Buy to Let Blog

 The latest Buy to Let mortgage market news, advice and views from our resident experts at Mortgages for Business.

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• Land Registry Figures - house price fall starts to ease - 01.06.2009

  According to the Land Registry, the average house price fell by 0.3% in April compared to 0.4% drop in March. The Land Registry found the annual rate of decline remained at 16.2% and the average house price now stands at £152, 898. Nationwide's House Price Index from last week put the average house price at £154,016 and claimed a 1.2% rise in house prices in May.

• Mortgages for Business joins select Base Commercial broker panel - 01.06.2009

  We are pleased to announce Mortgages for Business has been selected as one of only a small number of brokers to work with Base Commercial on its return to the UK lending market.

• Rightmove reports improving demand statistics 19.05.2009

  The Rightmove House Price Index is up for the second month in a row due to the pressure on the supply side.......

• FSA Mortgage Sector Conference - 14.05.2009

  An interesting day out at the Mortgage Sector Conference on Tuesday (12th May) – and here are some of the highlights (and lowlights!).

• Moodys kicking up a storm on Buy to Let arrears - 12.05.2009

  Whether Moodys are right in their assertion is less of a worry than the impact it has on a sector where there are more psoitives than negatives. The problem is that their view does hold back progress even though many lenders would contest the basis of their findings.

• Buy to Let mortgage deals up 58% since December 2008 - 11.05.2009

  Buy to Let product availability has increased 58% since December 2008, according to our latest figures.  Albeit from an all time low, the number of mortgage product available to landlords has been gradually rising, giving landlords who want to take advantage of low house prices better financing options to expand their portfolios.

• Base Rate remains at 0.5% for a second month - 07.05.2009

  No surprise that the Bank of England have kept Base Rate at 0.5% for another month. Time will tell whether the Bank’s Quantitative Easing programme will have the desired effect...

• All Buy to Let Landlords to be "registered" from The Times - 05.05.2009

  The Times published an article on Gov't plans to regulate all landlords (by the back door) - not just those with HMO properties.....a Green Paper is expected next week - we'll update you once we've seen it.

• "Hopes for housing recovery dashed" FT (online) - 30.04.2009

  So reads the FT (online) headline this morning.   And the article continued “.... after the Nationwide revealed prices fell in April.  The closely-watched Nationwide House Price Index had recorded a small rise in March after 16 months of consecutive falls. But on Thursday the building society reported a 0.4 per cent drop in prices in April, after a rise of 0.9 per cent in March and conflicting signals from other house price indices.”

• The importance of BTL Landlords to a housing market recovery 30.04.2009

  Recovery from previous property recessions has always focused on First Time Buyers (FTBs). Do BTL landlords have a more important  role to play in the current downturn?