Mortgage approvals fell by 8% last month showing the biggest decline since 2005. Is this a sign that fewer and fewer of us are able to 1) afford a house 2) or want to own one? The Bank of England has raised interest rates 5 times since November 2003 and as a result borrowers have become increasingly more under pressure. One of the reasons people may not want to buy a home is due to rise of buy to let properties.
For a long time now buy to let investors have been credited with artificially inflating the property market. Indeed first time home buyers have seen themselves biding with would be property investors. Now this seems bad for the poor first time buyer but it could have some good results. One is that with loads of buy to let investors have poured into some areas meaning that while property prices have been high, due to increased demand, they have had to compete on rents. This means that rents have not gone up much over the last 7 years and that as a proportion of house prices they have in fact dropped.
Due to low rents and rising interest rates many buy to let investors are feeling the pinch. Indeed many are selling up. Now the problem with this is that if they have invested in an area popular with other property investors (like many of the new apartments in our town centre) then many of the other investors may be selling which means that it quickly goes from a sellers market to a buyer market. Indeed many investors are now seeing their properties price go down. Which is good news for the first time buyer all they have to do is rent one of these flats cheaply, and when the house prices have bottomed out buy cheaply.
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