2nd
May 2014
1996 saw the introduction of BTL mortgages (buy-to-let) and originally it was forecasted that investors/landlords would make 11% annual returns up to 2024.
However there are dissenters who criticise the amount of BTL mortgages availability in the market and they are saying that numbers of first time buyers are dwindling.
The report by the lender states that on average those who have invested in buy-to-let properties, that for every £1000 extra they have spent on a property gives them £12,000 profit. This is by far the biggest return on any type of investment. It also predicts that on average landlords will be making at least 11% for the next ten years.
It also reported that since 1996 every £1,000 spent on a buy-to-let property has turned into £13,048 which is an annual return of 16.3%. For that same period savings in banks would have yielded 4%, bonds 6.5% and investors in shares would have received returns of 6.8% per year.
The figures were released just before the new hard hitting affordability rules for mortgage customers were introduced. The rules are now requiring all lenders to tighten up their checking system on new borrowers spending, becoming stricter on their decision making as to whether the borrowers will be able to pay the mortgage when interest rates rise.
The Government's Help to Buy scheme has seen a dramatic increase of first time buyers. However at present buy-to-let mortgages do not fall under the new rules as they are deemed businesses and not homebuyers. There is a feeling that lenders will concentrate their efforts upon BTL investors rather than first time buyers.
A Charter surveyor says that because of the introduction of the new mortgage affordability has already impacted upon the housing market. The total number of property valuations in March had fallen by 9%, however the buy-to-let's activity was the only area that had risen in that month.
The lender who compiled the report said that one in seven mortgages are for landlords and that since 1996, lenders had granted over one and a half million mortgages to BTL investors worth £174 billion.
The lender's John Heron said: "Buy-to-let mortgages have become such an integral part of today's mortgage market that you easily forget that the product didn't exist prior to 1996. The private-rented sector remains an important and growing sector and now represents 18% of the UK's housing market"
Those who are criticising this shift in the market say that first time buyers are being shoved aside by landlords and that in the last ten years home ownership had fallen to 65.2%, whereas in 2003 it stood at 71%, which is at its lowest level since 1987.
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