London letting agents are predicting a fall in rents over the next three months. the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has reported. Its latest Residential Market Survey has a net balance of 50 per cent of respondents confirming the prediction. Overall letting agents reported tenant demand had increased in the three months to January, supported by a net balance of 12 per cent of respondents. However demand had moderated and new landlord instructions had fallen for the second quarter in succession. Rental growth expectations across the UK as a whole were ‘marginally positive’. When it c ..read more

As a landlord, you’ll need to start thinking about how you will transition to HMRC’s new Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax regulations. As part of the government’s attempts to modernise the tax system, landlords and self-employed people will be required to submit their tax returns via MTD-compatible software. In addition to your annual submission, you’ll also be required to complete four quarterly tax returns throughout the year, for a total of five submissions a year. Of course, with an accountant, five submissions a year will cost a small fortune. However, by using tailored landlord s ..read more

Houses for rent are letting 30 per cent faster than a year ago, pushing rents higher, property portal Zoopla has reported. But this does not hold good for city centres where changing patterns in working and commuting, leisure and tourism, have eased rental demand, said Zoopla’s latest Quarterly Rental Market Report. Annual falls in rent of 1.8 per cent in Edinburgh, 0.9 per cent in Greater Manchester and 0.8 per cent in Greater Birmingham were recorded. By contrast, a ‘halo effect’ has emerged in the wider commuter zones around the UK’s largest cities. In these areas rents were rising strongl ..read more

There are now more mortgage deals available than since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic began impacting the UK economy last March, MoneyFacts has reported. Its latest UK Mortgage Trends Treasury Report, found that there are currently 3,215 mortgage deals available, the highest number yet since March. Then there were 5,222 deals in the market. The biggest rise in deals over the last few months is in 90 per cent loan to value deals. While average mortgage interest rates have risen across all LTVs, the average for two and five year 90 per cent LTV fixed mortgages fell month-on-month from 3 ..read more

Proposals to increase Capital Gains Tax would freeze the rental housing market making it less responsive to tenant demand, the National Residential Landlords Association has warned ahead of this year’s Budget.  Last year the Office of Tax Simplification, which gives independent advice to the Government, a review setting out ways in which CGT and income tax could be more closely aligned. ‘If the Government considers the simplification priority is to reduce distortions to behaviour, it should consider either more closely aligning CGT rates with income tax rates, or addressin ..read more

A third national lockdown has created a perfect storm for the property market, said property portal Zoopla this week. The crisis has caused many people to make once in a lifetime reassessments of their housing needs, with many deciding they needed to move. The resulting buyer demand has not slowed but now vendors have pressed the pause button on listing their properties for sale, said Zoopla. New listings were down 12 per cent in January compared to a year ago, said the firm. The net result is continued house price growth – up 4.3 per cent on the year, according to Zoopla. ‘Housing market mom ..read more

House prices went down by 0.3 per cent last month, Nationwide’s latest house price survey suggests. This has translated into a slowing of the annual rate of house price growth from 7.3 per cent in December to 6.4 per cent in January, said Nationwide. ‘To a large extent, the slowdown probably reflects a tapering of demand ahead of the end of the stamp duty holiday, which prompted many people considering a house move to bring forward their purchase’, said . Nationwide’s chief economist Robert Gardner ‘While the stamp duty holiday is not due to expire until the end of March, activity would be ex ..read more

Further financial support for student renters ‘begs the question why student renters are being treated differently to all others’, said the National Residential Landlords Association this week. A £50m support package has been announced by Universities Minister Michelle Donelan. This is in addition to the £20m package announced in December. The money is to go to universities so they can help students, including those struggling with their rent. ‘The Government also welcomes the decision from many universities and accommodation providers to offer rent rebates for students who need to stay away ..read more

A Government minister has batted back a question about landlord support during the Coronavirus pandemic with what appear to be out of date statistics. When asked what plans there were to introduce specific financial support for landlords who had lost rent as a direct result of the pandemic, minister of state Lord Greenhalgh declined to say there would be any further support. Instead he said the Government was ‘supporting landlords by supporting tenants to continue paying rent’. In his written answer to Lord Taylor, he then went on to say that ‘the recently published EHS Household Resilience S ..read more

Demand for rental property is up and rents continue to increase – but not in city centres. City centre landlords are seeing ‘a flood of properties coming into the market’ and falling asking rents, the property portal Rightmove has reported in its quarterly rental trends tracker.  ‘The price premium that many tenants are usually willing to pay to have the vibrancy of a city centre on their doorstep has been tempered for now’, said Rightmove Director of Property Data Tim Bannister. ‘There’s no doubt that higher rents will return once life goes back to some form of normality, but it will be ..read more