I'm in the BTL game, both professionally as a CeMAP, and as a holder of a small portfolio. I have clients with much larger portfolios.
The article is alarmist - what else would you expect - and figures skewed for effect. I crunched the numbers on my portfolio and the effect on me will be marginal at best. Some of the figures in the article are unrealistic because the imply very high gearing on the property income which is hard to achieve...
a. Because BTL mortgages are typically 75% LTV.
b. Smart (which = successful, which = rich) BTL investors are usually not dumb and would not gear their portfolios this high.
As for some of the comments on here
Property speculators, greedy estate agents and buy-to-rent landlords are all responsible for the ridiculous price of houses nowadays - but what can anyone do?
House prices in the UK are driven by demand vastly exceeding supply. BTL is a bit part of this at most (and generally only in the city flat market). Estate agents have got absolutely nothing to do with the overall price of houses...that is tantamount to holding pilots responsible for the price of airline tickets.
Someone...did say that if i turned it into a property business, this is not applicable..
May or may not be true (depends on how the tax change is enacted) but pretty moot, because it is is extremely hard to get lenders to lend to a business and the LTV and chargeable rate would not be pretty.
In my experience most mortgage companies will allow you to stay on you existing mortgage terms if you can prove that you are military and posted over-seas (JPA assignment order).
True, remember informing the lender of you intention to let out your property is a covenant of your mortgage.
This was a well-known high street lender and I found that their records keeping was abysmal
Try working with them everyday
We took out the mortgage through a good broker and pointed out very clearly that we'd be moving from time to time and therefore would intend to let the property.
Not sure if this what you intended to type, but I suspect this is prior to MMR (mortgage market review April 2014). You cannot do this anymore. Either a mortgage is "residential" and therefore "regulated" or BTL and therefore "unregulated". Nowadays the broker/intermediary will ask you a question based on the 40% rule (and it will be written in the regulatory disclosure document) and a false statement/intent is mortgage fraud.
Notwithstanding my downplaying of the tax change, I am not at all optimistic about the future of BTL (but to be fair I'm not all optimistic about most things in the UK
). The housing market in the UK is in total mess and drastic measures will be needed to fix it. BTL will inevitably suffer and I'm not sure it will be "soft" landing.
Personally I aim to get shot of my portfolio ASAP, but not primarily because of the tax change, I was headed that way anyway.
Finally expect more BTL regulation from the FCA this coming year.
PS
What will be amusing off course will be the panic stricken government reaction (read U turn) if they do succeed in crushing the house market. As ex CBI boss Digby Jones said back in 2010..."in the UK, the economy is the house market".
Coz we're a service economy innit.