The Queen’s Speech
As financial planners, it’s important that we have a finely tuned radar that constantly sweeps the horizon for opportunities and threats to our clients financial well-being. Today’s Queen’s Speech whilst lacking the usual pomp and circumstance still provides some useful insight into likely future government policy: IMPROVING RIGHTS FOR RENTERS (Decreasing benefits for landlords?) The […]
M&G Property
M&G has announced today (20th April) the reopening of their property funds after 17 months of suspended trading. The funds are scheduled to become available for trading from noon on 10th May. Investment & Retirement Solutions Ltd has not recommended these funds to clients in recent years, however, we have a number of new clients […]
mortgage guarantee scheme
Today, Monday 19th April, the government has launched its new mortgage guarantee scheme. The scheme is aimed at getting the one part of the market working that looked most likely to falter: first time buyers. Without first-time buyers, sellers only have one option at the lower end of the market: landlords. Hence, the Government has […]
Tackling the Housing Crisis
Over recent months we’ve published a number of articles which explore different aspects of “property”, including “Nothing as safe as bricks and mortar“, “Property fund suspensions” and “The Great British Debate: House Prices“. We’ve also spent some time exploring how our consumption driven economy is heavily dependent on a functioning property market in articles such […]
The Great British Debate: House prices
As professional independent financial planners, we’re constantly bombarded with huge quantities of research, some of which is exceptionally robust, some considerably less so. Sometimes we’ll review research on a particular subject and find diametrically opposing views. Invariably, that’s when competing forces are arguing for their self-interest. This is particularly so when it comes to house […]
Nothing as safe as bricks n mortar..?
Our bias against direct investment into property funds based on independent financial adviser recommendation, other than for clients who can afford an extended long term property position remains in place. Back in 2007, a long standing but uncharacteristic property fund bull run started to unwind as professional investors realised that the ‘old rule’ of property […]
Property fund suspensions..?
M&G’s property funds have been suspended since December last year, and this month some £12.8billion of investor’s money has been frozen across various other property funds. Why is this? To increase consumer protection, the city regulator, The Financial Conduct Authority, introduced a rule last year which required property funds to automatically suspend additional contributions and […]