Remortgaging to a new deal can be a sensible option. Follow these 10 tips for a successful switch

1 Shop around. It pays to be aware of exactly what type of deals are available at any given time, and at what rates. Shopping around thoroughly is the only way you can be fully informed.

2 Check the internet. The internet is a great starting point for doing your research. Sites such as www.bbg-dealfinder.co.uk list the latest deals on offer, although they may not give you in-depth information regarding each individual product. But do not forget, we can quote you too. Give us a call or pop in to discuss.

3 Take a medium- to long-term view. Most sensible landlords these days invest in property for the medium – to long-term, so it makes sense to look for a corresponding mortgage product. This may mean paying a slightly higher interest rate than the one you are currently on, for example if you wish to lock into the security of a fixed rate, rather than leaving your repayments at the mercy of variable rates.

4 Weigh up the rate vs the fee. Most lenders will offer a choice of higher fee, lower rate, or vice versa. Most landlords opt to absorb the cost of a high fee, as a low rate going forward minimises your monthly repayments, which can be tax-efficient and good for cash flow.

5 Check out existing penalties. If you are on a fixed rate or a special tracker, the likelihood is that you will have to pay an ERC before you can remortgage. However, if you are paying your lender’s Standard Variable Rate (SVR) an ERC will probably not apply. Some lenders, such as Mortgage Express, have also waived all ERCs for buy-to-let customers, allowing you to move freely to a new arrangement.

6 Find out about new penalties. Make sure you know exactly how much a new ERC might cost you if you want or have to move your new loan within the deal period. This can be particularly important if, for example, you are switching to a longer-term fixed rate.

7 Look for flexibility. Check whether any new deal allows you to make over- and underpayments. The best thing you can do with any debt is overpay and shift it as quickly as possible. However, the option to underpay or take payment holidays on a new deal can also be very useful if you encounter rental voids or other problems going forward.

8 Choose the right lender. Different lenders currently offer different levels of service to different types of buy-to-let borrower. For example, Birmingham Midshires has recently changed its criteria to discourage big portfolio investors. On the other hand, Paragon Mortgages re-entered the market in September this year aiming specifically at providing finance for professional landlords with larger property portfolios. It can be worth paying a slightly higher interest rate for greater access to finance or better service.

9 Put all your eggs in one basket… Or don’t. It is important that you weigh up the pros and cons of holding all of your mortgages with one lender, if you have more than one buy-to-let mortgage. It could make sense to remortgage them all wholesale to a new provider, who will then have a 360 degree understanding of your investments. On the other hand, it might suit you to spread your borrowing about by remortgaging one or two to a new lender, in order to secure the best available deals.

10 Use a mortgage adviser. A good adviser can and will scour the market to find the best type of deal for you, with the most beneficial interest rate/fee combination for your needs. In fact, using an adviser you trust means you could in theory skip the rest of these tips, as they will do the work for you. If you don’t currently have a mortgage adviser, speak to us and we can arrange for one that we use to call you.

We hope you have found reading this article useful, please feel free to share with your friends.

CHARITY AWARD FOR ANDOVER LETTINGS OFFICE

A property lettings agency in Andover has run away with a national award in recognition of its charity fund raising efforts for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Greg Greatbatch, who owns the Belvoir office (along with brother-in-law Phil Pinkney) on Winchester Street in Andover was declared a Charity Champion at the Belvoir annual ‘High Achievers’ award ceremony, staged at the Belton Woods Hotel, near Grantham, Lincolnshire.

The Belvoir Bronze Award recognises the contribution made by Greg and his colleague Emma Bevan who both completed a gruelling sponsored race in support of Belvoir’s company-wide campaign to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Greg explains: “We ran the 2012 BUPA London 10.6k in May last year, which was on the same course the Olympic athletes used.  Over ten thousand people took part in the race with a number of famous runners including Mo Farrah.

“Emma started training to get fit for her wedding, which was in early June and I was recovering from physio on my knees following an old cycling injury.

“The day of the race was absolutely beautiful, but it was also the hottest day of the year and running in a temperature of 26 degrees meant the heat was more of a challenge for us than the actual course. We had to keep swerving across the road to try and find some shade as relief from the heat.

“Our donations were from a variety of people, including our landlords.  We raised £687.20 for Macmillan, which was a great result but unfortunately, we couldn’t beat Mo Farah who won in record time!”

At the company’s annual awards evening, co-presented by comedienne Ruby Wax, Belvoir’s Chairman, Mike Goddard, said: ”Greg and his partner Phil Pinkney run their business with a real commitment and passion for community involvement and this is a tremendous achievement. The money raised through Greg and Emma’s gruelling run has given a considerable boost to Belvoir’s commitment to Macmillan.

“In February 2011, we aligned ourselves with Macmillan to raise £10,000, and in that first year I was pleased to announce we had smashed our target and raised £16,000. This year I am delighted that we increased our total raised to £25,013.67.   What a fantastic achievement!”

On receiving the award Greg said: ”We are absolutely delighted with this recognition.   We knew we had been shortlisted for an award and we were thrilled and excited just to be nominated as finalists.

“We owe a lot to the many people who sponsored us to help us smash the £500 target we had set ourselves!”

Tanya Taylor, a fundraising manager for Macmillan, said: “Greg and his team have made a major contribution to the overall sum raised by Belvoir over the past year.

“Thank you so much – this money will make a real difference. One in three people will get a cancer diagnosis at some point in their lives and there are currently two million people living with cancer in the UK.

“We currently support half of these people and every penny that you help to raise is greatly appreciated by everyone at the charity.”  

For more information about this and other awards, please visit our website www.belvoirandover.com/award.html

Belvoir Andover Wins at the 2013 National Belvoir Awards

This will be the second time Belvoir Andover has won an award at these annual ceremonies. Back in 2007 we picked up ‘Most Improved Office’ after doubling the size of the 8 year old business in just 12 months (see story at the foot of this page).

The award this time was in recognition of the outstanding contribution made to the charity efforts of Belvoir as a group who have now raised in excess of £25,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support. The award was given by celebrity comedian Ruby Wax and followed a brief speech by Macmillan representative Tanya Taylor who gave an emotional thank you to the whole of Belvoir for reaching this astonishing total amount raised.

Business co owner Greg Greatbatch and Lettings Negotiator Emma Bevan had trained and run the 2012 Bupa 10000 which was the exact same marathon course used in the 2012 Olympics (except they had to run the course 4 times!). For photos on this event, please visit our Facebook page and navigate to the photos album.

The award ceremony was held this year at the prestigious De Vere Hotel, Belton Woods for a glittering black tie dinner with high profile celebrity guest speaker Ruby Wax. Greg Greatbatch (Director) says ‘We are truly delighted to be recognised in this way. We feel this charity is such a worthy cause which touches the lives of so many. It was our pleasure raising the money and hope to continue these efforts in 2013.

7 investment traps that could harm your wealth

Avoiding these common pitfalls could be a key to long-term investment success.

1. Too many eggs in one basket

When putting together your investment portfolio it's important to ensure you don't end up with concentrated exposure to a particular type of risk. One obvious area is industry sectors: consider the banking crisis in 2008, and the technology crash in 2000. Any investor whose portfolio was over exposed to these areas would have seen a dramatic fall.

Investors who took a more diversified approach would have seen a far smaller impact on their portfolio. Having a well-diversified portfolio is a key way to reduce risk.

2. Over-diversifying

Just as damaging as putting all your eggs in one basket is over-diversifying a portfolio – sometimes dubbed 'di-worse-ification'. This can happen quite easily when building up an investment portfolio over a number of years. You can end up with dozens of quite similar investments, collectively delivering average returns.

A more effective approach may be to focus on a handful of favorite fund managers investing in different areas of the market. Our Wealth 150 list, which contains our favorite funds in the major sectors, could help you with this choice.

3. Paying too much in charges

Aside from investment performance, a crucial factor affecting your total returns is the charges you pay.

Consider two funds, each delivering a return of 6% a year, but one with an annual charge of 1.5%, and the other with an annual charge of 1%. If you invested £10,000 in each:

• The fund with the lower annual charge would be worth £26,533 after 20 years
• The fund with the 1.5% annual charge would be worth £24,114 – or £2,419 less.

Keeping costs to an absolute minimum could mean thousands of pounds more added to the value of your investments over the long term. We can help you keep costs to a minimum by tailoring our services to your exact needs.

4. Not taking enough risk

Like many investors, you may be understandably nervous about taking risks with your hard earned capital. However, not taking enough risk can be just as damaging as taking too much risk.

One of the main dangers from not taking enough risk is that the spending power of your capital could fail to keep pace with inflation. While money saved in the bank might seem 'safe', in real terms its value is gradually falling every year because of inflation. Inflation of just 3% per year will nearly halve the spending power of capital over 20 years.

We believe taking more risk, in order to try and achieve an inflation-beating return, is therefore vital for any saver or investor taking a long-term view. However it is still important to have an emergency cash fund of say 3 to 6 months salary.

5. Poor administration

If you have investments dotted around between providers and you ever need to make any changes, you will often need to fill out a myriad of forms, which makes it a far more laborious process, and may prevent you from acting.

Good administration is key to managing your investments effectively. A good administration system means you can make changes quickly, conveniently and cost effectively. If it's easy to make changes you are also more likely to act, improving portfolio performance.

Good administration also helps you to gain a good overview of your portfolio. How much do you have in each area? Is it time to take profits? Making these decisions is far easier when you can view all your investments together, at a glance.

Here at Belvoir Andover, we can take the burden of the administration of your property portfolio away. Our accounts package is approved by the Institute of Chartered Accountants and we can readily provide you with annual accounts which can be, if requested, emailed direct to your accountant. We are also more than happy to have a one to one financial review of your portfolio, giving you market trends, rent reviews, yield report (see if you are achieving what you set out to achieve) and much more, contact our team to discuss this 01264 366611

6. Paying too much tax
Quite simply, the less tax you pay on your investments, the higher your returns will be. Fortunately the government offers a number of tax breaks to encourage investment. Two of the most popular are ISAs and pensions.

ISAs - if you hold your funds or shares within an ISA there is no tax to pay on any capital gains, and no further tax to pay on any income. Each tax year you have an ISA allowance, this tax year the allowance is £11,280, and used every year the ISA allowance allows you to build a significant portfolio of tax sheltered assets. What's more on the majority of funds the ISA comes with no extra charge, so many investors receive these benefits free. The icing on the cake is that with ISAs you can withdraw your capital at any time, so they are suitable for investors who want maximum flexibility.

Pensions offer similar tax benefits to ISAs, with a few important extras. Firstly when you add money to a pension you receive income tax relief, at a rate that depends on how much income tax you pay. So, for example, if you are a higher rate tax payer you could receive up to 40% tax relief on any contributions you make. It's also worth remembering that with pensions you can't access your capital until you retire. When you do, up to 25% can be taken as a tax free lump sum, with the remainder used to provide you with a taxable income in retirement.

Please note the value of tax shelters will depend on your own circumstances, and tax rules can change over time. The value of stock market investments can fall in value as well as rise, so you could get back less than you invest.

7. Focusing on the short-term

Legendary investor Warren Buffett famously once said "You can't buy what's popular and do well". There is a lesson here for all investors. Many are tempted to over-expose themselves to the latest 'hot' investment trend. Often these will be companies or sectors that just seem to rise relentlessly, giving the impression that you "can't lose". In the past sectors such as technology stocks have experienced such a rise, followed by a sharp fall in value, affecting the portfolios of thousands of investors.

Before you choose an investment, ask yourself: what is your attitude to risk? Would you be happy to hold it for the long-term? Do you think the shares represent fair value? Are there other overlooked areas which may offer better long term opportunity? Property can typically return you a minimum of a 10% yield and therefore represents a strong and reliable (when compared to alternative investments)

If you are thinking about investing in property we would recommend that you take independent financial advice. We are more than happy to help anyone get on the property investment ladder, please call Phil Pinkney at Belvoir Andover on 01264 366611 or visit our website at www.belvoirandover.com