anonlymouse

That is an absolutely wonderful piece of investigative reporting ebull - thanks for taking the time to delve into that. Will keep an eye out for how that develops. I have another canary to share down the road in Stoke Newington. 1 Bed / 35 sq m / Basement / £250,000 Please note that this property is NEW TO THE MARKET and is absolutely not this property which has been on the market since January when it was listed for £325,000. Nor is it this property, which went to auction yesterday with a reserve price of £200,000 but was 'sold prior to auction'. Honest guv.

Honoured to be quoted but to be fair those are only anecdotes rather than evidence - think it undermines the numbers you're putting out if you start including qualitative data as well as quantitative.

Don't get your hopes up, Hackney next door is still growing: +0.24% Month on Month and a whopping +0.8% Year on Year. Don't mention CPI ;).

Islington peaked at £678,958 / 110.16 in August 2016. It's now £615,100 / 99.80 in March 2017.

That's the guy who raised rents to cover section 24 right? The "I don't pay for anything, my tenants do" chap. Last I read he was facing voids on some properties after raising the rents, now it appears even more good tenants are deserting him. Maybe running a brothel wouldn't be such a bad idea.

I'm going to go with a very specific prediction - House price index for Islington is already back down to January 2015 (100). Given the steepness of the trend I reckon 95 (aka Jun-July 2014) could be seen.

Evidence of this can be found here: https://www.propertytribes.com/understanding-the-impact-of-pra-on-landlords-t-127627442-4.html "Just been turned down on 2 remortgage applications due to having too many properties. It appears that most lenders are now imposing a maximum number of properties of around 10. A few are still okay for portfolio landlords but rates are far worse. Best I've been offered is 3.35% on a 65% LTV and I have 999 credit score." "Just watch loan book values evaporate when EPC regs kick in. Nearly 650000 rental properties don't meet E standard. Also when S24 effects hit. Also HMO licensing for ANY property with 3 or more households. There are going to be a lot of LL with unlettable property."

With the bear food coming as thick and fast as it is I'm sure I'll have no trouble.

I can't edit my own posts so here it is: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/analysis-will-house-prices-really-crash-2017/

This would be in line with the vast discrepancy between sales of £1m+ houses and number of asking prices which breach that barrier (24,000 according to Henry Pryor)

Could you add that one to the Canaries in the Coal Mine topic?

Some more bear food specifically relating to London: London House-Price Growth Is at Its Weakest in Five Years: Chart London house price growth grinds to a halt as the capital becomes the second slowest region in England and Wales

Lot's of lovely bear food over in the Telegraph this afternoon:

Your advisor is totally wrong. The tax changes HAVE ALREADY STARTED. The changes are being phased in over four years. 2017-18 is the first year the interest relief is being removed - you are already required to pay income tax on the rental income received and the amount of interest costs you can deduct from that income HAS ALREADY REDUCED. You need to do two things: Fire your 'tax advisor' and hire an accountant Sell your buy to let property asap The housing market is on the brink of a collapse - many landlords like you are already aware of the tax changes and have done the calculations and worked out that their investments are no longer generating an income for them. On top of this the stagnating housing market means that capital gains can no longer be guaranteed either. Many landlords are coming to the conclusion that they're investments are no longer acumulating in value and are selling up. The more people who are selling the lower the prices will be - you need to sell up now so you can get out while you're ahead.

We are digging ever deeper into the mountain of debt for fuel for the house price inflation industry, but our lights have gone out. The stagnation in the market is giving us very little information tell us if the seam of MadGainz has run dry, or if we're yet to strike it rich and send house prices soaring even further. I propose we gather a selection of canaries which we can use to guide us as to the picture on the ground. Properties so terrible, uninhabitable and/or overpriced you'd only buy them if you thought you could make some money out of them, or you were so desperate you'd think it's your last chance to get on the ladder. To start with here's mine - I'll update once a fortnight or so. £425k / 50 sqm / 2 bed / Basement It's a two bed basement flat with no external windows - only an internal courtyard and rooflights. It's on a main road in Holloway/Finsbury Park, possibly the least attractive part of Zone 2 North of the river and it has very few decent neighbourhood amenities. I could go on but the pictures and plan speak for themselves - if this sells then I'll despair. What are yours?

Regarding the micro bubble of the April 2016 stamp duty surge, when are these mortgages likely to come out of their introductory rates and onto the SVRs?

Yeah I looked at Plymouth the other day to see how my old haunts are getting on. Lots of 'investment opportunities' available for the savvy investor with an eye on the student HMO market. Hoping that my friends who are still there will be able to afford a place of their own soon.

He's missing out on the three D's of forced sellers - debts, deaths and divorces. So while there may not be as many voluntary sellers when prices are stagnant, there will still be properties coming on to the market. This is of course presupposing that there aren't any other types of owners of residential property whose financial circumstances (and wider market trends) may encourage them to sell over the coming months.

As pointed out in that thread, that's the proportion of BTL purchases which are currently being conducted in cash. The number of cash BTL purchases is broadly in line with what it was pre-stamp duty and Section 24. The reason why the proportion is so high recently is because the number of people who borrow to let has greatly diminished, so the numbers only stack up for those with cash. Even then I'm not sure - a quick Zoopla check for £100k houses gives me a 2 Bed semi-detached in Birmingham with a potential monthly rent of £600. That's £7200 gross (7.2% per annum). Letting agent fees run to ~12.5% or £864 per year. Insurance runs to about £200-300 per annum. Fixtures Fittings and Furniture - £3000 to furnish perhaps so 10% replacement cost per annum = £300. Annual maintenance for a property, a good guide is to put aside 1% of the property cost per year so that's another £1000. Oh yes and there's the tax to pay, 20% of £7200 is £1440 So net we're looking at £7200 - £864 - £200 - £300 - £1000 - £1440 = £3396. A 3.4% yield for a cash purchase - once you subtract mortgage interest from this I'm not sure what you're left with! On second thoughts, maybe I'll just nutmeg it.

1) The vast majority of BTL 'business models' are built around interest only mortgages, not repayment. 2) LTV required on BTL is 25% minimum. 3) Rental income needs to cover 145% of the mortgage interest. So on addition to S24, you will really struggle to find a new BTL mortgage on as favourable terms as owner occupiers. Both taxation and banking regulations have been rejigged in our favour. And coming soon are stricter product standards too (EPC ratings) which will not apply to the average Joe. The boots on the other foot now.

I think it's brilliant. Pension companies don't need mega buck capital gainz - they need a good, solid dependable source of income. This means long tenancies and low overheads with well built, cheaply operated and easily maintained properties Institutional build to rent will lead to the professionalisation of the private rental sector which is long overdue - it solves many issues simultaneously. It will not occupy existing supply but create new supply. It will raise standards. It will provide stability for tenants and a professional service. The additional supply will lower rents and push the amateur BTL overleveraged moron out of the market. What's not to like?

Sharp rise in landlords leaving the private renting sector

As part of the due diligence (aka demonstrating the ridiculousness of the asking price) on these potential purchases I've been looking at the Land Registry/Office of National Statistics House Price Index. Here's the chart for Islington. Bear in Mind it's a very long and thin borough, stretching all the way from the City out to Stroud Green. By the way, does anyone have any access to tools that can generate this data by postcode? I know Sancho is scraping rightmove data in the other thread, but it would be good to be able to scrape the Land Registry data on a postcode basis too - a borough is as granular as it gets.

Yes I think that is going to be the benefit of the letting fees ban - the cost of moving will decrease massively. The exercise of balancing a £50 per month rent increase (easier from a cashflow perspective) versus a £500 fees layout JUST to maintain current rent levels will be a thing of the past and lead to a more liquid (read: competitive) market. Like you said it's also about an emotional connection to a place but given the frequency which I have been forced to move at anyway I've never really made an emotional connection to rented accommodation. I think most of my friends are used to a similar situation - moving every six to twelve months - so to do it again but this time without fees and for a lower rent would be very attractive to us all. Anyway, to the topic at hand - it's an anecdotal but I had three viewings on Monday night and the estate agents all said that the buy-to-let market has pretty much evaporated. Whereas before they could sell a BTL property onto another landlord, the properties (if they are selling at all) are going to FTB or other OO.