Why you should avoid property spread bets

Spread betting might sound like a good idea if you want to make money from the property market without buying and selling houses. But for most retail investors, it isn't, says Tim Bennett.

"Spread betting on property price indices is a viable lower-capital alternative to speculating on the property market," says investment resource site independentinvestor.co.uk. "Traders can now profit from house-price fluctuations as if it were any other market".

For a few professional traders, perhaps that's true. But for most retail investors, property spread betting is just not a good idea.

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.