The buy to let market in the UK will be hoping that the new Government does not have any surprises up its sleeves having undergone significant changes in the last couple of years.
It is likely that the ban on letting agents in England will go ahead as planned as the Conservative party will still be in change and any U-turn on tax changes is unlikely.
According to Andrew Montlake of mortgage broker Coreco, issues like rent caps may come back into play. ‘Politicians should however remember that the private rental sector is of paramount importance to the UK housing market and taking things too far may well cause the landlord sell-off authorities have been trying to avoid and exacerbate the crisis,’ he said.
Carol Pawsey, lettings director at KFH, hopes that the new Government will ensure that there is a balanced private rental sector going forward that attracts investors and landlords to the market while looking after the long term interests of the increasing number of tenants looking for quality long term rental homes.
Landlords will be hoping that there is no more change as they adapt to what has already happened with mortgage relief tax being phased out and extra stamp duty on additional homes, according to Jonathan Harris, director of mortgage broker Anderson Harris.
‘Landlords have come under sustained attack from the Conservatives, a party which you would normally expect to protect the interests of the hard working, small time entrepreneur. But politicians must realise that enough is enough and whichever coalition we end up with must lay off landlords at the very least until all the recent changes have bedded in,’ he said.
He pointed out that the sharp decline in number of new buy to let purchases over the past 12 months underlines the fact that investors are having second thoughts about the sector with changes to mortgage interest tax relief, tougher affordability criteria and higher stamp duty all playing a part.
Source: Property News
