This landlord is no April Fool!

Ok it could have gone horribly wrong. Seriously badly wrong.

But. One thing I have learned from my many years of being a landlord is .....don't panic....keep the faith ....and normally things come right in the end.

Chancellor engineered property buying scrum

What am I talking about?! The Chancellor in his wisdom decided to introduce his own little property scrum by pre-announcing his 3% surcharge for property transactions for landlords and holiday home owners.  This has created a property scrum for potential property investors who have been snapping up buy-to-lets to beat the 1st April deadline.  I've been affected because the property I've been selling was being bought by a buy-to-let investor with cash on the table.  I'd already been warned by the estate agent that should we not complete the sale by the 1st April then the investor would be looking for me as the seller to pick up tab of the 3% stamp duty surcharge.

Nail biting weekend for this landlord

I've had a nail biting weekend trying to work out if there was any chance of my purchase going through.  The news at 5pm yesterday from my estate agent that the sale has completed and my property portfolio is one property lighter.  This is a temporary state.  The money raised from the sale of this property has already been earmarked for the deposit of another property I'm aiming to have exchanged contracts on by the end of next week.

Could this be an opportunity for landlords?

Luckily for this landlord I've avoided the very real prospect of feeling like an April Fool.  Like many landlords this weekend whether a buyer or seller of property I'll be celebrating my small achievement and planning my next move.  For other landlords who weren't quite so lucky I can only say that I feel for you.

The saving grace is that if you are a landlord still looking to sell then this whole buy-to-let scrum has pulled most of the affordable buy-to-let markets out of the market.  This means that if you are a first time buyer there is very little choice available in this part of the market.  For some landlords this could represent a massive opportunity to sell now and obtain a premium price particularly as we are now in the prime house buying period.

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