The withdrawal of these mortgages is a worry for the recent investor like me. Our investment model is generally based on getting 85% mortgage products! I could not have got into Buy to Let in the first place without it. Basically because I started with such little amount of money. For those with a large bank account this is not such an issue!
I do not want to see this product dissappear altogether. Even if it does not dissappear I can see that it could suddenly get more expensive.
Yet more fall-out from the so-called 'credit crunch'!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Monday, 31 March 2008
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Another tenancy ends in tears!
Recently I let out a property and all seemed to be going well. Money was coming in and there was not signs of problems. Then, after a busy day sorting out general letting isssues, I got a phone call to say that one of the tenants has threaten to 'trash' my property after having been arrested for assault on his partner! Talk about a bolt out of the blue!
I rang the police for advice but they said that the co-tenant would need to testify to the threat and not me. I contacted her but she did not seem to think this was necessary but told me that she was leaving anyway!
So I am left with a tenant that appears to be a little crazy. Looks like this could be another big hit on my funds that should be used to pay off the buy-to-let mortgage deal!
I am sure there will be other posts on this issue...unfortunately!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
I rang the police for advice but they said that the co-tenant would need to testify to the threat and not me. I contacted her but she did not seem to think this was necessary but told me that she was leaving anyway!
So I am left with a tenant that appears to be a little crazy. Looks like this could be another big hit on my funds that should be used to pay off the buy-to-let mortgage deal!
I am sure there will be other posts on this issue...unfortunately!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Valuations, valuations, valuations!
You may recall how I had put in for nine buy-to-let remortgages but only four came back at what I considered to be a realistic market value. Well, I did try to get my own surveyor to put a letter together and do some valuation research to 'prove' that the properties in question were worth more. Did this work? NO!
I could not get them to admit they were wrong! However, they through me a lifeline by saying that the only way to get another look at it would be to request a re-valuation. This sounded interesting because they had said that my surveyors data included some sales that were made after they had done their comparables work. So I thought they may be hinting at something here and I took their 'advice'!
Anyway, I just booked one revaluation to see how it would go and so far so good as this came up to full expected valuation! Previously it had been way off the mark! So I am progressing a remortgage on this right now, this should save me about £60 per month compared to what I am having to pay now on a standard variable rate deal.
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
I could not get them to admit they were wrong! However, they through me a lifeline by saying that the only way to get another look at it would be to request a re-valuation. This sounded interesting because they had said that my surveyors data included some sales that were made after they had done their comparables work. So I thought they may be hinting at something here and I took their 'advice'!
Anyway, I just booked one revaluation to see how it would go and so far so good as this came up to full expected valuation! Previously it had been way off the mark! So I am progressing a remortgage on this right now, this should save me about £60 per month compared to what I am having to pay now on a standard variable rate deal.
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Nationalisation of Northern Rock
The decision was taken to day by the Government to nationalise Northern Rock. I watched with interest (no pun intended!) to see what this might mean for me as someone with seven Northern Rock mortgages (6 Buy to let mortgages and 1 residential mortgage). Nothing was forethcoming however. I am hoping that this will mean that the reductions in bank base rate will come through in full rather than in part as they did at the reduction before the last one (not sure what is happening in response to the last reduction yet).
It would make bad reading for the Government if they were to not reduce the bank's SVR (standard variable rates) in line with bank base rate reductions. This is the rate that most people will be reverting to after a period of fixed interest rates. This would benefit me, and many other investors greatly. Most of us who were new to the game about three years ago were taken in by the Northern Rock mortgage offers on properties that did not stack up after the offer period ended and then we are locked in on this rate for four of five years unless we incurr large penalty charges to move to a different lender or even to a different product offered by Northern Rock.
I am hoping that the media get a hold of this story as it is a result of the bad management of the company in the past. Basically, I have heard from internal sources, that they loaned money out soley on the basis of the applicants credit rating and ignored whether the deal stacked up; not sure if this is correct or not but if fits my experience! I would even go further and say that someone somewhere must have known that the properties they were lending were overvalued...I am talking mostly about city centre apartments of course in northern and midlands area cities. Of course the advice we got from the financial advisers was to take the deal because they were being paid very large amounts of commission on these deals!
I hope to hear something in the news shortly! To my ultimate benefit of course!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
It would make bad reading for the Government if they were to not reduce the bank's SVR (standard variable rates) in line with bank base rate reductions. This is the rate that most people will be reverting to after a period of fixed interest rates. This would benefit me, and many other investors greatly. Most of us who were new to the game about three years ago were taken in by the Northern Rock mortgage offers on properties that did not stack up after the offer period ended and then we are locked in on this rate for four of five years unless we incurr large penalty charges to move to a different lender or even to a different product offered by Northern Rock.
I am hoping that the media get a hold of this story as it is a result of the bad management of the company in the past. Basically, I have heard from internal sources, that they loaned money out soley on the basis of the applicants credit rating and ignored whether the deal stacked up; not sure if this is correct or not but if fits my experience! I would even go further and say that someone somewhere must have known that the properties they were lending were overvalued...I am talking mostly about city centre apartments of course in northern and midlands area cities. Of course the advice we got from the financial advisers was to take the deal because they were being paid very large amounts of commission on these deals!
I hope to hear something in the news shortly! To my ultimate benefit of course!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Inflation Predictions
Interesting things were muted about inflation on the News the other day...they are saying that it looks like we are going to go through a period of higher inflation. Given the credit crunch issues and the slow housing market it looks like there will not be too many changes to interest rates to try to curb the inflation either.
This could be an interesting situation for those with UK buy to let investments and mortgages as it means that affordability will increase as wages go up due to inflation. No-one is really saying this in the investment world yet, as far as I have heard, but it seems logical to me. So my advice would be to carry on investing as there may be a good return around the corner! It is time to go out there at the moment and get some good deals while there is a reduction in confidence in the market, when confidence returns those deals will be harder to come by!
Of course, no-one can be sure about what is going to happen and there are other scenarios but this one is worth considering!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
This could be an interesting situation for those with UK buy to let investments and mortgages as it means that affordability will increase as wages go up due to inflation. No-one is really saying this in the investment world yet, as far as I have heard, but it seems logical to me. So my advice would be to carry on investing as there may be a good return around the corner! It is time to go out there at the moment and get some good deals while there is a reduction in confidence in the market, when confidence returns those deals will be harder to come by!
Of course, no-one can be sure about what is going to happen and there are other scenarios but this one is worth considering!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Monday, 11 February 2008
Picking the best tenants
Picking the best tenants is an art that I wish I was a master of! However, I am starting to learn from my mistakes.
One thing I have learnt is that the tenants that don't pay rent generally don't pay for anything and when they have gone there is a host of threatening letters that are left at the house from credit agencies and debt collectors and such like.
This is why a credit check is a good thing to do before you take on a tenant. This is not however foolproof because if they have not actually been successfully taken to court the there will be no CCJ (County Court Judgement) show up on their records.
It is worth doing however as the damage done to the payments on your UK buy to let mortgage deal when they stop paying rent more than justifies the time, money and effort into making this check. I have even managed to put some potentially bad tenants off just by telling them that I will be doing a credit check and asking their permission to do this. So you can even find out some poor tenants just by stating you will be doing a credit check.
I really think it is worthwhile doing credit checks but I have had some tenants rush me into taking them on only for me to find out later that they just rushed me so that I would short circuit the credit check and have them in my property before realising it was a mistake! These people are often like 'professionals' at what they do! So take my advice and get a credit check done on each and every tenant...take a short cut and you will very likely pay for it some time soon!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
One thing I have learnt is that the tenants that don't pay rent generally don't pay for anything and when they have gone there is a host of threatening letters that are left at the house from credit agencies and debt collectors and such like.
This is why a credit check is a good thing to do before you take on a tenant. This is not however foolproof because if they have not actually been successfully taken to court the there will be no CCJ (County Court Judgement) show up on their records.
It is worth doing however as the damage done to the payments on your UK buy to let mortgage deal when they stop paying rent more than justifies the time, money and effort into making this check. I have even managed to put some potentially bad tenants off just by telling them that I will be doing a credit check and asking their permission to do this. So you can even find out some poor tenants just by stating you will be doing a credit check.
I really think it is worthwhile doing credit checks but I have had some tenants rush me into taking them on only for me to find out later that they just rushed me so that I would short circuit the credit check and have them in my property before realising it was a mistake! These people are often like 'professionals' at what they do! So take my advice and get a credit check done on each and every tenant...take a short cut and you will very likely pay for it some time soon!
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Sunday, 10 February 2008
The Dirtier Side of UK Buy to Let
Well, I have just come away from one of my houses after going around to see why the tenant has not been answering the phone about rent arrears...they have gone!
Of course I had to post a letter through the door giving them 24 hours notice that I intended to do a 'property inspection' and would bring keys in case they were not in! Even though I could see that there was no-one around anymore! You have to do these things to stay legal! It is much easier to break the law as a landlord than it is as a tenant in my opinion.
Well, when we got in the place was absolutely terrible. I had been around before Christmas and pointed out what needed sorting out but things have just got worse since then. Also, it stinks!
I can hardly believe how awful people can be towards other peoples' property.
Well, all I can do now is get the place sorted, like clear up the mess and paint throughout then change the carpets which are beyond salvation. Once sorted I hope for much better tenants this time of course so I can get rent money to pay off the interest on the UK buy to let mortgage deal I have on that property.
I followed all the advice about getting a good tenant but still you can end up with bad ones!
I will also be chasing their debts with me though the money claim on line route once I have managed to locate where they have moved to.
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Of course I had to post a letter through the door giving them 24 hours notice that I intended to do a 'property inspection' and would bring keys in case they were not in! Even though I could see that there was no-one around anymore! You have to do these things to stay legal! It is much easier to break the law as a landlord than it is as a tenant in my opinion.
Well, when we got in the place was absolutely terrible. I had been around before Christmas and pointed out what needed sorting out but things have just got worse since then. Also, it stinks!
I can hardly believe how awful people can be towards other peoples' property.
Well, all I can do now is get the place sorted, like clear up the mess and paint throughout then change the carpets which are beyond salvation. Once sorted I hope for much better tenants this time of course so I can get rent money to pay off the interest on the UK buy to let mortgage deal I have on that property.
I followed all the advice about getting a good tenant but still you can end up with bad ones!
I will also be chasing their debts with me though the money claim on line route once I have managed to locate where they have moved to.
The Buy-to-Let Blogger
Advice on UK Buy-to-Let, Buy-to-Let Deals, and Buy-to-Let Mortgages
(Our only true advice is that you should always take professional advice before investing, treat any 'advice' on this Blog purely as information and not a substitute for professional advice.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)