I have a 3 bed semi which was my parents home originally, when they passed I bought my brothers half and its been rented to tenants solidly since 2002.
I have transferred my residential mortgage to the BTL mortgage, so I have no residential mortgage at all. The BTL mortgage is for £185k at a fixed rate of 1.69% until April 2025. Monthly rental is £1200 and the agent takes 10%, as I’m a 40% tax payer the tax man takes a big chunk but I still left in profit by a few hundred pounds each month.
I will be retiring in the next few months and I’m now wondering what to do with my BTL house. On the plus side I will be on 20% tax rate when I retire and the agent is proposing increasing the rent by £50 annually until it reaches £1400. The down side is I will need to remortgage in 2025 and mortgage rates will be higher, also house prices are falling, the house is currently worth approx £410k.
I’m torn between keeping or selling the property, if I keep it I will probably receive a steady income every month, if I sell I get a nice cash lump sum but have to pay a hefty CGT tax bill.
Curious to know what others would do in my situation and whether they think my BTL property is a good investment?
I have only done up 2 and sold on .The rest I kept as I bought outright. I always believe it is best to hang on to them as I use my surplus cash to help my kids. Everyone will have adifferent view depending on their circumstance. Rental income is a big plus when you retire ( I still like to work however and only death will retire me !)
Thanks for the response, I agree that the rental income is a plus in retirement and with any luck, interest rates in the next few years will fall, so I wont be burdened with a huge mortgage repayment every month, I could also use some of my pension lump sum to pay off some of the mortgage, reducing the repayment even further.
i did exactly that with a small pension lump sum I had . Paid a bit off my home mortgage. Although I am in good health you never know what the futureholds . Owning anotherproperty is like monein the bank. My first bought property is now worth 10 times the money I paid 45 years ago . In rent over that time it is staggering amount
I think its only going to get harder to be a landlord. Renters Reform, tax changes, Labour government… Unless youve got a strong desire to let property in the future, I would probably sell up.
I can see what you mean, but hopefully the demand for rental property will increase together with rents.
I think the trick is to pay off as much outstanding mortgage as possible and stay within (or under) the 20% tax bracket.
Hopefully the house price storm will be over in a few years time and we can return to some kind of normality in the BTL sector.