Buy, buy…rent
Posted: August 10, 2012 Filed under: Buy to let, Housing market, Mortgages 2 CommentsFour years after it was supposedly killed off by the credit crunch, buy to let continues to go from strength to strength as first-time buyers are squeezed out of the mortgage market.
Figures published by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) yesterday confirm that the total number of buy-to-let mortgages has increased by 45 per cent since the third quarter of 2007 from 978,900 in the third quarter of 2007 to 1,415,000 now. According to CML director general Paul Smee it is ‘growing broadly in line with expectations’. He goes on: ‘The rental sector has grown strongly over the last decade or so, and buy-to-let continues to help deliver a wider choice for tenants.’
Wider choice? I doubt very much that would-be first-time buyers will see it that way when tighter lending criteria mean their only choice is to be a tenant. After all, the same banks who are unwilling to give them a loan against their future income unless they have a sizeable deposit seem quite willing to give an amateur landlord a buy-to-let loan to be repaid from the rents (and therefore the future incomes) of their tenants.
Why every little will not help much
Posted: August 4, 2012 Filed under: Buy to let, Housing market, Mortgages Leave a commentThe launches of Tesco mortgages and the Funding for Lending scheme have led to some hope at last for the dysfunctional housing market. Here’s why I don’t think they will make much difference.
In the short term at least, most of the benefits look like going (yet again) to existing owners rather than frustrated first-time buyers.
Return of the undead
Posted: May 11, 2012 Filed under: Buy to let, Mortgages, Private renting 7 CommentsAnother quarter, another big milestone for buy to let. The latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) reveal some startling facts about the growth of loans to landlords.
The boom in buy to let is usually associated with the mid-2000s: the number of BTL mortgages rose from 120,000 in 2000 to more than a million in 2007. Then lending slumped after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. By 2010 Fergus and Judith Wilson, the ex-teachers who went on to buy 700 homes, were pronouncing that the sector was ‘absolutely dead and will never return’.
Two years on and the corpse is back to life with a vengeance. BTL lending for house purchase is running 30 per cent ahead of levels seen a year ago (although down 9 per cent on the fourth quarter). As the CML points out, new lending to landlords is still around a third of 2007 levels, but that disguises the underlying trend.
See you later, regulator
Posted: April 3, 2012 Filed under: Buy to let, Mortgages, Private renting 2 CommentsAnother day, another consultation and still no prospect of regulating buy to let.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) closed the consultation on its Mortgage Market Review (MMR) on Friday to a chorus of calls from lenders for more flexibility and pleas from organisations like Shelter for no more concessions to the banks. The charity also produced an animation to press its case against reckless mortgage lending.
Read the rest of this entry »
Heard and not seen
Posted: March 14, 2012 Filed under: Mortgages, NHS, Welfare reform Leave a commentA brave and commendable attempt by my local MP to get the government to drop the NHS Bill met with predictable failure in the House of Commons yesterday.
Brave because Andrew George was defying the Lib Dem leadership (not sure how bothered he is by promotion prosepcts though). Commendable because I’d suggest that he was expressing the views of the vast majority of his constituents in west Cornwall (and the country as a whole) and many Lib Dem members. Predictable because this is the way things seem to work at Westminster.
The sound of squawking
Posted: March 13, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market, Mortgages, Right to buy 2 CommentsYesterday should have been a day of triumph for Grant Shapps and the DCLG. Instead it was the day when the chickens began to come home to roost.
The day began so well too. Well-placed leaks in the Sunday and morning papers prepared the ground for TV and radio saturation for the launch of two key parts of the housing revolution promised by David Cameron in his party conference speech and first outlined in last year’s housing strategy: the new build indemnity guarantee and the expansion of the right to buy.
Shaky start
Posted: March 12, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market, Mortgages Leave a commentIf NewBuy really is to be about supporting buyers and new homes rather than just subsidising housebuilders here are 10 questions that need answers.
The launch of the scheme this morning got off to a somewhat shaky start, with many reports claiming (wrongly) that it is for first-time buyers and others (rightly) pointing out the advantages for builders.
Read the rest of this post on my blog at Inside Housing.
Jules Birch 