3% surcharge on Buy To Let Properties...

Taxing the rich to pay the poor.  A shame Labour didn't try that when they were in charge.

So less people will want to buy properties to let so there will be less available so rents will go up.
Alternatively landlords who do buy will look to recover the extra expense of the increased stamp duty by putting up the rents.
How goes this help the poor?

As the increase doesn't come in 'til April 2016 there'll be a scramble from landlords to buy before the deadline which will push up prices even more. After April the market will go very quiet.

If landlords could charge higher rents, they'd be doing it right now, wouldn't they?

If the tax change results in fewer landlords in the future, then the prices of houses fall and they become affordable to owner-occupiers, who will not be subject to the stamp-duty surcharge. Hence there will be fewer tenants for landlords to chase, leaving rents exactly as they are now.

Or are you arguing that houses disappear off the face of the earth unless some landlord corners it?

This move will not push rents up. The houses will still be there either rented or owned.  Stamp Duty increases aren't going to mean there are less houses available.

Any borrow-to-letter who aims to get in before April 2016 is going to get their trousers pulled down. No more wear and tear allowance without receipts, no more deducting mortgage interest payments from rent receipts for income tax purposes, no more end-of-year deferral of capital gains tax from price rises (a little-noticed change yesterday - cough up within 30 days from now on) ... The Tories have recognized the buy-to-letters are public enemy number one and are out to skin them.

And the Bank of England have been warning for years about the economic dangers these multiply-mortgaged cretins pose to the UK. Look forward to the BofE reclassifying their loans as commercial, with a concurrent jump in interest rates.

good move but should have been done earlier

Time will tell.

madness

Looks like finally a Govt determined to control or even bring down house prices.

Why have house prices not fallen? different reasons. Both husband and wife working the main one but also immigration, people borrowing money off their poor parents, young people sharing a house together etc. However the system is shakey and house prices in England, including London and south east will collapse.

You are right that theres lots of factors that have kept prices going but BTL is the biggest single one I think and thats about to go into reverse  just as some of the things you mention reach their limit.

I'm not sure how much effect the extra stamp duty will have to be honest but as a tax revenue measure it should raise a few bob quite painlessly
If I was buying a house to let would an extra £6k on a £200k house put me off - nope

Will it push rents up - nope because the new landlords will be competing with existing landlords who haven't had to pay the extra SD

Well it should put you off because the golden rule with property is that you make your money when you buy.

It should also worry any prospective BTL purchaser that we have a Chancellor who either sees them as a cash machine or as a problem to be dealt with.

HPI has remained high in recent years due to demand-stimulating schemes such as Help To Buy, without there being sufficient boost in supply.

Yesterday he announced he'd build 400,000 new homes by 2020, which sounds good on the face of it, but that is only 100,000 a year, and all the 'experts' claim we need to build around 250-300k a year in order to meet the short fall.

He has also extended the H2B loan in London to 40%, which will give the government a larger share in the London housing stock (taking more of it off the banks), which potentially creates an incentive for them to deliberately keep prices high, especially in London.

rob, it's foreign money which is buying up most investment property.

Such measures as this and the landlord tax introduced in July's budget will not change this fact.

you,d need to no the london property market was cooling before you touched the 40% loan offer with a barge pole,apparently you pay back 40% of the propertys value in 5 years time not the purchase price, inlondon that could be anything

I can just picture the BTL landlords quaking in their boots in the back of their brand new limousines.
Choking on their fat cigars, at the thought of spending the cost of some extra trim for their next car on each new house they purchase.

While the usual socialist suspects on here are cheering the Tories on, with their heating turned down in their rented hovels trying to keep warm this winter. Struggling to make ends meet living on benefits. 

Comrades the revolution has begun.

It will deter people from buying to let properties which may mean less properties will be available

But it is also driving up House prices making it more difficult for people to buy their own property

On balance,I agree with it. ..even though I am a socialist


Will this mean the end of 'Homes under the Hammer'

As a socialist I would also like everyone working on a decent wage so they can afford their own properties

I would be happy to start a revolution for that

Robert Pullen, tax manager, at Blick Rothenberg LLP said of the three per cent buy to let surcharge: “This is likely to cause initial spike in house prices as investors rush to buy, but the long term impacts are not known. It could result in even larger rent costs as landlords seek to recover the new tax.”

The golden rule with anything to do with economics is to assess the issue of supply and demand. Immigration is up again so we've now got even more people who need somewhere to live. You do the math. But of course it's not just housing where the pressure of too many people is causing problems. The transport system is also going under and travelling anywhere has now become a nightmare.
Lots of other areas where the UK is not copeing. All down to too many people all trying to live on one small island.

travelling anywhere has now become a nightmare

wtf?

The government is essentially taking more money out of the housing market.

This can hardly lead to more houses being built.
It can only lead to fewer because there will be less money available for landlords to purchase new properties with. And less money available for them to buy run down properties and knock them into shape.

The government must think that the market can stand it.
Yet if they go too far down this road and house prices start to fall, how many private houses will get built in that situation with nobody lending?

No mention of what is the biggest reason for continually rising house prices - namely super cheap credit. Until that changes house prices will stay strong.

When it does change (god knows when that will ever be) it will cause carnage.

As for BTL, now is a really bad time to get into it particularly for the reasons that screaming posted yesterday morning. Whatever the short term pain/consequences may be from this shift, it will be better for all (well maybe not all but the BTL'ers can hardly complain given the run that they have had)in the long run if the housing market becomes less distorted.

We had high interest rates back in the eighties the housing market didn't crash.

Except for buying at the top of the market, it's bad payers and people who trash properties that are the biggest stumbling blocks to renting out.

Yet the government continue to give these people more and more protection when they default on their contracts.
The slightest infringement of the rules by a landlord is a criminal offence.
Yet nothing that a tenant can do is criminal, it's all civil.
And the tenant can get free legal aid and advice into the bargain if a landlord has to take them to court.

in the small prin t it says your exempt from the new tax if you buy 12 or more properies ,so companies at the high end of the market will be bundling up offers for their rich clients

I knew there was a catch

The slightest infringement of the rules by a landlord is a criminal offence.

There's now about 50 pieces of legislation with which a landlord has to comply; all of which are criminal offences for non compliance.
The latest is being reposible for checking that a tenant is legally entitled to be in the country and I'm sure someone is even now dreaming up some more rules to make a landlord's life difficult.
Meanwhile if a landlord gets lumbered with a bad tenant he'll just have to bite the bullet and wait until he can get his property back and there'll be no criminal repercussions for the tenant who could have not paid the rent and trashed the place.
The scales weigh very very heavily in favour of the tenant but it's always the landlord who is labelled as the villain.

Yep, it's called envy although most are nowhere near being millionaires.

wait for the crash

What crash? People have been predicting a crash on here for ages now. Usually of course those who have not been smart/lucky enough to have invested in property and would love to see it come down to make them feel they weren't so wrong after all.
Supply and demand. Too many people and not enough living accommodation. Not enough of everything else but that's another matter.

After a certain point it is not about supply and demand. Too many people will eventually mean house prices drop.

Supply and demand only means something when it is possible to do without, everyone needs a house either to buy or rent.

Care to explain?

Will these extra people not want to have a roof over their heads?

Yes but it is all about affordability, too many people push wages down. If the market works correctly house prices must fall.

in the good old days of normal house prices and mortgages you,d need to be on a minimum of £80,000 a year to live in the lowest hovel in london

Technically there is no such thing as supply and demand regarding housing.

When I was studying Economics many years ago there was a joke which said that in the exam each year the questions are the same it's the answers which change.
Reading the posts on here reminded me of that.

whats affordability though?

2rds of your take home pay or slightly less plus travel costs?

the low paid will be lucky to get a bedsit on half their wages and the odds are they will have to travel too.

its got to the point where the government has to pay the low paid housing benefit which is a ridiculous situation to be in for a so called economy doing better than most other eu countries.

we let wages get too low and let in many rich people to buy properties with no restrictions or extra charges.

imo the damage has been done.

plenty culd have been done but i dont think mps liked the idea of their house prices not rising more to increase their nest eggs.

I could have been a BTL landlord but felt that investing in a Seal pup clubbing business was a more ethical choice.

Exactly. Had the best year I've ever had on here, but at no point did I think that it would be cool to spend the winnings on a unit for farming people.

Glad to hear it and glad to hear it.

I could have been a BTL landlord but felt that investing in a Seal pup clubbing business was a more ethical choice.

What is stopping your being an ethical landlord?

I always thought that seal pups hated loud noise and strobe lighting.

Property provides one of the few ways for the ordinary bloke to get on.
I know one or two who have used this route to move a few notches up the social ladder.
Buy a run down property knock it into shape in your spare time and rent it out.
Build some more capital and do it again.
This involves a tremendous amount of hard work and sacrifice.
Far more than most people are prepared to or are even capable of doing.
Yet now it appears the government wants to make it even harder for these super people to prosper.
No wonder the green eyed brigade are happy with the measure.
If there's one thing they hate it is the sight of hard working people getting on.

Build some more capital

just do that and forget all that house stuff

That's very true, Crippen. The majority of BTLers are either cowboy builders or gypos.

I admire people who have the courage and ability to buy and let property.

They are working for themselves, independent of bosses or even other people.   Has a lot of good things about it.

This involves a tremendous amount of hard work and sacrifice.

sounds like a Dr

''The green eyed brigade.''

It's easy to spot the idle and the losers on here.

You suffer from delusions of grandeur, Crippen. Not everyone's idea of a successful career is doing up hovels and renting them out to HB recipients.

Absolutely DIE LINKE.
There are many who would prefer to live on benefits rather than exert themselves to that extent.

I did mention that is was one way for the ordinary bloke to get on.

No doubt you might tell us how an ordinary bloke might improve his lot once he realises that it isn't all going to fall into his lap?

And please don't say make a living on here.

Personally I'd rather w@nk off old men for a fiver than be a BTLer.

For me the beauty of it is that it is something that can continue right into old age. Should the world stay roughly as it has been for the last few hundred years, (and of course that is not guaranteed...or I fear likely.) then there is nothing quite the same as owning property.
It is greater even than money for the sense of security and wellbeing.

Iremember reading about an old lady who had died in the south of France. They discovered that she still owned apt. in Paris that she had left during WW2 and never went back. There were pictures of the apartment in the article and it was just as she left it 60 years ago.

It was the most beautiful thing.

So it's clear where DIE LINKE is coming from.

Spot on Dr C.

Some on here will only be content when private property is abolished and we're all living in social housing.

Equality they call it - when we're all living at the same level as the lazy and feckless.