To pretty much no-one's surprise the Bank of England has raised the base rate to 5.75%. We might have expected the decision, but the cold hard fact of the 5.75% is indeed a little scary...or is it?

Undoubtedly, as a result of the rise, we're going to see alarmist headlines about the state of the property market in the UK and echoes of the same dire predictions we've been bombarded with since the current cycle of increases began in November 2003.

The question is, though, should alarm bells be ringing for BTL investors as well as headline writers?

Let's have a look at the evidence away from the hysteria.

In fact, since rates hit a low of 3.5% in July 2003, they have been consistently on the rise (apart from an oddity in August 2005 when we had a 25 basis points cut). Yesterday's rise brought base rates up to their highest level since February 2001, when they were also at 5.75%.