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You mean there is a different tax relief regime?

Definitely - not all private landlords are great and the system definitely needs more control in place for how they operate but now that all reliefs have been removed for private landlords but not for corporate landlords it's created the perfect environment for them to simply buy up everything (which they are doing rapidly).

Is there a war on private landlords? My experience of renting when I was younger was not a good one. The balance of power was always with the landlords. We should have rent controls here and I agree that everyone should have an affordable home. Having said that, stopping speculation is easier said than done - specially when we have politicians that are as bent as nine bob notes 🤣

I didn't realise lots of property was being bought by investment companies. That is so wrong. People should be entitled to buy their own home at an affordable price. I was in North Norfolk today, we're looking to move close to Norwich and I couldn't believe the difference in price looking at the estate agent window. A 4 bedroom detached house with double garage was £325,000. Close to Norwich you're looking at around £450,000. Where we currently live you could double that! 😳

Exactly, it's a perfect storm. Also the war on the private landlord was made to look like it'll free up a lot of property for people to buy, but that's not happening at all - it's all being snapped up by the likes of Blackstone in their 1000s so the property market is about to get a whole lot worse........

I completely agree. People may not have invested in property if they were getting a good return on their savings. Property values probably wouldn't have increased so much allowing more people to buy too. Now we have lots of people with massive mortgages who's fixed rate deals have finished or will do soon, that are facing having to pay hundreds extra each month. It's easy to say well they would've been stress tested but no one could've predicted utility bills, fuel, food etc increasing in price like it has at the same time.

This is the key, if interest rates had never dropped to such a ridiculously low level we never would have ended up in the mess that we are in. It's funny when you think that those who created the 2008 financial crisis are the ones who have benefited the most from the post 2008 financial environment......... 🙄

Gotcha! 👍🏼 Yes I agree, everyone should be able to buy a house, especially when rents are usually more than the mortgage payments. My Dad had a second house but sold it last year after his tenant moved. He did well out of it but now interest rates have gone up he's making the same return from having the money in the bank as he was in the rent he received.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/category/directors-dealings

The stock market seems to be hitting new highs - Dow at 40,000, FTSE at whatever it is - seems to be doing ok but I see that insiders, ie company owners and directors are making big sales cashing out some of their stakes. Hard to say what the next few months will bring, if I knew or was any good I would be a lot richer than I am

Hi Rich We moved part was through a fixed term mortgage so had to take a second mortgage to bridge the gap from old house to new. Wish I did own another property as that's where the real investment is (wrongly so). A house should be a home, not a capital investment

No change in the base rate but 8 voted to freeze and 1 reduce. So could be a sign that at the next meeting more will vote to reduce. I'd imagine a reduction will happen in the summer. Fingers crossed this encourages lenders to drop fixed rates again. Get to 4% or under and I definitely won't be hesitating to fix this time. If I had gone for the 3.89% fix I'd be saving around £150 a month now, based on the same terms. I am still on interest only though and really want to get back on to a repayment plan but not on my current tracker. Switched to interest only as we were going to move and other bills were still high but for the last 18 months I've paid nothing off the capital. Now things have come down and I've since had a payrise I need to start overpaying it asap. Now rates are higher I'm definitely taking more of an interest in this. When we first bought the house the 5 year fix was around 2.8% but I didn't even consider changing it when rates dropped to 1% or below. But at the time Santander didn't step down their ERC so you'd be liable for the lot if you switched products. When I looked at the ERC terms for the fixed rates they do now it says they step down. I don't do shares, any idea why that might be happening? Congratulations on paying one of the mortgages off, must be a relief. I assume you must rent that property out. How do you find being a landlord? The election is likely to be after the summer isn't it. Maybe things will change as we get closer to it.

Seems to be a lot of weird stuff going on in the market. Lots of people seem to be selling serious volumes of shares and liquidating assets. Some of my shares have jumped in price significantly too over the past couple of months so will be keeping a close eye on things. I was lucky enough to clear one of my mortgages this month.. Its only been going for 13 years and I have significantly overpaid to burn it down as fast as possible.. Also helped by a significant redundancy pay back in 2021. One mortgage left now but that's the bigger of the two now at £110k which is up for renewal soon... I keep seeing rates being pulled which is normal this close to a ~clown party~ election... But it does question what will happen!

Possibly, that would be nice. Still kicking myself I didn't go for the 3.89%. Hopefully it drops to that point again soon or lower. See what happens on Thursday with the BoE meeting. Although fixed rate deals go by the swap rates and not the base rates so it might not have any impact. I think it'll stay on 5.25%.

Interesting they're going up again - do you think they're getting ready for rate drops as we head towards the election?

No they've gone up! I wasn't rushing in this time as last year when the base rate kept increasing I switched to a lower tracker in a panic, then they stopped increasing the base rate, so didn't want to do anything rash this time. A few weeks a go it was 3.89% for 5 years. Then it increased to 4.03% (which it was yesterday) but I've just looked now and it's 4.34%!! Kicking myself now, I should've fixed a few weeks a go. I could go: 5 years for 4.49% 3 years for 4.74% 2 years for 4.89% All of these are fee free. The £999 fee ones are only 0.25% less so it's cheaper to take the fix without a fee. A 5 year fix at that rate doesn't seem worth going for now. It doesn't look like the BoE will lower the base rate until the end of 2024. So I either stick it out on my 5.59% tracker, fix at a higher rate now or wait and see if they drop again but there's every chance they could rise too.

Haven't looked at it in a while, have you seen rates drop any further over the last few weeks/months?

Well the budget was a bit crap! Nothing for home owners. I wonder if this will encourage lenders to drop fixed rate deals some more to get the housing market moving again. Another 2 weeks until they review the base rate again. I also had a look at the offers in my Santander account and under ERC it says this will step down over the term. I'm certain that's a new thing, I don't recall seeing it before

For such a large company I'm amazed they haven't even put a Protyre sign up. It's still the same logos for Blackboots and WIM. Reading reviews some people also say they've been using them for years and how good they are. Yet they've only owned it for 2 years and the whole workforce that made BB/WIM are no longer there.

They should just take the signs down seeing as nobody connected to the old business is there any more.

I had to go to Screwfix after work so drove along to the garage to see if they had replaced any of the signage. Guess what, they haven't! WIM signs are still up. As WIM was run under Blackboots and they purchased it from them I guess they aren't doing anything illegal like trading under false pretences. Although there is nothing to say it's actually Protyre there.

With Santander I believe it is the same, they don't reduce it like other lenders but it's something I would check first. I'm not rushing into a fixed deal and will be taking my time to decide. I'm not sure if I want to wait until the second half of the year when the election is likely to be called. Who knows what will happen in the run-up to it, maybe lenders will keep dropping fixed deals but it's all a risk.

Right that makes sense, if you'll be settling a large chunk of the balance then the ERC is relevant. However, is your ERC constant throughout the term of the deal? I'm with Halifax and I believe (although not sure now if I'm wrong!) but I think ours reduces by 1% each year, so is 5% in the first year, 4% in the second year and so on. I can totally see the rate dropping quite considerably before the end of the year because of the upcoming election - never know what might happen but I'd be very surprised if the rate isn't a lot lower than it currently is by the time of the election (and the same will most likely happen in the US too).

Yes we'll be buying another house but the whole idea of moving to another area is to reduce the mortgage as well as getting a larger property. Depending on the house and area we could reduce the mortgage by quite a bit and with a 5% ERC on what we don't need could be costly. That's assuming Santander allow us to port the mortgage but it should be ok. The base rate announcement was interesting. Out of 9 votes, 6 of them wanted it kept the same, 2 an increase and 1 a decrease. I can't see it dropping by more than 0.5% by the end of 2024 and more drops in 2025. Say it hits 3.5% towards the end of 2025 that would make our tracker the same as the 5 year fix I can get now. In that time I would've paid out hundreds/thousands more in interest. Although this would obviously decrease as the base rate drops. The only benefit I can see for staying on the tracker now is if fixed rate deals get any cheaper but they could just as easily increase and then I'll wish I had fixed sooner! Work has also thrown a curveball. It looks like from April all non teaching staff are getting a substantial payrise, much more than the usual 5% increase. I wouldn't be able to get a similar job in Norfolk that pays the same. The only way would be getting in to one of the universities but that could take a while waiting for the right jobs to come up. I'm keen to stay in education so have only been looking in this industry. This was only announced yesterday but I'm now thinking of staying put a little longer which makes the 5 year fix even more appealing, especially if I'm paying another £999 fee.

Sorry if I've missed it earlier but if you move are you not planning to buy another house?