Did anyone see the Channel 4 news item re 'Buy to let reposessions' last night. A colleague e mailed me this morning and precie'd it. Reposessions sharply up due to many novices getting into btl and not realising the subsidy they would have to provide in the short term leading them cash starved and unable to pay the mortgage - presumably. I've surfed the web looking for the story or report but can't find it.

Julian, I saw a report on ther news last night which headlined "Is the BTL era over?" or something like that. The main thrust was that the amount of lending for BTL mortgages had shot up to I think £82 billion plus a spokesman from Savill's saying that there had been a large increase in BTL repossessions going through their auction. There was no data at all other than that and it was not telling us anything new. My view it's just another headline grabber. Nothing about supply and demand, changing demograpics, inward migration etc. Perhaps the Barker Report that is arguing for a change in planning to make it easier to build is more relevant than this cobbled together news report. Peter

I am not at all surprised that BTL repossessions are on the increase. Never ceases to amaze me how many people get into this game without having a long term cashflow in place and why Mortgage companies don't insist on seeing a Business Plan and Cash Flow forecast before granting a BTL mortgage - a bank won't lend to a new Business without this so why treat a BTL Property Investor any differently? I once had a meeting with a Building Society Manager to apply for a Self Build mortgage(in 1997 when B&B had a Manager who made decisions) and I gave him my cashflow forecast before giving him payslips and bank statements, he said "I don't want to see your payslips, you can have your mortgage, anyone who does a cashflow forecast is not going to allow themselves to go Bankrupt in my view".

I had a meeting with my bank manager the other week. We want £500k to build out some land we have secured planning on. I presented a cash flow, detailed cost analysis, GDV analysis, graphs, pinch points, contingency and sensitivity analysis. He said yes. I asked him what he normally got from similar developers like us and he said, when he asks for a cash flow the first thing he gets is a blank stare followed a week later by a "fag packet" summary along the lines of "we need £50k in June, £150k in July etc.." How the hell can you run a cash intensive property business without this stuff and who would want to lend you money without it? I find it's easier to ask for large sums backed with homework and data than trying to get a £30k mortgage (especially in Poland). And belive me, I sent 160 pages of back up and data to Poland! Peter

It seems C4 is also joining the bandwagon as monday's BBC1 10pm news mentioned the same subject, the title they used was BUY TO DEBT. See the link below to play the news article. http: / /news .bbc .co .uk /nolavconsole /ukfs _news /hi /bb _rm _fs .stm?nbram=1 &bbram=1 &nbwm=1 &bbwm=1 &news=1< /strong> There is truth that alot of auctions are selling properties from distrtessed buy to let investors, however it appears alot of properties are new build & in same cases multiple properties in the same development....Need I say anymore! Shamir

If you paste the link to your browser it will take you to the BBC site but not play the clip...so just click on business and you will see the link BUY TO LET BOOM COULD DEFLATE

I have been looking for this too. Thanks

certainly seeing the new builds popping up at auction ... however I think the question is what assumptions did the purchasers make re: yields / interests etc in their cash flows. Could be opportunities to build portfolios with distressed sales. Out of interest what do people consider the minimum gross yield they would work to on an average outer London BTL geared at 85% ltv?

Hi, I think the C4 item referred to is based on a report from sometime earlier. Either way, an interesting - and factual - summation of the situation was offered last month by a senior policy advisor at the Council of Mortgage Lenders, Rob Thomas. He wrote to the FT to challenge the paper's story that suggested BTL mortgage arrears were rising and - you guessed it - the end of the world was nigh for BTL investment. The FT headline was: 'Buy-to-let market hit by rise in failures'. Here's what Rob Thomas wrote: 'Your article gives a misleading picture of the buy-to-let market, based on anecdotal evidence. The facts are as follows. The Council of Mortgage Lenders' (CML) figures on buy-to-let arrears of three-months-plus show that these were actually lower - at 0.73 per cent of loans in June 2006 - than the mortgage market as a whole, which stood at 0.96 per cent of loans. 'Furthermore, the CML has recently extended its work with buy-to-let lenders to track buy-to-let repossessions and cases where a receiver of rent is appointed by the lender. The data produced show that less than 10 per cent of all repossessions relate to buy-to-let property. The data also show that buy-to-let repossession cases have been falling as a proportion of total repossessions since we started monitoring the numbers in 2005.' BTL is dead? Long live BTL! Cheers

Surely you would expect BTL mortgages to be run more responsibly than the general residential market? Wouldn't you?