George Osborne’s message to buy-to-letters: “don’t”
We’ve made our views on buy-to-let pretty clear recently. And it looks like the chancellor agrees, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
We've made our views on buy to let pretty clear here over the last few weeks. We don't have the moral problems with it that some do in the right circumstances owning property and renting it out is a perfectly acceptable investment activity. However, given the political and economic writing on the wall, we have long thought that getting into it would be a bit nuts.
Crucially, it is also money that borrowers have to come up with in cash, on top of their deposit you can't borrow your stamp duty. That will (obviously) cut the number of people able to buy and bring prices down (or at least stop them rising). Good perhaps for residential buyers; not so good for buy to let investors.
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The last time we looked at this we ended up with a clear message (it's a bad idea). If you aren't listening to us, you might think about listening to George Osborne. The message he is sending couldn't be clearer: don't do it.
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