5 Useful Resources All About LISAs for First-Time Buyers
As the cut-off point for Help To Buy (H2B) ISAs is fast approaching on the 30th November and the Lifetime ISA (LISA) primed to take its place, we’ve chosen to share our top five resources to help you get informed on how you can use this tool to boost your deposit as a first-time buyer […]
Family Income Benefit: Helping your life cover go further
Life assurance is reasonably well understood as a type of cover that pays a fixed amount to a family if the insured person dies. When buying a property, it’s always recommended that you take out this kind of cover – especially if you are becoming a homeowner with a partner and young family – to […]
AirBnB Mortgages: What’s the deal?
Over the past few years, the number of queries we’ve received from investors looking to use the AirBnB platform – instead of the typical 6-month Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) agreement – has increased dramatically. A year ago, the short answer to this question a year ago would have been: No. Lenders across the board would […]
How to Identify A Great Investment Opportunity
Today, making money out of property is quite a bit harder than it was just a few years ago. This is because of a few reasons, including changes to stamp duty, tax relief and new rules from the PRA and FCA that limit lending. Still, property owners entering into the private rental sector via buy-to-let […]
Buying a property with a short lease
Fairly frequently we come across purchases for leasehold properties where there is a short lease, and this creates quite a challenge when sourcing mortgages. This tends to be more common in the BTL market, partly i suspect because for most residential home buyers, the prospect of paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for something that […]
Tax Calculations: What are they & why do we need them?
Understanding income can be complex if you are self-employed. In this blog, we talk you through what lenders expect in regards proving income – and how you can get ahead of the curve by ensuring you have the right figures and documents in advance of your mortgage application. There are two common types of self-employment: […]
Doubling Ground Rent: Unpacking the problem for lenders
In the last decade, it’s become very apparent that many developers have been creating properties with ground rents that are more oppressive than were typical historically. Leaseholds are usually viewed as a type of ‘peppercorn’ rent, a fee so low that the freeholder typically doesn’t bother collecting it. However, ground rents are becoming much more […]
Mortgage Tip #1: Be Smart, Check Your Credit Score
Tip #1: Download your credit score before making an application for a mortgage Many consumers assume that, since they have had credit in the past without issue, their credit report is clean, with no pitfalls or nasty surprises. But here’s why you shouldn’t miss out the crucial step of downloading your credit score before applying for […]
The Business of Buy-to-Let: Why it’s high time to take BTL more seriously
Buy-to-let is a serious business, and it needs to be treated like one. That’s a contentious statement I know, but it needs to be said. I’ll explain why. A clear line has been drawn by the regulator and the government, and as such the complexity of the business of buy-to-let (BTL) has increased exponentially. It […]
Income Protection: Why landlords should make the case
If you think about, it it’s perfectly logical. When a mortgage is first taken out, the majority of people tend to consider investing in some form of income protection. The reasons for this are fairly obvious: most employers don’t pay for very long if you are off work, government benefits are near non-existent and, for […]
