More warnings on US property investment

We've warned about investing in US property on endless occasions.

It seems that the lure of massive returns and a hassle free investment doesn't sound too good to be true to !!!???! ( it always does to me .) Some people just want to believe and continue to queue up and handover thousands of their well earned pounds on the promise of some slime ball agent will make them a fortune.

Wake up you morons! Please!

A few years back the same schmaltzy rip off merchants moved their act from the UK and the 'developing European states' over to the middle pointless bit of America. ( the bit between NY and LA ). The greasy palmed property investment agents kept pushing places like Atlanta and Detroit and were offering 'big houses' for about £25,000. To a lot of highly gullible Brits, £25,000 seemed very cheap for a 'big house' and they handed over their life savings and felt like they'd got themselves a bargain.

Someone should of really asked them the question.

Have you ever been there?

I'm guessing most hadn't, and in many ways for those middle class socialist investors, you know the doctors/teacher types who wanted to boost their pensions they probably liked the fact that they couldn't even picture the area. Out of sight out of mind so to speak. They wouldn't have to think of themselves as ruthless opportunistic property moguls praying on the poor and unfortunate if they'd never smelt the deprivation and touched the grime of the poverty.

So what happened?

This is Money has uncovered and outlined some interesting realities of these 'realty investments', including an interesting one about one investor who bought a £28,500 house in 2010 via  Assetz investment agents, who charged her a £2350 'finders fee'. Since buying the investor reckons they have forked out a further £4000 in tax and £4000 in repairs.

What its worth now you may ask?

Well according to a local estate agent a house on the same street has recently sold for £800, that's right £800. Now that sounds cheap for a house!

Read the This is Money article here

Property portfolio sale - 8% yield

Allsop are offering a regional property portfolio for sale comprising of 65 Houses.  The portfolio is on an attractive gross initial yield of 8%  with a total gross income of £247,000 and undoubtedly there will be some arbitrage opportunities for those with the time and patience to sell off parts of the portfolio.  The portfolio comes with the following restrictions on ownership:

57 Regulated Tenancies

6 Assured Periodic Tenancies

2 Assured Tenancies

For more details contact:

James Wilson
+44 (0)113 236 6679
james.wilson@allsop.co.uk
Michael Gorman
+44 (0)113 236 6683
michael.gorman@allsop.co.uk
Tim Gladwin
+44 (0)20 7344 2632

Mortgage Finance - portfolio rates

50,000 Irish BTL Mortgages in Arrears

The Irish BTL boom continues to count the cost of crazed and non sensical investment. New figures from the Irish Central Bank estimate that nearly 50,000 buy-to-let mortgage accounts are three months or more behind on their repayments.

This figure is twice that of home owners and puts it at 22 percent of all the BTL mortgages which are estimated to total 200,000.

The question is how much longer can Irelands Government keep this bubble afloat, currently banks are resisting repossession on many of these failed investment properties because of pressure from Government. Currently many banks are appointing rent receivers to collect rents directly from tenants of the failed BTL landlords to help secure control of their repayments.

But surely at some point somethings got to give and someone will have to start paying for the shambles, is this just the calm before the storm?

Building Societies Cut BTL Rates

Coventry BS has reduced its rates on many of its BTL products including a 0.24% reduction on the rate of its BTL Flexx accounts from 5.49% to 5.25%.

Skipton BS have also just announced a drop in their BTL rates, down 0.1%

Search the whole BTL mortgage market free
 
Email: info@propertyhawkbtlmortgages.co.uk 

Tel: 029 2069 5446 

IMPORTANT! Due to current market conditions, lenders are withdrawing and replacing products with little or no notice. Please check our website regularly to see the most up-to-date products available.

Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgages.The Financial Services Authority does not regulate some forms of mortgage.

Gumtree great for garages

I've been advertising my rental property on Gumtree and finally thought that I'd let it the other week to two junior cricketers.  Then at the last minute one of them had to 'jet off' to Australia for 6 months.  mmmmm!  Could it be the guarantor forms that I sent or was it the request for £1000 deposit?

The long of short of it is it's back to the drawing board.  As I've said before I've never found a tenant through advertising on Gumtree yet and the quality of tenants is generally not good.  Is it because the service is free so you get all sorts of speculative applications with none of the prospective tenants committing to the letting process.

On the flip side Gumtree has been great for letting garages.  I've just let my third garage and each time I've managed to get great tenants who seem straight forward honest and pay on time.  Each of my garages is now let to a tenant with a classic car.  I now have under my roofs : a Citroen 2cv, VW flat screen camper van and the latest addition is a Datsun 280z.  The great thing is with a classic car being stored in your garage that you don't need to worry about a deposit.  It's a nice position to be in for a landlord that the tenant in this case has more to lose than the landlord!

Landlord insurance - professional rates

How do I download a S.21 Notice?

It's not difficult to download a section 21 notice in the Property Manager 3.0.

Have a look at the 6 stage guide on downloading your own section 21 notice.

For more details of serving a section 21 notice for possession.

Landlord insurance - specialist brokers