Landlord and BTL Blog

BTL investors face getting chased by developers following court case ruling.

A High Court test case in Bristol has been won by Prestige Homes South West, which won damages from a BTL property investor who pulled out of the purchase of two apartments at the Zero 4 development in Plymouth.

This test case could lead to many more investors facing bankruptcy as developers chase those who walked away from deals when they realised the properties had dropped in value by more than the deposit value they had placed with the contract with the developer.

With the test case awarding £133,282 to the developer it could lead to developers chasing a lot more investors who walked away from the contracted deals.

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Landlords with apartments in Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester

Any landlords with apartments in Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester should check out the new property marketing site luvthecity.

This is a new niche marketing site for landlords and letting agent that specialises in letting and selling apartments in these cities.

It allows landlords to list their rental properties for free for a month or pay 9.99 for an enhanced service.

This could be a way of targeting your property marketing in what is a very competitive letting market.

Where it could miss out on is inward locators who will still continue to rely on national property portals like rightmove.

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Grant Bovey has to pay back further million to creditors

More on celebrity failed buy-to-let landlord Grant Bovey.

He is been made to pay back more than £1m to creditors.

Deloitte has also submitted a report on Bovey under the Company Directors’ Disqualification Act to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Such reports are written only when wrongdoing is found.

Bovey and his celebrity squeeze Anthea Turner ( I think she was on Blue Peter and now she cleans celebrity houses ) had to sell their 11 million pound home and move to a tiny 5 million pound home when his BTL business, Imagine homes collapsed.

More on the perma-tanned landlord here in the Times

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FIrst Property Price Twitter for 2010

First time buyer affordability improves - Telegraph
Most areas affordable for first time buyers - BBC
Economists think house prices are too high - FT
What's in store for house prices in 2010 - Times
House prices end the year on a high - FT
Home and dry in the great housing storm - Times
Hometrack predict house price fall in 2010 - Guardian
Scarcity of buyers breaks house price recovery - Times

See all the property price tweets

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Housing benefit consultation on new proposals

After a number of housing benefit cases where individuals have been receiving astronomical levels of housing benefit the Government is looking to launch a consultation on proposals that will place restrictions on the number of people claiming these high rents.

One proposal is to exclude properties in the top 5 to 10 percent of rental values, another is to exclude certain high cost areas from housing benefit eligibility.

This years housing benefit payout is expected to have risen to £19.6 billion.

Following on from high profile stories such as the record breaking £279,000 a year rent payout for the one family in Westminster that are obviously not great vote winners for Labour.

We think it is classic Labour spin to get the right wing press off their back, hot air and political posturing is free and will provide further pseudo work for the civil service to pretend to be busy with.

Don't hold your breathe for any real action on these proposals.

House prices in the turbulent tens

If the last decade was the naughties then when name for the coming decade, the turbulent or terrible tens?

Even more pertinent for landlords what will be the effect of all the uncertainty on the capital value of their property investments.

The Telegraph talks about a decade of sobriety after the rampant house price gains of the last decade where inflation adjusted house prices grew 68pc. This compares with -14pc in the 1990s, 43pc in the 1980s and 49pc in the 1970s.

Savills the upmarket estate agent predicts prices will grow just 40pc in the next decade.

However, what the last decade has reinforced more than ever is that the housing market is not homogenious. It is rather a whole collection of micro markets which are influenced by overall economic factors such as economic growth, demand and supply and overall changes in house prices but also show remarkable divergent behaviour across the country.

For instance who would have thought that Pembroke in Wales would show the greatest house price gain in the naughties with a rise of 212% and that only one London borough, Newham would feature in the top ten of risers.

Change in composition of new build housing

The last decade was characterised by a seismic shift in the building of flats which saw the number of new flats built rise from 15% to almost 50% by 2008 and the number of detached properties built decreased from 45% to 15%.

Part of the challenge for any landlord and property investor over the next decade will be to spot the micro markets and trends and as always timing will be key. We all know that any growth in house price value is unlikely to be even and jumping on board at the right time is likely to enhance a landlords investment returns considerably.

Landlord insurance in 2010