Repossession news
 Money, tax and property | View All
By
Linton Chiswick
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00:01:00 | 05 August 2008
Estate agents might find themselves entering a period of enforced downtime, but for the repo man it’s work, work, work.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders’ own assessment is that
repossessions will rise from 27,100 in 2007 to something like 45,000 in
2008. Auction houses – where the majority of these properties end up –
are already dealing with a repo-tide. More than three thousand
repossessed properties were sold at auction in the first six months of
the year, a rise of 300% in three years. Currently repossessions are
responsible for one in five properties listed at a UK auction.
And – in theory at least – where bricks and mortar are being sold to
the highest bidder by a faceless institution, there’s an opportunity
for an individual, either cash-rich or in a privileged borrowing
position, to snap up the bargain of a lifetime.  Buy-to-let landlords profiting from misfortune
Last Updated: 12:25am BST 24/07/2008 Page 1 of 2
The number of house repossessions is rising,
opening a lucrative line in discount acquisitions, but
buy-to-letters should take care, says Isobel Ross
Bargain-hunting landlords are set to take advantage of the growing
number of properties being repossessed from homeowners unable to
keep up their mortgage payments. The downturn in the housing market and the tightening credit
crunch has pushed up the number of people facing repossession to its
highest level since 1992, according to the latest data from the
Ministry of Justice. | | | Property Investor Glenn Armstrong likes the current
market (see case study) |
Official figures show that 38,688 mortgage possession claims were
issued in the first three months of the year, up 16 per cent on the
same period in 2007 and 7 per cent higher than in the last three
months of 2007. While not all of these claims will result in actual repossessions,
the grim news is seen as an opportunity for cool negotiators to
drive a hard bargain, with some achieving discounts of up to 30 per
cent. Glenn Armstrong, a landlord in Milton Keynes, is buying at 70
per cent below market value. "Now is the best time to go and find a bargain. There are
lots of serious people out there quietly buying everything they
can," he says. The Council of Mortgage Lenders, which publishes the actual number
of repossessions, said that the Government data is in line with its
prediction that 45,000 homes will be repossessed this year, up from
27,100 in 2007. Most of these homes will be sold through estate
agents.
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