Right to buy rebrand

Calm down dear!

The eighties truly are back in fashion, with the Prime Minister leading the way in this daring twin set and pearls.

David Cameron continues the eighties revival by promoting Thatchers' "Right to Buy Scheme" as a way of revamping  the economy.

On the Andrew Marr show Cameron said that the revamped scheme would increase the discounts available to council housing tenants in England who want to buy their own homes.

He states that cash raised by the sale of council housing will be spent on buying further homes, which will then be rented out at a reduced rate, under the plans to be outlined fully in a housing strategy later this year.

Cameron needs to be careful that he doesn't follow his up-cycling of Thatchers old policies into his fashions.

The ladies not for turning.

Read more on new right to buy in the Guardian
Relaunch of right to buy - Independent

Discounted landlord insurance from Alan Boswell

Property price twitter - again

Fall again.

House prices fall again say Nationwide stats -  Press Association
UK property prices fall again - Business Week
House prices lacking direction - BBC
827,000 homes in negative equity- Daily Mail
Encouragement for first time buyers - Independent
House prices fall for 15th month in a row according to Hometrack - Guardian
How low can Irish property prices go? - Irish Times



See all the property price tweets


Discounted landlord insurance from Alan Boswell

Property Shares - fill your boots!

I've recently written about the attractions of some commercial property shares.

The latest rout on the markets has also pushed the values of property shares lower. In my view it takes them from what was good value; into the territory of a screaming buy.

I've recently discouvered Bloomberg TV on my Virgin Box. After watching this 24 hr financial TV station I've concluded that it should be renamed "Headless Chicken TV" on account of the confusion and lack of perspective the various expert commentators seem to have.

One good thing about being a landlord is that your time horizon is measured in years, decades even rather than minutes. When I first started buying property, I never expected to see any return for at least the first 5 years.

Going back to the topic of commercial property shares. I can now buy shares in offshore property trusts paying over 10% dividend yields and trading at discounts to net asset values of over 25% with the companies being also relatively lowly geared. Five years ago, financial advisors were eulogising about the prospects of these types of companies that were then paying half the dividends and trading at a premium to underlying assets.

Now nobody wants to know. I'm buying using a CFD which potentially gives me a 20% income into the bargain.

If you like a bit of risk and don't need the cash tomorrow. I think you could do worse than fill your boots with a few property shares.

The ones I'm buying are:

Picton Property Income - price 39.75p NAV 60p Discount to NAV 32% YIELD 10%
Public Service Properties - price 55p NAV 118 Discount to NAV 54% YIELD 11%
Mckay Securities - price 116p NAV 197 Discount to NAV 42% YIELD 7%

Any tips - let me know or should I stick to buy-to-lets? Post your comments below

Free property management software, Free tenancy agreements

85% LTV BTL 5.99 Fixed

We have a highly competitive 85% LTV buy-to-let mortgage 5.99% fixed for 2 years – available by limited distribution only.

A great semi-exclusive buy-to-let product with Kent Reliance.

The initial rate is 5.99% fixed for 2 years with a 1% completion fee.

This product must be booked by telephone and an application submitted within 24 hours of booking. Limited funds available so landlords need to act sharpish to secure this product.

Tel 29 2069 5446 now

Search all our BTL mortgages here

Rent Calculation in Property Manager 2 and 3

Most of the data in our FREE Software for Landlords is entered by the user. The exception are rents, which the system sets up for you. There's been some discussion about how this should work, so we thought it helpful to set down the rules as they stand.

• The system goes through each of your Tenancies
• If the Address has been sold, it does nothing
• If the Tenancy start date has not been entered or is before 1990, it does nothing
• If the Tenancy has been ended and so is historic, it does nothing
• The system finds the latest Rent Request item by Due Date for the tenancy
• Starting from the start date of the Tenancy, the system checks dates at the Tenancy interval - each month, each week etc, up to today's date
• For each date, if that date is later than the last Rent Request and not after today then a Rent Request will be set up on that date if none exists currently

A typical example, for a Monthly Tenancy starting on 1 January 2011 would be:

• The first time the user logs on on 1 January or after the 1 January rent will be created
• Logging on again in January will not create another rent request
• The first time the user logs on in February, the 1 February rent will be created
• If the user does not log on again until May then rent items will be created for 1 March, 1 April and 1 May

One effect of this method is that if you manually change the rent due date then the system may re-create rent items on the day that, logically, they should fall. This will lead to misleading, rogue rent items. Here's how they look:

We're looking at a monthly tenancy from 3/7/2011. Because rents are paid on the first of the month (i.e. a few days in advance), the user chose to change the due dates of the each payment to the first. When the system was next used, the process noticed that no amount was loaded for 3/10/2011 and created one, effectively duplicating the one set at 1/10/2011.

To avoid this situation, we recommend that the Due Date is treated as exactly that, not changed to be the date that the rent is received.

London property portfolio

Landlords that are looking at buying a sizeable bit of real estate in London should check out this repossessed portfolio in Ealing. The block of 11 two bed apartments is being marketed by Allsop on behalf of the receiver.

The fully let block also includes several vacant ground floor commercial units as well as 12 secure parking spaces. Details are as follows:

• 
Park West Apartments, 382 Uxbridge Road, Ealing, London W5 3LH
• On the instructions of Mike Rollings of Rollings & Co LLP as Fixed Charge Receiver
• 11 x two bedroom apartments approx 985.7 sq m (10,610 sq ft) Vacant ground floor commercial unit (A1 & A2 usage) approx 123.7 sq m (1,331 sq ft)
• All 11 apartments fully let - 2 x ASTs - 9 x company lets
• Current income £277,728 per annum
• 12 secure parking spaces
  

Offers in excess of £3,750,000 subject to contract

For more info:

Robbie Underhill
Email: robbie.underhill@allsop.co.uk
Tel: 0207 344 2659

Adam Kerven
Email: adam.kerven@allsop.co.uk
Tel: 0207 344 2628


Mortgage Search - portfolio finance available