Monday, August 17, 2009
Bank of China, Mortgages, Defaulting Landlords by Lawrenson of LettingFocus
As you may know from a previous blog post on Monday 6th July, I have recently railed against the fact that in Buy to Let Land the borrower is being carved up by a complete lack of competition among lenders.
BANK ROBBERS
The Lloyds Group (via its C&G and BM Solutions/ Birmingham Midshires brands) and The Nationwide (owners of The Mortgage Works) now now have no competition post credit crunch. (The crunch meant the likes of Paragon and others got starved of funds and Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock bit the dust for new money.)
Lloyds and Nationwide are charging a minimum of base rate plus 4.2% for buy to let with fees of at least 2.5%.
Outrageous!
So, I’m delighted to see that Bank Of China has now started to market its buy to let mortgages a bit more aggressively.
Finding their mortgages on the Net is hard though.
Possibly harder to find than a story about Tianamen Square on Google’s Chinese operation (Google goes along with Chinese censorship if you did not know – nice people Google eh?)
BANK OF CHINA BUY TO LET MORTGAGE RATES
Their mortgage rates aren’t bad but borrowers must have enough income to cover both their home mortgage, and that of the investment property, in order to qualify.
Also, maximum loan to values are just 65% on freeholds and 60% on leaseholds.
The rates charged depend on if you are buying a freehold or a leasehold property too and how much you want to borrow (whether the property is over or under £250K).
To keep it simple, for what usually I buy - which is freeholds and houses under £250K in value, the maximum LTV is 65% and the mortgage rate is 3.5% over Bank of England base for life.
However, you must take out a 20 year term and they will only do repayment mortgages, there being no interest only option.
The arrangement fee is a reasonable £1495 (and the valuation fees aren’t bad either) though you cannot add these to the loan.
Early redemption penalties only apply in year one and are 1% of the loan which is good compared to UK lenders.
The downsides for many people will be the low Loan to Value, the lack of an interest only option, the fact that your own private (non rental) income is looked at carefully too plus you have to attend an interview at a Bank of China office
Still at least it is some competition for the rogues at Lloyds and Nationwide.
GOOD LOAN TO VALUE DEALS
We, of course, offer some great rates through our affiliation with Mortgage for Business and these DO go up to 75% Loan to Value,
Try Mortgages for Business.co.uk by clicking on Great Rates on Buy to Let Mortgages and quoting LettingFocus for their special offer of £250 brokerage when you draw down a buy to let mortgage - set up especially for us.
LATEST ON EVICTING TENANTS OF DEFAULTING LANDLORDS
Talking of our dumb mortgage lenders, tenants who currently face immediate and unexpected eviction because their landlord faces repossession will be given two months’ statutory breathing space to find a new home, under new government proposals.
You may have seen my email correspondence with the Council of Mortgage lenders on my previous post on 30th May about this.
The problem is because tenancy agreements are deemed unenforceable in cases where the borrower has failed to inform the lender of their intention to let the property.
Under proposals from housing minister John Healey tenants in this situation will be given at least two months to find alternative accommodation, through new powers granted to courts in charge of possession hearings.
Unauthorised tenants will also have the right to be heard at these hearings.
In addition, the government is proposing to force lenders to provide unauthorised tenants with a mechanism to request a two-month delay in repossession from lenders. It also wants lenders to consider other steps instead of repossession, such as appointing ‘Receivers of Rent’ to collect rent and manage occupied properties.
About time too!
Shame the mortgage lenders have had to be forced into this by the Government.
In next weeks’ blog post (out 24th August) I’ll look at the Government’s well meant but silly plans to limit the number of shared houses in some areas.
Link to other posts on today’s post topics:
http://www.lettingfocus.com/2009/05/mortgage-lenders-evict-tenants-too.html
http://www.lettingfocus.com/2009/07/buy-to-mortgage-rates-deviod-of.html
ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM and DAVID LAWRENSON
We are LettingFocus.com - the landlord experts.
I’m, David Lawrenson, the author of “Successful Property Letting” which for the last 3 years has been the UK’s top selling property book.
What’s unique about LettingFocus is that I offer independent unbiased
landlord advice seminars covering property investment and letting because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business I am not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier.
I can tell you where to buy (which areas), what type of property to buy, when to buy, how to buy property at a low price, how to make sure you get tenants who are going to pay the rent and how to manage a rental property to make £s at my one to one consulting service.
I can also comment on “No Money Down” Schemes and “Buying Below Market Value” methods too.
I can answer all your questions on letting property too because I have been a landlord and property investor for over 25 years.
LINKS
Find out about GREAT DEALS we have arranged for landlords by clicking here: Property Investors’ Affiliate and seeing our Affilates page.
More products will be added over the coming months. If you are a merchant with national coverage, get in touch!
For SEMINARS, click here: Property Seminars, Networking Evenings and Consulting
For the NEXT SEMINAR AND NETWORKING EVENT for Landlords and Property Investors click here:
Next Seminar Event
For ONE TO ONE CONSULTANCY help click here: Private One to One Consulting
To BUY THE BOOK click here: Buy the Book at Amazon
For THE HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG click here: Blog
For THE HOME PAGE OF OUR MAIN SITE click here: LettingFocus Home Page
For GREAT OFFERS ON Products for Landlords, click here: Landlords Resources
To JOIN our Free QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER simply send an email to david@LettingFocus.com - Please note we WILL NOT send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers!
Copyright of Blog: David Lawrenson 2009.
This blog is updated roughly once a week usually on a Monday or Tuesday.
WANT TO BE KEPT UPDATED WITH OUR LATEST BLOGS?
Over on the right hand side under all the previous blog entries you will see a button saying “Site Feed.” Simply copy the site feed link into your News Reader or News Aggregator.
Even a non techie like me managed to do this and Google is worth a search to tell you more about this.
Please note if you have a website & are thinking of reproducing material here - that’s fine but we DO require a link to the blog to be included, including also the links in this section. The full article including all links must be available to ALL VIEWERS of your site and not restricted.
WANT TO ADD A COMMENT?
To add a comment to this post, you just click on “link to this post” then simply add your comment.
To view past comments, again, you’ll need to click “link to this post” and view the comments (which appear at the bottom of the post.) All comments are moderated.
BANK ROBBERS
The Lloyds Group (via its C&G and BM Solutions/ Birmingham Midshires brands) and The Nationwide (owners of The Mortgage Works) now now have no competition post credit crunch. (The crunch meant the likes of Paragon and others got starved of funds and Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock bit the dust for new money.)
Lloyds and Nationwide are charging a minimum of base rate plus 4.2% for buy to let with fees of at least 2.5%.
Outrageous!
So, I’m delighted to see that Bank Of China has now started to market its buy to let mortgages a bit more aggressively.
Finding their mortgages on the Net is hard though.
Possibly harder to find than a story about Tianamen Square on Google’s Chinese operation (Google goes along with Chinese censorship if you did not know – nice people Google eh?)
BANK OF CHINA BUY TO LET MORTGAGE RATES
Their mortgage rates aren’t bad but borrowers must have enough income to cover both their home mortgage, and that of the investment property, in order to qualify.
Also, maximum loan to values are just 65% on freeholds and 60% on leaseholds.
The rates charged depend on if you are buying a freehold or a leasehold property too and how much you want to borrow (whether the property is over or under £250K).
To keep it simple, for what usually I buy - which is freeholds and houses under £250K in value, the maximum LTV is 65% and the mortgage rate is 3.5% over Bank of England base for life.
However, you must take out a 20 year term and they will only do repayment mortgages, there being no interest only option.
The arrangement fee is a reasonable £1495 (and the valuation fees aren’t bad either) though you cannot add these to the loan.
Early redemption penalties only apply in year one and are 1% of the loan which is good compared to UK lenders.
The downsides for many people will be the low Loan to Value, the lack of an interest only option, the fact that your own private (non rental) income is looked at carefully too plus you have to attend an interview at a Bank of China office
Still at least it is some competition for the rogues at Lloyds and Nationwide.
GOOD LOAN TO VALUE DEALS
We, of course, offer some great rates through our affiliation with Mortgage for Business and these DO go up to 75% Loan to Value,
Try Mortgages for Business.co.uk by clicking on Great Rates on Buy to Let Mortgages and quoting LettingFocus for their special offer of £250 brokerage when you draw down a buy to let mortgage - set up especially for us.
LATEST ON EVICTING TENANTS OF DEFAULTING LANDLORDS
Talking of our dumb mortgage lenders, tenants who currently face immediate and unexpected eviction because their landlord faces repossession will be given two months’ statutory breathing space to find a new home, under new government proposals.
You may have seen my email correspondence with the Council of Mortgage lenders on my previous post on 30th May about this.
The problem is because tenancy agreements are deemed unenforceable in cases where the borrower has failed to inform the lender of their intention to let the property.
Under proposals from housing minister John Healey tenants in this situation will be given at least two months to find alternative accommodation, through new powers granted to courts in charge of possession hearings.
Unauthorised tenants will also have the right to be heard at these hearings.
In addition, the government is proposing to force lenders to provide unauthorised tenants with a mechanism to request a two-month delay in repossession from lenders. It also wants lenders to consider other steps instead of repossession, such as appointing ‘Receivers of Rent’ to collect rent and manage occupied properties.
About time too!
Shame the mortgage lenders have had to be forced into this by the Government.
In next weeks’ blog post (out 24th August) I’ll look at the Government’s well meant but silly plans to limit the number of shared houses in some areas.
Link to other posts on today’s post topics:
http://www.lettingfocus.com/2009/05/mortgage-lenders-evict-tenants-too.html
http://www.lettingfocus.com/2009/07/buy-to-mortgage-rates-deviod-of.html
ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM and DAVID LAWRENSON
We are LettingFocus.com - the landlord experts.
I’m, David Lawrenson, the author of “Successful Property Letting” which for the last 3 years has been the UK’s top selling property book.
What’s unique about LettingFocus is that I offer independent unbiased
landlord advice seminars covering property investment and letting because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business I am not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier.
I can tell you where to buy (which areas), what type of property to buy, when to buy, how to buy property at a low price, how to make sure you get tenants who are going to pay the rent and how to manage a rental property to make £s at my one to one consulting service.
I can also comment on “No Money Down” Schemes and “Buying Below Market Value” methods too.
I can answer all your questions on letting property too because I have been a landlord and property investor for over 25 years.
LINKS
Find out about GREAT DEALS we have arranged for landlords by clicking here: Property Investors’ Affiliate and seeing our Affilates page.
More products will be added over the coming months. If you are a merchant with national coverage, get in touch!
For SEMINARS, click here: Property Seminars, Networking Evenings and Consulting
For the NEXT SEMINAR AND NETWORKING EVENT for Landlords and Property Investors click here:
Next Seminar Event
For ONE TO ONE CONSULTANCY help click here: Private One to One Consulting
To BUY THE BOOK click here: Buy the Book at Amazon
For THE HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG click here: Blog
For THE HOME PAGE OF OUR MAIN SITE click here: LettingFocus Home Page
For GREAT OFFERS ON Products for Landlords, click here: Landlords Resources
To JOIN our Free QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER simply send an email to david@LettingFocus.com - Please note we WILL NOT send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers!
Copyright of Blog: David Lawrenson 2009.
This blog is updated roughly once a week usually on a Monday or Tuesday.
WANT TO BE KEPT UPDATED WITH OUR LATEST BLOGS?
Over on the right hand side under all the previous blog entries you will see a button saying “Site Feed.” Simply copy the site feed link into your News Reader or News Aggregator.
Even a non techie like me managed to do this and Google is worth a search to tell you more about this.
Please note if you have a website & are thinking of reproducing material here - that’s fine but we DO require a link to the blog to be included, including also the links in this section. The full article including all links must be available to ALL VIEWERS of your site and not restricted.
WANT TO ADD A COMMENT?
To add a comment to this post, you just click on “link to this post” then simply add your comment.
To view past comments, again, you’ll need to click “link to this post” and view the comments (which appear at the bottom of the post.) All comments are moderated.
Labels: Bank Of China mortgage, buy to let, buy to let expert, buy to let mortgage, buy to let mortgage arrears, buy to let mortgages, unfair landlord evictions
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