Press Release Summary: Another day, another set of apparently gloomy property statistics. Yesterday we had the Land Registry and Moneyfacts house price figures for March and April respectively, with both showing monthly price falls and the former indicating an annual drop in prices. Today\'s news was all about a fall in lending.
Press Release Body: Another day, another set of apparently gloomy property statistics. Yesterday we had the Land Registry and Moneyfacts house price figures for March and April respectively, with both showing monthly price falls and the former indicating an annual drop in prices. Today\'s news was all about a fall in lending.
Bank of England figures for mortgage approvals in march saw another fall, to 64,000 from February\'s 72,000. Chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Simon Rubinsohn, suggested that such figures were \"hardly surprising given that lenders have been aggressively scaling back on the provision of finance to homebuyers\".
With buy-to-let among the mortgage areas where the number of products has been reduced, one might imagine that all this would spell continued bad news for the industry. But not so, it seems.
Cardiff-based specialist buy-to-let mortgage firm The Business Mortgage Company has forecast that, even with the reduction in mortgages for the industry, 2008 can still be a good year. A spokesperson said that while the mortgage issue was a real one, \"the key factors driving the buy-to-let market are still strong\".
She added: \"There are rising levels of tenant demand as people wait to see what happens in the housing market before purchasing.\"
This demand is clear enough; after all, Homemove.co.uk reported last week, the demand for rental property recorded by Hamptons International in the first quarter of this year outside London was 33 per cent. But the spokesperson added that there are also the opportunities that a generally becalmed market can offer for those looking to expand their portfolios and who have the cash to do so. She said: \"The current slowdown in the housing market may enable landlords to drive genuine discounts off the true market value of properties and snap up some bargains.\"
Other trends may be apparent at the moment as well. One of them is that, with demand for buy-to-let rising as potential buyers hold off, the quality of decor on offer has become a new factor in competition between landlords. This point was made to the Manchester Evening News by Robert Hall, who co-founded buy-to-let furnishings provider Loft Interiors with his son Ben five years ago.
Mr Hall stated that the firm expects its turnover this year to rise from a little over 33 million to £4 million. He explained: \"There\'s been a lot of press about the bottom dropping out of the property market. In reality, we\'re finding that although property sales are fairly flat, the rental sector is actually stronger, as more people struggle to secure a mortgage and are forced to rent.\"
The result of this, he stated, was that competition was growing between landlords to attract the best tenants, \"clamouring to make their properties stand out\".
So far from the whole buy-to-let market slumping, it appears that landlords this year could be sitting pretty - provided, of course, they provide their tenants with something pretty on which to sit.
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