Looking for a buy-to-let property? Wait until 2019

Despite the drawbacks, buy-to-let property is still very popular. But if you want lower prices and higher yields, says Merryn Somerset Webb, put off buying for a few years.

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It may be tempting, but don't rush in

What pushed George Osborne into announcing "pension freedom"? Was it a real desire to give people proper control over their financial futures a libertarian bid to make an ageing population into financially educated independent investors? Was it a desperate attempt to bring forward a little tax revenue to help with his self-imposed fiscal targets? Or was it perhaps a reaction to the hideous effect of low interest rates on retirement incomes?

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.