ASK455: Should I remortgage my home to buy more? PLUS: Who can I report this landlord to?

Hi, I'm Rob. And I'm Rob. And this is Ask Rob and Rob. Welcome to Ask Rob and Rob. It's the show where we answer your property questions. And the show, of course, starts with you. So we'd like to make it really simple for you to send your questions our way. We do head over to propertyhub.net forward slash ask. That's propertyhub.net forward slash ask. There you can leave us a message. You can call us and leave a voicemail if you prefer.

or if you want to write in with your question, we have our wonderful column in the Sunday Times, each and every Sunday in the home section. So if you want to get your question in that way, you can as well. Right, Theo, let's get our first question in from Natalie.

Hello, my name's Natalie. I currently don't have any property investments at the moment, but it is something that me and my partner are looking at getting into. We have a mortgage, obviously, on our own family home, and I just wanted your advice as to whether you would borrow against your own home in order to purchase a by-to-let, which I have spoken to my lender and my mortgage lender will allow us to do.

we can draw about 50,000 out of our house to use to purchase a buy to lap. So I'm just wondering if you would advise that as something to do to make a start and whether you would swap your home mortgage to interest only in order to do that. I also wanted to know, I work for a major house builder and we do get between 10 and 20% off our new builds.

and whether that would be beneficial to me, especially buying off plan and whether you would advise to buy off plan as well. I have so many questions, but they are my main ones if you're able to help. Natalie, thank you for your question. Wow, what a perk that you have available to you. I can completely understand why you're really looking into this as an option. So let's look to this as an option generally anyway to benefit everyone, even those without that perk.

So, should you re-mortgage your home to invest in property? It will so depend on your situation. For some people, it may be an interesting option. For others, it's probably a do not do. A lot of things are going to come into factor.

So first of all, how much stress or strain that investment will put on to you? I'll come back to that in a moment in the finances and the numbers. Your age, your situation on your property. So are you early in your property ladder journey? Are you late on? What type of rates that would put you up to? So if the loan to value suddenly is a lot higher, you have to acknowledge that there's going to be higher rates involved as well. What you need to do is work the numbers.

So get your calculator out or your spreadsheet or however you like to work and you go, okay, if we were to borrow 50K on interest, Tony, and if you got that option open to you, I would lean that way. If we took 50K out on an interest, Tony basis, how much would that cost us? And what return could we get in this place? So let's just say to keep things easy. If you could get a 5% mortgage on that 50K interest, Tony,

then you want to be getting at least over 5% return. Because if you go and take 50K out, it's a 5% mortgage, and then you go and buy a property that gives you a 4% return, you're going to be having to supplement that mortgage. The return that you're getting from the property isn't enough. And when I say return, I mean return on investment. So how much that 50K is bringing back to you each month? So not the gross yield, not the net yield, but your ROI return on investment.

Now, if you can get more than a 5% return and it will depend on what area of the country you're looking at and the price that you pay, then it may be a serious option. But it's not something you should do lightly and I think you should try and work with somebody who's a little more experienced than you to guide you through that process.

The discount that you have access to is amazing. And if it is in an area that can generate a decent yield and it is a true discount, it would be very tempting for me personally, but that's me and my situation. It would have to be down to you and what this will cost you in terms of extracting that equity.

So it's not a yes, it's not a no, it's a run the numbers and then work out from there. Good advice there. Let's have a listen to our next question from Glenn. Hi, Rob and Rob. It's Glenn from Essex. Firstly, thanks for your content that you put out. It makes my commute a lot better in the mornings. Strange question for you. I wondered if there's a kind of body that you can report landlords to the reason why I'm in London myself and I have to go through a lot of due diligence and compliance and I have a neighbour next door who's vulnerable.

and she's lived there since 1966 and the place is in a terrible state and the landlord seems to get away with murder. So I know it's a very odd question to ask but I wonder if there's a body where you can sort of report rogue landlords that give all us good landlords a bad name.

Thank you very much for tuning in from you.

How far you'll get with it, I don't know. It's one of those weird things when we've got the renters rights bill enforced. There will be a portal that everyone has to sign up to. There'll be an ombudsman where tenants can get help. But none of this is really designed for a third party like you. So I would say let the council know about your concerns. And then you've done everything you can at that point.

If there's a licensing scheme in the area, which it sounds like there might be because you've mentioned the compliance that you had to do, then they will know who the operator of that home is and may be able to take some kind of action. If not, then hopefully they'll still take enough of an interest to offer some kind of support if the lady does indeed need it. So I think, Glenn, it's as simple as that. Good luck with that, and I hope it gets results.

Well, that's just done for another week. Thank you for listening. I hope you found that useful. You know what else will be useful. Tune in on Thursday for the property podcast because we got a great episode lined up for you there. And you can find us in the Sunday times on Sunday. So until those wondrous events take place. Take care. Have fun. Bye bye. Bye bye.