Britain's housing shortage is shrinking

Britain's housing shortage is shrinking - what does that mean for prices?https://t.co/5n9oE06vbD

— MoneyWeek (@MoneyWeek) November 29, 2015

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Nationwide's November HPI up 0.1%

Nationwide's HPI  for November 2015 has property prices inching up by 0.1 per cent during the course of the month.

The bank's annual property growth rate has dropped to 3.7 per cent, with the average UK property price tipping up to £196,305.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist comments

“The annual rate of house price growth has fluctuated in a fairly narrow range between three and four per cent over the past six months, which is broadly consistent with earnings growth over the longer term. While this bodes well for a sustainable increase in housing market activity in the period ahead, much will depend on whether building activity can keep pace with increasing demand” says 
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Stamp duty, London's loses its glitter

Stamp duty: has London finally lost its status as the world's luxury property hotspot? https://t.co/jsHHq0da4h pic.twitter.com/AmXAD7yKLC

— Telegraph Property (@TeleProperty) November 30, 2015

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This landlord is no Scrooge

Is this the nicest landlord ever?! #ChristmasCheer #MondayMotivation https://t.co/666RlynWcs

— Rightmove (@rightmove) November 30, 2015

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Why the stamp duty surcharge could be good for me

The latest tax surcharge on landlords for most landlords is a bad move. Higher transaction costs will obviously reduce a landlords long-term investment returns and may well discourage some potential buy-to-let investors from making the leap. It's understandable that having to swallow a 3% stamp duty surcharge will simply be too much for some potential landlords.

Treasuries war on landlords

The Chancellor & Treasury continues it out and out tax war against landlords.  All this comes off the back of the booming buy-to-let sector.  Stepping back and trying to view it objectively the Government has given us landlords historically low interest rates and created the conditions for many of us to book record rental profits.  The Government 'giveth now they are determined to taketh away too'.  If you were being very critical; one could argue that the low interest rates were only instigated to prevent a house price crash of gargantuan proportions that would have dragged down what was left of the British banking system and the economy with it.  All this was caused by the Government this time lead by New Labour (do you remember the pre Corbyn lot of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's et al) failure to act properly to regulate the banks in the first place. I digress.

The stamp duty surcharge could be good for me

I'm currently selling a classic buy to let property (2 bed maisonette & still open to offers!).  The surcharge due to come in during April could be good for me.  The forecast now is for a stampede of buy-to-let purchasers before the deadline.  This hopefully will help cement and speed my current sale to a buyer looking for a buy-to-let .  This is my silver lining out of a set of onerous tax changes.  Not so good for other landlords though.  We are after all easy pickings.  I do worry that when this current bizarre monetary environment returns to so called 'normal' we could be left we a range of strange and divisive policies that discriminate against landlords and the private rental sector.

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Are the Tories anti-landlord?

This tweet made me chuckle....

@landlordnews still glad you backed the tories???

— J P (@Glasgow_Red) November 26, 2015

Although, I must admit, following the Summer Budget's tax changes and yesterday's announcement on the 3% stamp duty surcharge on BTL property purchases - I am beginning to wonder.

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