| 20th October 2006 |
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Ten years ago four of the country’s
leading mortgage providers got together
and announced that they would offer
to people, who wished to buy property
as an investment, mortgages that were
much easier to obtain and would no longer
charge a punitive interest rate. They
even had a catchy phrase for it. They
called it “buy to let”.
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The idea took off.
It was the right product at the right
time. Both inflation and interest rates
were falling. The changes in the 1988
Housing Act made all this possible. The
introduction of a new kind of rental agreement,
called the assured shorthold tenancy,
virtually eliminated the spectre of the
sitting tenant which had held the market
back for a long time.
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The difficulties of the early
1990s with the drop in house prices, negative
equity and high inflation led to an increase in
repossessions. This left a lot of people looking
for somewhere to live. The solution came with
the final changes made in the 1996 Housing Act
which finally eliminated the possibility of allowing
in a sitting tenant.
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The new investors were people
who were wondering what to do with their savings
now that they no longer trusted the financial
markets and pension funds after some high profile
problems in the financial services industry. Many
have been very successful with their investments
particularly with the rapid growth in house prices
in recent years plus the bonus of receiving rent
which usually paid the cost of the investment.
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Is it too late to invest
now? Analysts have predicted that the private
rental sector will double in size from around
7% to 15% in the next 10 years. As long as investors
are careful and do not pay too high a price for
properties there is no reason why a “buy
to let” investment should not continue to
be worthwhile and outperform normal savings investments.
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LandSearch through its land
registry division offers a wide range of information
to prospective buyers of property or land. We
are able to make relatively inexpensive searches
to identify owners and any restrictive covenants
on land and buildings quickly before a commitment
is made to purchase. |
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LandSearch is the leading
online land registry organisation covering all
of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland
. We offer a wide range of land registry searches
including property registers and title plans,
name of owner searches, identification of land
without a postal address, boundary searches, rights
of ways and rights of access searches plus a range
of local authority, environmental, company and
judgment searches. |
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