Buy to Let Blog

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

Use our RSS feed to subscribe to our blog and let the news come to you.

• MPC announce Base Rate cut to 0.5%! 05.03.2009

  As expected, the MPC has continued to use the tools at its disposal and slashed rates again to a record low of 0.5%.

• How much will BRR reduce this week if indeed at all? 02.03.2009

  The MPC meets on Wednesday and will announce any change on BBR on Thursday at Midday.

• Northern Rock resumes lending - what will be its impact? 25.02.2009

  The announcement that Northern Rock is to resume mortgage lending (£14Bn by the end of 2010) is welcome for the mortgage market as a whole but will probably only drive indirect benefit for the Buy To Let sector.

• New homes being built hits record low 20.02.2009

  Today not only shows the better state of mortgage reposessions than expected and with consumer confidence rising (Rightmove), the reduced new start numbers on housing (below) may lead to a quicker recovery of property prices than previously forecast provided the pricing of mortgages for First Time Buyers and "Second movers" continue to improve...
  
  The number of new homes being built fell to a record low of 16,300 during the last three months of 2008, figures from the Department of Communities and Local Government reveal today...

• CML reports lower than expected reposessions for 2008 20.02.2009

  Original predictions of 45,000 reposessions in 2008 were better than expected at 40,000 with Q4 reposessions lower than Q3 !! On a "number of months" basis, 219,100 mortgages were in arrears of more than three months at the end of 2008, up from 166,600 at the end of the third quarter of the year however these figures are measured against "current month" mortgage payment. In a lower interest rate environment this can overstate the position and when rates are rising the number may appear lower .... mortgages on fixed rates are not affected by this anomaly.

• House Prices - Are they falling or rising? Both apparently! 17.02.2009

  A subject close to all of our hearts and we think we understand what is happening to average house prices – until Nationwide announces that prices fell by 1.3% in January and Halifax announces they rose by 1.9% in January.

• Allsop Auction on Wed 11 February gets 2009 off to a good start 16.02.08

  Some improvement and activity at Allsop's first auction of 2009 shows that there is some resurgent activity and tightening of yields in the commercial property sector (typically down from 8.3% in December to 6.7% last week).

• Mervyn King says the recession may be longer and deeper than expected! 11.02.09

  As the Bank of England looks at other means to stimulate the economy, will Base Rate fall further?

• Bank of England Base Rate cut by 0.5% to 1% - 05.02.2009

  As expected, the Monetary Policy Committee(MPC) reduced rates again today to a new low of 1%. Great news for those of you with Base Rate Tracker mortgages (without a collar in place!)...

• Bank Base Rate now seems set for 0.5% cut on Thursday 03.02.2009

  Continuing economic woes and global concern that cuts in BBR are not the only solution make it much more likley that BBR will move down by 0.5% to 1% on Thursday.