Cardiff Landlord Forum Roundup
This months Cardiff Landlord Forum (CLF) was an event packed with essential updates and future changes for the private rental sector in Wales. Hosted by Douglas Haig with speakers from the Cardiff Councils PRS scheme and Penguin Wealth LLP summarising the current mortgage market.
Cardiff Council PRS support schemes
After a brief introduction opening the forum, Stephanie Rogers from Cardiff City Council’s PRS team came to talk about the council’s PRS support schemes. The main service that was talked about was the Landlord Enquiries & Tenacancy Support (LETS) service and Ms Rogers covered the range of services they provide. She also discussed the differences between the council’s scheme and the Welsh government’s scheme as you can see in the table below.
Table showing differences between CC PRS scheme and WG PRS scheme
There was also a brief mention of some of the additional services coming to the LETS service such as an improved website with live chat, facilitating landlord/tenant surgeries, and providing regular updates to landlords.
Mortgage Market Update
Tom Davies from Penguin Wealth came up to talk about the current mortgage market. The first key takeaway from Mr Davies talk was that most people are fixing their mortgages for 5 years as opposed to 2 years. This is due to the five bank of England interest rates rise and predictions showing that inflation will not start to peak until next year. You can read more about the most recent interest rate rises on our website. There was also talk of the buy-to-let mortgage market being a lot calmer than the residential mortgage market with some residential mortgage brokers raising their rates daily.
Renting Homes (Wales) Act
Douglas Haig made a presentation about the changes coming into effect with the Renting Homes (Wales) Act. While the implementation of the act has been postponed from the 15th of July to the 1st of December there are still major changes that landlords will need to make. Mr Haig covered the areas with the largest number of changes such as the introduction of new contract types, the changing of possession notices, and the new fit for human habitation criteria. Seraph Property Management explained these changes in greater detail on their website.
Overall, the Cardiff Landlord Forum was an informative event where landlords and others with an interest in the private rented sector can learn about what is happening in the industry currently. As a free forum its a great opportunity to network and talk with others in the sector and would recommend it to any landlords or investors in the Cardiff area. You can sign up to the next event on the website.
