Stamp Duty reforms lose Treasury £662m
SOX
And no doubt they will lose another half a billion when the investors stop buying. Hopefully our first-time buyers will be able to plug the gap if suddenly all this property becomes available again. Hmm.
Case study: Moving mortgage networks from Legal and General to Openwork
Stuart Gregory
Great to hear, but I wonder if the process for a smaller brokerage would be as simple as this – or whether the network you leave would be as helpful. Feedback I’ve heard from smaller brokerages is that the freezing of commission pipelines and the ‘claiming of clients’ by the network you leave can occur.
Mortgage lending rockets as property investors rush to beat April tax change
Mark
Can someone please explain to me where the “rush” is taking place? I have not valued one buy-to-let purchase in the last three months. I was just getting some comparables from an inner London agent and he said he hasn’t had a buy-to-let enquiry since December. He is not the only agent to say that to me. Lenders are making it harder for buy-to-let investors by cutting back on loan-to-value, in some case to 60%, which isn’t helpful if you are buying a normal two bed or three bed flat in NW3 where prices range from £1.1m to £1.7m. That is a hell of a deposit find. Then you have got the astronomical Stamp Duty and that is without the additional 3%. I don’t know who RICS is speaking to. Certainly not me.
Chancellor’s tax relief changes will hit first-time buyers the hardest – Tony Ward
Colin Baxter
Unsure where the average deposit of £80,000 comes from. We are in Lincolnshire with many 5% and 10% deposits being used for properties between £100,000 and £150,000. I realise that in some areas (London) prices are much higher, but I believe that the figure quoted in the article is not realistic across the Midlands.
‘Size of the prize’ deters big lenders from innovating for older borrowers – BSA
Mac75
The FCA is primarily at fault. They set their guidelines based on the situation they see themselves in. Nice basic salary, repayment mortgage, pay it off by 65, retire on good pension. They need to see that other people have different needs and guide accordingly. Most lenders have been deterred from dealing with older borrowers by the FCA. We need to get away from nannying borrowers and let them make adult decisions. The FCA and lenders all need to wake up and smell the coffee.
