I hope you all had a great Easter and you’re ready for the spring bounce!

The Bank of England met last Thursday and promptly did nothing, which I think was widely expected, so the base rate remains at 0.5%.

Other news includes Cheltenham & Gloucester who have radically changed their buy to let criteria which in turn has further tightened their underwriting criteria. For example a loan to value of 75% now needs rental cover of 100% calculated at a notional rate of 8% - and remember that £35K minimum provable income.

It’s still not clear whether this is a move within Lloyds Group of contracting criteria (and so BM Solutions will follow) OR C&G as a brand are looking to reduce their business. Let’s hope that BM Solutions, with their current high efficiency and good rates will be promoted to the leading buy to let provider for the group.

Green Shoots

So any more shoots this week? Well here’s two:

1. The latest data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders sees the number of purchase loans edging up slightly by 4% from Jan to Feb.

2. Interest from home-buyers is starting to gain "real momentum", although sales remain low, UK surveyors say.

Tip of the week: Do you want trade valuations?

So what does this mean?

A typical valuation cost for a property worth £100,000 would cost up to £355 whereas a trade valuation would be £170. That’s a saving of £185.

Why is it useful to you?

Well, even though you can’t use this valuation for lender’s purposes - you can use it for your purposes! Many of our investors use them for pre-auction valuations or if they have 3 or 4 potential deals and don’t want to spend £355 on each one.

For example, you see 3 potential properties at around £120,000. You want to buy one of them but want confirmation of valuation before you choose. So, rather than value each one for lender purposes which could cost £1170 you decide to get 3 trade valuations costing £570.

If you don’t want to go ahead on any of the properties then it saves you £600, if you want to go ahead on one then it saves £210.

Just give us a call for more information.

John