Over the last couple of months my mortgage broker has identified a couple of fantastic products to help accelerate your property progress. One, a bridge to let product which allows you to refurb a property with a guaranteed switch to a buy to let loan when the refurb is done, and all in one product.…
Details
Isn’t this the age old question? It’s one of those questions where everyone either seems to have a very firm opinion, or no opinion at all. More time has been spent in the investment community arguing over this than actually going out and looking for deals! But the reality is, like so many things in…
Details
One of the questions I’m often asked is, “Peter, when you buy a property, what yield are you after?” Sounds like a good question, doesn’t it? Maybe even a sensible question. But I realised when I’d answered it for the 100th time that that’s not actually how I look at a property. Or how I…
Details
Ah, the old dilemma, and a question I’ve been asked a lot recently.. As is so often the case in property, there is no right or wrong answer, but here are my thoughts on this. Number 1/. Given the choice between using my money or someone else’s (in this case the bank’s), I’d use someone…
Details
Sadly, all too common. This is a subject I feel very strongly about because, in my opinion, a down valuation is just as negligent as an over valuation, but it appears I’m on my own on that one. It’s true that valuation is an opinion, and so rather than being a defined single figure, it’s…
Details
How many different buy to let mortgages are there on the market today? Well, it’s anybody’s guess but the most recent figure I came across was around 2,000 different BTL mortgages, and they are being offered by up to (an estimated) 100 different lenders. All of those products, and all of those lenders, will have…
Details
If you are buying properties to refurb, and I think you should be so you can add value, most buy to let lenders want the property to be lettable from day 1. So getting finance can be tricky, if not impossible, for the types of properties we want to buy. Here’s the solution. This product gets around that by…
Details
So often when an investor tells me that they are struggling to raise finance, it turns out they are using the wrong broker. Either the wrong type of broker – like they are trying to raise HMO finance through a buy to let specialist. Or just the WRONG broker. In other words, a broker who just isn’t…
Details
What is the ‘Six Month Rule’, and why do we have it? Put simply, the ‘Six Month Rule’ says that if you buy a property you can’t finance or refinance within six months of purchase. Or, if you finance or refinance a property, you can’t then refinance within 6 months of financing or refinancing. So,…
Details
A bold claim? Probably, especially as the House Price Indices are showing average property values across the UK are increasing at a slower rate than they have for a long time (mainly because of values in London going backwards). So why is that? Is it the BREXIT effect? Probably. But let’s not get into that…
Details