The budget was on Wednesday.
It was expected to be rather bland and in many respects it probably was.
Not surprisingly the press were all carried away by lifting of stamp duty for first time buyers up to £300,000.
But for current and future property investors and landlords there were other announcements which are more significant.
There’s build to rent – implicit that the Government would like us to do it but not mentioned explicitly – but the government need more houses built. It seems that no government of any colour (blue, red, yellow or green) like investors, especially buy to let investors, very much.
But even the most sceptical would surely recognise that they might need to nurture builder-investors to get the 300,000 houses a year built?
So for the time being, perhaps the next few years, perhaps even the next decade, although we might see buy to let disincentivised through more tax and more regulation, we will probably see built to rent, or build to sell, being encouraged.
Politically speaking, this is the age of the builder, not of the investor.
The other thing we saw in the budget and which got little comment was the freezing of indexation relief for limited companies. That sounds technical and a bit boring, but it will affect anyone buying properties into a limited company. Since clause (section) 24 many new and existing investors and landlords have been doing just that, buying into a limited company. Although there was speculation that the chancellor might stop limited companies off-setting mortgage interest against rent for corporation tax purposes, that didn’t happen. Instead there was more a stealth move with the freezing of indexation relief.
I’ll tell you all about it in this video
Here’s to successful property investing
Peter Jones B.Sc FRICS
Chartered Surveyor, author and property investor
thepropertyteacher.co.uk
P.S By the way, I’ve rewritten and updated my best selling eBook, The Successful Property Investor’s Strategy Workshop, which is an account of how I put together my multi-property portfolio, starting from scratch and with no money of my own, and how you can do the same. For more details please go to
thepropertyteacher.co.uk/the-successful-property-investors-strategy-workshop