Private Rented Sector Buy to Let Consultants
David Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com says that among the mandarins at the DWP, the penny may be finally dropping about Universal Credit Housing Benefit payments. Here, he proposes a more sensible alternative. It’s Groundhog Day all over again. You may remember the famous film starring Bill Murray about a TV weatherman who was forced to relive a single day until he […]
Read moreDavid Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com observes the latest mortgage lender U turn on allowing landlords to let to housing benefit tenants, but says that rather than a “blanket” approach of either allowing or not allowing landlords to do this, a better way would be if lenders “selectively” allowed it – with the decision linked to other variables such as landlord experience […]
Read moreDavid Lawrenson of Private Rented Sector Consultants LettingFocus.com looks at why some mortgage lenders don’t want to allow landlords to let to tenants who are dependent on housing benefit to pay their rent. Last week, at this blog, I looked at Nationwide’s new policy (for the Mortgage Works) to not allow landlords taking out mortgages or remortgages with them to […]
Read moreDavid Lawrenson of PRS consultancy www.LettingFocus.com shows how government seems to be failing to learn from past experiments to control the private rented sector – and calls for more robust analysis. Landlords have paid £11.2m in fees since the introduction of the Landlord Registration Scheme in Scotland. But the scheme has resulted in only 11 people being reported to the […]
Read moreDavid Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com explains the “work arounds” and the sleights of hand involved in the latest changes in Local Housing Allowance funding. The government has just voted to cap rises in several benefits, including local housing allowance (LHA) base rates, at the lower of 1% or the 30th percentile of local rents – which means that in practice, in […]
Read moreLocal authority schemes to attract private landlords to let to people with few housing options often fail. Here at LettingFocus, we explain why. I was invited to speak at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Homelessness conference in Nottingham last week. This is a big national event to which around 140 local authority and housing association staff from all around […]
Read moreSome mortgage lenders still don’t let landlords who have mortgage loans with them to let their properties to tenants who are on benefits. Many private landlords are reluctant to let to tenants who are dependent on housing benefits, preferring tenants who do not have to rely on the state for any assistance. There are a number of reasons why: 1. […]
Read moreMore Build to Let and institutional investment in the private rented sector now looks almost a “nailed on” certainty says David Lawrenson of LettingFocus.com. But it could be the biggest threat yet to the profitability of the traditional “buy to let” model. Many months ago the government appointed Sir Adrian Montague to look at the barriers to institutional investment in […]
Read moreLast week I attended two big housing related events and an online blog debate. The first up was “Housing 2012”, the big annual Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference, which was being held for the first time in Manchester. I attended as a new CIH member visiting the exhibition. Later in the week I was back in London, where I […]
Read moreFor some reason, investing in residential property has often made a fool out of otherwise sensible people (and banks). All too often, they cannot see a bubble until it is about to burst. In this blog post David Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com mulls over the wreckage. Every now and then you will read of a banker (or one of their supporters) […]
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