The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) carries out a quarterly survey of its members in order to understand their opinions and aspirations. The report from this autumn's exercise carried a few negative concerns over government policy and legislation, particularly in the area of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).

A great many members have apparently sold their HMO investments because of the added costs and bureaucracy attached to this type of property by the Housing Act 2004 introduced during 2006. In particular, the ability of local councils to charge whatever they choose for Landlord Licences and to generally make their own rules were considered unwelcome changes.

Viceroy Invest do not get involved with HMOs or student accommodation.

A recent report, known as "The Changing UK Household Market", commissioned by Alliance and Leicester Mortgages and carried out by the think tank Centre for Future Studies, raised some interesting conclusions and recommendations for the future.

• Over 200,000 extra new properties will be needed each year until 2026 to cope with the additional numbers of people living alone rather than in family units of one type or another.
• "We can expect to see an increase in flats and converted houses in the future due to the rise in the one person household as, understandably, people living on their own will be less likely to splash out on a larger property".
• This is generally good news for Buy to Let investors since these single person households are more likely to want to rent.

Over the 23-year period from 2003 to 2026 the number of households containing married couples is projected to fall by 8% whilst "co-habiting couples" will increase by 83% and one person households increase by 53%.

Following the Bank of England's decision to raise the base interest rate to 5% at the beginning of November, record levels of borrowers fearful of further rate increases have opted for long-term fixed rate mortgages, according to Mortgages Direct.

The value of fixed rate mortgages (including re-mortgages) as a percentage of all mortgages taken out through Mortgages Direct in November was 97% with only 3% of borrowers choosing variable rate mortgages.

Separately, the Council of Mortgage Lenders reported a strong increase in fixed-rate lending in October - rising to 124,100 loans, from 109,100 in September. Fixed rates accounted for 62% of all house purchase loans (excluding re-mortgages) in October, compared to 59% in the previous month.

Viceroy Invest's preferred financing consultants will be happy to review your mortgage status and suggest ways of reducing your outgoings.

You can contact them at finance@viceroyinvest.co.uk

Barclays Wealth Insights, a new quarterly report prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit, claims that by 2016 more than a quarter of all households in the UK will be $ millionaires - wor$th more than £510,000 in property, savings and other investments.

To make that seem real, if you currently have property worth £300,000 with mortgages of £200,000 (i.e. net assets of £100,000) the property is likely to grow from £300,000 to some £725,000 by 2016 (using the rule of 72) against your mortgage of £200,000. That makes a net asset value of £525,000 - just over a million dollars.

Yes... it could be you!

January 1st 2007 sees the introduction of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Very little usable information has been issued so far. As soon as we hear anything we will let you know, in case it's of any interest.

www.viceroyinvest.com

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