more punitively taxed) over the next few years myself, my wife and my son (who were all partners in the business) can move £20K each and (at the moment) do so every year until the entire amount is tax free!

Reply to the comment left by DAMIEN RAFFERTY at 13/05/2025 – 12:03
But if you had started years ago putting the sales proceeds of some properties into shares via ISAs you could have put in, for a couple £40,000 each year, reinvested all the dividends in to buying more shares and you would have built up a very tidy sum in a completely tax free wrapper – no capital gains tax and no income tax on any dividend income you withdraw. Not sure everyone knows this? – They changed the rules several years ago that if your wife or husband dies then the whole ISA does not have to be sold but can be transferred to the surviving spouse. So the surviving spouse benefits from a new ISA about double the size.

Not financial advice but Tesla Microstrategy Bitcoin SOLANA are all good options away from the property market. All the big investment companies are getting clients into the cryptocurrency markets. This is where I could be heading in the near future. With bitcoin I have doubled my bag since 2022 and it outperforms everything despite being volatile.

Reply to the comment left by Darren Sullivan at 13/05/2025 – 14:58
This is speculation not investing. The time to get in to these markets is at the beginning of the journey and not possibly towards the end. Tesla shares are down 26% this year. Lots of competition from Chinese BYD car maker. Nearly all my shares are up, some substantially.
If you want a more exciting ride than the stock market then perhaps choose gold coins like sovereigns or britannias which have a good record of capital appreciation. They have a low buy/sell margin and because in theory they are legal tender there is no capital gains tax when you sell.
If I were investing close to a million, which i am, I feel much more relaxed buying a variety of shares in a diverse selection of industries picking companies that can grow their profits and their dividends.