I Ask Our Expert Broker Ellie Broadhurst 'Is the Property Market About To Crash?'

In this episode, Ellie Broadhurst, our expert mortgage broker, and I discuss what's happening in the property market right now. We look into the talk about a possible big crash coming up. 

We break down all the different things going on - like what banks are doing, how properties are being valued, how many sales are actually happening, and whether we should be worried about a crash. Plus, we talk about what we can actually do with all the available data out there.

So, if you're interested in hearing Ellie's thoughts and finding out more, make sure you keep listening!

Interested in discussing your HMO mortgage and finance needs? Contact Ellie Broadhurst here. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Andy Graham: Hey, I'm Andy and you're listening to the HMO podcast. Over 10 years ago, I set myself the challenge of building my own property portfolio. And what began as a short term investment plan soon became a long term commitment to change the way young people live together. I've now built several successful businesses.

[00:00:20] Andy Graham: I've raised millions of pounds of investment and I've managed thousands of tenants. Join me and some very special guests to discover their tips, tricks, and hacks. The ups and the downs, the best practice and everything else you need to know to start, scale and systemise your very own HMO portfolio now.

[00:00:40] Andy Graham: I'm not sure whether it's just my algorithm or if you're seeing the same thing, but according to some so called experts on social media, we are heading for a property crash, a big property crash. In fact, according to some of them, we're already in this property crash. Now, I'm not quite so sure, but what I would say is that.

[00:00:57] Andy Graham: Things don't seem quite as stable as they did a few months ago and there's been a bit of argy bargy with consumer lending rates recently. I thought who better to get on the show to discuss this than Ellie. Ellie is of course our expert on all things finance and HMO mortgages. So today, I want to get to the bottom of this want to have a chat to Ellie about what's happening at the coal face, what are lenders doing, what's happening with valuations, how many sales are actually going through, do we need to be worried about a crash, and what do we actually need to be doing about all of the data that is there available to us. So if you want to find out, if you want to know what Ellie thinks, make sure you stick around. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy today's episode of the HMO Podcast.

[00:01:38] Andy Graham: Hey guys, it's Andy here. We're going to be getting back to the podcast in just a moment, but before we do, I want to tell you very quickly about the HMO Roadmap. Now, if you're serious about replacing your income, or perhaps you've already got a HMO portfolio that you want to scale up, then the HMO Roadmap really is.

[00:01:53] Andy Graham: Your one stop shop. Inside the roadmap, you'll find a full 60 lesson course delivered by me, teaching you how to find more deals, how to fund more deals and raise private finance, how to refurbish great properties, how to fill them with great tenants that stay for longer, and how to manage your properties and tenants for the future.

[00:02:09] Andy Graham: We've also got guest workshops added every single month. We've got new videos added every single week about all sorts of topics. We've got downloadable resources, cheat sheets and swipe files to help you. We've got case studies from guests and community members who are doing incredible projects that you can learn from.

[00:02:25] Andy Graham: And we've also built an application just for you that allows you to appraise and evaluate your deals, stack them side by side, and track the key metrics that are most important to you. To find out more, head to thehmoroadmap.co.uk now and come and join our incredible community of HMO property investors.

[00:02:49] Andy Graham: Hi Ellie, good to have you back.

[00:02:50] Ellie Broadhurst: Hi, Andy. It's good to be back as always.

[00:02:52] Andy Graham: Yes. So I thought it would be good to get a general update and steer on the market from your perspective at the minute, Ellie. And I kind of feel like there's some weird stuff happening at the minute with certainly some weird stuff.

[00:03:05] Andy Graham: being spoken about. And I don't know whether it's just me that's just getting this stuff, whether the algorithms are just like, love tormenting me. But I wanted to ask you about it because obviously you were a coal face and you are speaking with lenders and buyers every single day. And I know you keep on top of a lot of the actual data.

[00:03:23] Andy Graham: I don't know whether you've, you've seen this Ellie, but when I'm sort of scrolling Facebook, as I often find myself doing, I'm seeing a lot of chatter about the property crash and like really quite like confidently spoken, sort of, it is happening. It is already happening. Commentary. And it's not necessarily from people that I have any sort of professional respect for.

[00:03:48] Andy Graham: I don't really know, but is there any truth in this at the minute? Because I can't see, I've just offered on something this week and I've just got off the phone before we started recording and he told me that it's going to best and finals on Friday. That to me is not an indication of a property crash.

[00:04:03] Andy Graham: It's kind of the opposite. So what's going on? Is this just like some sort of self. sort of

[00:04:09] Ellie Broadhurst: self-fulfilling algorithm.

[00:04:11] Andy Graham: Yeah. Or some narrative that is just fulfilling some purposes for some people that are maybe selling something what's going on. Help us.

[00:04:19] Ellie Broadhurst: I think you're probably right there. I think that there's an awful lot of people out there on social media, which just they're trying to do something shocking.

[00:04:25] Ellie Broadhurst: And I suppose you, I can think of a number of other different areas where I see those things on my personal Instagram as well. You can see it as also all manner of people, isn't there? I don't know, Stephen Bartlett's a great one, isn't he? He loves to have people on there that are just saying these things that whether you agree with them or not, they're just, they are quite controversial opinions, aren't they?

[00:04:43] Ellie Broadhurst: And then it gets people talking. I think maybe people just want to. Go viral or whatever, I don't know, but what I am seeing, I'm definitely not seeing a reduction in valuations. I'm not having problems with valuation figures, both on purchase prices and on GDVs. GDVs are coming in pretty much bang on where I'm expecting.

[00:05:02] Ellie Broadhurst: And I think that that's one of the first indications of, you know, A calming of the market is where valuers are being quite cautious or more cautious on their GDV figures, because it's, it's a figure of where the property is going to be after the refurb or the conversion or whatever you're doing to it.

[00:05:17] Ellie Broadhurst: But also it's potentially a figure in, in time, isn't it? It's looking at it in say six months time or nine months time when you come to your mortgage. So if the valuer feels that property prices are going to call in that time, then they're more likely to give us a lower figure. So that's quite a good indication. And I'm not seeing that. Absolutely not seeing that.

[00:05:38] Andy Graham: Okay. That's definitely useful to hear. Look, I mean, I will say that the people I'm seeing this sort of stuff from it is kind of like the stripy shirt brigade, the regressive property sort of gurus. And then the next thing you see that there's something There's a book about it and I am so sort of detuned from this sort of narrative.

[00:05:57] Andy Graham: Like I really step away from the news. I really kind of step away from the data and I tend to a bit like I used to surf a lot and I used to live right at the beach and people would sort of often call me and ask me what the conditions were looking like because the only true sort of result that you could sort of get was actually to look out the window and just see it for yourself.

[00:06:17] Andy Graham: And I kind of feel that the same way in property. I, you know, speaking to valuers and people like you every day and, and you tend to sort of pick up a lot from these sorts of conversations. And I'm not hearing anything about this sort of stuff, but that said. Uh, maybe other people having different conversations, but it's good to hear that you're saying this and I, and I totally agree with you, certainly on the valuations point and we saw it really quickly in COVID valuations getting impacted.

[00:06:40] Ellie Broadhurst: This is it. Yeah, absolutely. And there's normally, there is a trigger that causes a crash or I don't use the word like cooling of the market. And I think we have, we go through periods of time where things are more popular, properties are, I don't know. And I think people get caught up. It's a bit like, it's like auctions and like buying things on eBay and that sort of thing.

[00:07:00] Ellie Broadhurst: You get caught up in the drama of it, don't you? And I know sort of mid 2021, it was definitely all of that. People thought the property prices were going up. So they were trying to get in at a reasonable price. People, things were going for over asking price. It was all this sort of commotion. And then off the back of that, yes, you are going to have a, a cooling period because everyone who was going to buy a property that year has probably bought it in the first half of the year.

[00:07:26] Ellie Broadhurst: So there's less people to buy, there's less property out there for the second half. So you're going to have those sort of ebbs and flows. I think we're in a, in a difficult position at the moment because there's still an awful lot of uncertainty around what's happening with interest rates. Interest rates are not really that high when you compare them to, you know, all of time, but over the last 10, 15 years, they're considerably higher.

[00:07:46] Ellie Broadhurst: So, and then we've got energy prices, we've got the cost of living. I think those things are cooling. Food prices are definitely coming down. Energy prices have come down a bit more. So, there's a bit more certainty around that, but we're still in a period of time where I think people are being more cautious about spending money.

[00:08:01] Ellie Broadhurst: Making big decisions. And I think it's easy to forget when you're in that property investor world, I suppose that the majority of property transactions are just people moving house. It's a very small percentage of investors that are within that. So yeah, I personally think things are just going to stay as they are.

[00:08:19] Ellie Broadhurst: We have been busier this year than I think we've ever been. Bridging transactions are through the roof. I was talking to Shawbrooke. We had a strategic partner day about a month ago or so, and I was talking to the guy that sets all the rates, the pricing and everything around products I've known him for years.

[00:08:34] Ellie Broadhurst: And we were having a chat and he was like, yeah, you know, I've reduced the rate on our, they do an 85 percent bridge or reduce the rate on the 85 percent bridge only by 0.05 percent per month. Like it's not a huge amount, but he was like, yeah, we've got loads of business off the back of that. And I was like, well, actually don't think that that was anything to do with why you've been so busy because we've seen it across the board and it's not, it's not just Shawbrooke bridging, you know, it's been across the board.

[00:08:59] Ellie Broadhurst: We've had so many bridging inquiries in, we've had so many auctions, like it's just been really busy with that type of transaction, but they have been strange situations, I suppose. Not anything that's really, like I would say, like a market trend. We've had quite a lot of properties that have come to market, which is one, one seller.

[00:09:15] Ellie Broadhurst: Apparently, there's about 3,000 properties that are coming to market from that one seller that will happen over the course of this year. So that's been a bit of a skew. We've had a few clients randomly that have come up with these properties. And just our regular clients are finding good deals of properties that are un mortgageable that need work doing to them.

[00:09:33] Andy Graham: Well, we've certainly been finding that sort of stuff as well. I mean, it feels a little bit like we went from that period of great instability to a period of high interest rates, but with more stability. And now it does feel a little bit more, even though I don't feel like there's a great crash, I mean, I can't see any huge trigger.

[00:09:54] Andy Graham: Obviously there's the things that could come from the far left field, like what's happening in the Middle East and obviously Russia and Ukraine, there's still huge impacts that they could have if things took a dramatic turn for the worse. Yeah. But just looking at what's happening right now, it doesn't, like you said, feel like there's a huge trigger, but it does feel like there is a little bit more uncertainty.

[00:10:15] Andy Graham: And I can't quite put my finger on why that is. And it doesn't look like I'm the only person. It does look like the markets have sort of taken that into consideration because swap rates have nudged up a bit.

[00:10:27] Ellie Broadhurst: Yes, swap rates have nudged up. What's going on in America has definitely had an impact. So inflation is not really under control over there and they have held interest rates.

[00:10:40] Ellie Broadhurst: And I think that that has then made people think what's going to happen here because sort of six months ago, we were having a conversation around, yeah, we should be having some rate reductions this year. Even two months ago, I was talking to the Bank of England and their prediction was around, you know, quarter of a percent reduction in June, or if not June, then August.

[00:10:58] Ellie Broadhurst: But I feel like even in the last eight weeks, things have shifted. What is going on in the Middle East isn't going away. It's probably got worse rather than better. And that will, that will have an impact. And then you've got the relationship between America and Israel. Like there's so many different things to play there.

[00:11:13] Ellie Broadhurst: And then you've got the issue of if America can't get inflation under control, does that then mean that when we get this month's inflation figures, they're not going to be as good as we're expecting either? And then what impact is that thing going to have on interest rates? Now, swap rates are a prediction of what's going to happen over a period of, 5 years, So, if we were thinking interest rates are going to start to come down this year, by the end of next year, we were going to have a base rate of, I don't know, somewhere between three and 4%.

[00:11:44] Ellie Broadhurst: Have we suddenly shifted that forward by six to 12 months? And that will then mean that your sort of longer term prediction is higher. So I don't know necessarily mean that think it means that there's more, a lot more uncertainty. I think it just means that we're readjusting where we think those figures are going to be.

[00:12:01] Ellie Broadhurst: Okay. But also, because the market is so busy, we are going back a little bit more to that world of lenders changing rates quickly to cope with business levels. And we haven't really seen that for the last couple of years. It's been mainly driven by swaps and what's going on in the market. And we've seen that, you know, we saw a lot of it, didn't we, with the whole Liz Trust issue and after that where interest rates were just disappearing, products were going.

[00:12:28] Ellie Broadhurst: Each lender only had sort of two or three products. It was a very strange time. So now we're back to having a bigger variety of products, but things are being withdrawn and quickly, but then they're being repriced at 0.1 or maybe 0.2 up or down from where they were. And that to me is we're too busy or we want more business.We just want to push ourselves up and down the comparison tables to, to adjust the business levels that are coming in.

[00:12:54] Andy Graham: So, are you seeing some lenders bring their actual consumer rates down a little bit and others putting them up a little bit? Yeah, exactly that.

[00:13:02] Ellie Broadhurst: Yeah, yeah. I mean, just today, I've had an email from two specialist lenders saying that their rates are going down this evening or tomorrow morning, and then one high street lender is putting their rates up tomorrow. So just as an example of one day.

[00:13:15] Andy Graham: Without any real, like, rhyme or reason or, like, clear justification because, yeah, so.

[00:13:21] Ellie Broadhurst: No. Well, I think the justification in my mind is that they want some more business through. I mean, one of the lenders that's repricing downwards tomorrow, they didn't really have many products at all a few weeks ago.

[00:13:31] Ellie Broadhurst: They just had a couple of two year fixed rates and then they've brought in some five years and now they're bringing them down. So I think gradually they're trying to get some more business through the door. And again, the other high street lender, maybe they're too busy. Maybe they have been, as you know, that's not really my bag, but looking at comparison tables, maybe they were at the top and they're just trying to push them down two or three because most mortgage brokers, like residential mortgage brokers will use a sourcing system.

[00:13:55] Ellie Broadhurst: They'll put in their criteria and whoever is on the top will be the lender that they go to. So by moving those rates, even by 0.02 or something can move them up and down and just slow that flow.

[00:14:07] Andy Graham: If we talk like something from the middle of the market, let's say six bed professional, HMO, Ellie, what sort of term finance is kind of the, about the middle of the minute? What sort of rate on, let's say a five year fix, do you think we're looking at?

[00:14:22] Ellie Broadhurst: Five year fix, so it really depends on the lender you're going to as to what valuation you're looking, but sort of a middle of the road, somebody who will value it as an HMO, but you can't choose your valuer, for example, that sort of thing. You're probably looking at around 6 percent on a five year, with a 3 percent fee.

[00:14:39] Andy Graham: So, I mean, it's still high. There's no doubt about it. It's still high, but certainly nowhere near as high as it was for sure.

[00:14:45] Ellie Broadhurst: No, but the base rate is sitting at 5. 25. Yeah. So. There's going to be a margin on top of that, isn't it? I mean, even on residential stuff, you're looking at slightly below 5%. There's not really a great deal going on much below five, even on residential mortgages. So there will always be a premium on top of that, isn't it? Buy to lets will be more expensive. HMOs will be more expensive than that. You're on a gradient, aren't you?

[00:15:07] Ellie Broadhurst: So yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable for the market that we're in. I agree with you, it's much higher than we were a few years ago, but I think that's probably where we're going to end up. I can't see it coming down hugely, even with base rate coming down a bit.

[00:15:21] Andy Graham: No, well, let's have that conversation. Base rate reductions, the one that is on all of our minds, we've been talking about it since the beginning of the year. I mean, look, the way that I'm starting to feel about things, I'm feeling less optimistic than it's going to happen now in even Q3, just because of this slight added uncertainty and I don't know, just this general feeling. But what do you think?

[00:15:40] Ellie Broadhurst: I mean, I've always said, I think it will be a lot slower.

[00:15:43] Andy Graham: You did.

[00:15:44] Ellie Broadhurst: Than everyone thinks it will be, because there are so many external factors that go into it. So. And we're also so reliant on those inflation figures and no one really knows what they are. And it was interesting, actually, the chat that I had with the Bank of England a couple of months ago, he was saying that it was, it's not just the headline inflation figures that you're thinking about is the core inflation, because the headline inflation figures are so affected by like petrol prices and food and energy, but they can fluctuate so much.

[00:16:12] Ellie Broadhurst: What you're actually looking at is like, Wage increases like service, the cost of everyday things that you are going to go and buy, not necessarily things that will fluctuate. And core inflation was still, that was much higher than the inflation rate last month. It was the food prices and petrol price. I think we're bringing it down.

[00:16:34] Ellie Broadhurst: So that core inflation figure is really important. What he was saying was that there is still a downward trend, and they know that that downward trend will continue past the point that they reduce the base rate. So as long as they're happy that that downward trend is there, they will be happy to reduce the base rate by a quarter of a percent, say, knowing that that downward trend is already in play.

[00:16:55] Ellie Broadhurst: Now, if that downward trend stops, Or if they think that it's going to stop, and they could take into account things that are happening all over the rest of the world within that, then there is an argument to say maybe we're not ready for a reduction. But it's all down to them, isn't it? I suppose. I mean, whether we'll have one next month, I don't know. I don't know.

[00:17:15] Andy Graham: Are you still optimistic that we will start to see it come down this year though?

[00:17:19] Ellie Broadhurst: I think we'll see it come down this year, but I think it's probably going to be later on this year. But I also think it will be a very gradual, I think, I don't know, when people start talking about, Oh, you know, I'm only going to fix it for two years because interest rates are going to come down considerably.

[00:17:30] Ellie Broadhurst: And then in my head, I'm thinking, right, well, firstly, every time you remortgage, you've got probably a two or 3 percent arrangement fee now, because that's pretty standard across the board. Plus your valuation plus your legal fees. So any rate reduction that you're getting has got to mitigate against all those costs plus the hassle factor of doing it every time that you're doing it.

[00:17:49] Ellie Broadhurst: And if base rates only going to end up between somewhere between three and a half and four percent by the end of next year, that's a very gradual reduction, isn't it? So is your interest rate going to be that much lower in two year’s time to make it worth doing a two year fixed over a five year?

[00:18:06] Andy Graham: It's tricky.

[00:18:07] Ellie Broadhurst: It is tricky. Nobody knows the answer. If we did, we'd be

[00:18:11] Andy Graham: I think like we often over the last 12 months, I've sort of landed on it. I think keep calm and carry on. It's not going to change quickly. It's unlikely to change quickly in either direction anyway. The general trajectory is positive. It is coming down. It's likely to continue coming down. No guarantees. But I think that that's good advice you've just shared. It's certainly not going to happen anytime soon.

[00:18:33] Ellie Broadhurst: So yeah, I think trying to second guess what's going to happen and play the market. I personally don't think is a great idea. I always think, and I sort of go back to my regulated mortgage days of when I would be giving advice to people as to whether you go for trackers or fixed or how long you're fixing it for and things is all around your personal circumstances.

[00:18:52] Ellie Broadhurst: Do you think that if you remortgage two year’s time, you're going to be able to pull out a significant amount of money out of that? property, for example, are you planning on selling it? Are you planning on, I don't know, extending it or planning in for a larger number of bedrooms on HMO, whatever it might be like, if there's a change in situation that warrants a two year fixed fine, if you're just planning on keeping it for the long term, there's got to be a compelling reason for me to sort of deviate from a longer term fixed rate.

[00:19:21] Andy Graham: Okay. Well, there is one thing that I think we've got to start, I think it's coming to the surface. I think it's going to be come more and more front of mind for all of us this year. There were some local elections last week, weren't there? Let's talk about elections because I think this is the biggie. And I think I know what the outcome is going to be in that.

[00:19:39] Andy Graham: I think the conservatives are done. I mean, I don't really care personally, and I'm not trying to influence anyone's opinion, but I genuinely just think that it's just too little, too late.

[00:19:48] Ellie Broadhurst: Absolutely. And based on the fact that we have last week, they've lost a huge number, nearly 500 councilors or something, haven't they, plus a few mayoral elections, been won by Labour over the Conservatives.

[00:20:00] Ellie Broadhurst: I mean, you look at London, it was a bit of a landslide, although we could talk about that for another day. But yeah, I think you're right, it then depends on what happens. Will Labour get enough of a majority to be able to run the government themselves?

[00:20:14] Andy Graham: I hope not.

[00:20:15] Ellie Broadhurst: Yeah, I mean, I have to say, I really enjoyed when we had the Conservative Lib Dem coalition a few years ago. Seems like a really long time ago. I don't think it's quite as long ago as we think, but pre COVID times. And I think it was a, it was a sensible government and lots of new laws came in and it was a very workable government, but it didn't do the Lib Dems any favours whatsoever. And Nick Clegg at the end of that said he was very, he was adamant that Lib Dems would not be entering into another coalition, but that would kind of be a natural thing.

[00:20:47] Andy Graham: I'm being a little curt as well because the idea of Keir Starmer who has some pretty sort of anti-landlord policies, I mean the Conservatives have had some very anti landlord policies as well as it happened, but still some of the stuff that Keir Starmer has discussed is a bit concerning as a landlord.

[00:21:06] Andy Graham: Yeah. But then I do think we'll actually Would more instability by way of something like a coalition, would that just be worse for everyone? Maybe it would. So, but I mean, it seems like there's definitely some change going to be afoot later in the year. And I guess the big question is, as we start to get closer to, I mean, what we're nearly, we're sort of heading towards June now.

[00:21:26] Andy Graham: So sort of first half of the year done, within the next six months, it looks like we're gonna probably have an election. Do you think that those sorts of, the anticipation of whatever that result might be has been  Are we assuming that that consideration is already built into the swap rates, or is this the thing that could come from the left and upset us all?

[00:21:43] Ellie Broadhurst: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, it's been sort of, so it's common knowledge, I think it's been generally out there that conservatives are not going to win another term for quite some time. So I would suggest that it's been worked in within those figures and, and swaps and things. I suppose what the market doesn't like is uncertainty.

[00:22:04] Ellie Broadhurst: So I think probably what would be better is a government that comes in who has got a majority to form a government rather than a lot of uncertainty around who's going to form that government. And I suppose at the moment we still don't really know the answer to that question. We've got the U.S. election this year as well, haven't we? And then Trump has been quite vocal about what he intends to do if he comes back into power. So there's a lot of uncertainty. And I think with uncertainty, that's where valuers get uncertain, lenders get uncertain, and where you've got all of that uncertainty, you'll find sort of two things really.

[00:22:41] Ellie Broadhurst: A, lenders not wanting to pull in a huge amount of business, so they'll be a bit more cautious with their pricing. The other side to that is that you'll see lenders not wanting to stretch the criteria and make exceptions. So you'll see it sort of contract slightly from both those directions. And I think we're already seeing lenders being far more cautious with their lending criteria.

[00:23:04] Ellie Broadhurst: It's far more difficult to get things through with any credit problems. You won't find lenders sort of pushing boundaries on experience that none of that is happening anymore. Whereas we would comfortably be able to do that a couple of years ago. So already we're seeing that, would we see that more potentially we could maybe see restrictions on loan to values or something just because there'll be thinking, right, do I want to be maximising what I can do when there's potentially some change coming?

[00:23:30] Ellie Broadhurst: So I don't think we'll see anything beforehand, but I think we might see depending on what the outcome is. Certainty is always good for markets. Uncertainty is not. So I think if the general plan is that Labour will come in, and I know that that could potentially have some impact on landlord policies, but then like you say, Conservatives haven't been brilliant from that angle either.

[00:23:52] Ellie Broadhurst: I mean, yeah, who knows? What will happen with that? I don't know. I don't know how quickly that will come in, whether, I mean, Keir Starmer has said things that he hasn't followed through at. So, you know, whether these things will actually come to fruition, who knows? It depends on the majority that he's got as to whether, how easy it is to form new laws at all.

[00:24:09] Ellie Broadhurst: Doesn't it? You know, if you've got a very slight majority, it becomes quite tricky. So who knows, but yeah, we need certainty. We need somebody definitely in power with a good general direction of where they're going and hopefully that will ride that storm.

[00:24:23] Andy Graham: Well, as ever, Ellie, you've been the voice of reason, reassurance, as always. And just a quick reminder to all of our listeners, this is not financial advice. Absolutely. We are simply, we are just discussing our own opinions and look, I'm still buying. I'm trying to buy something this week again. And like I think we've said before and talked about it before. I think. Just while there is still an air of uncertainty and rates are high, I think it still makes good practical sense to just make sure that you've got all of the different exit scenarios and options covered, which might mean having a bit more cash in the bank, not pushing the valuation expectations too far, just being really sensible. Now's not the time. I don't think to take big risks. I think now's the time to be. Sensible.

[00:25:10] Ellie Broadhurst: I completely agree because you see it as well on the back end in terms of like builders quote the cost of things. It's all those things, isn't it? Like borrowing absolutely every penny that you need and relying on a really good GDV at the end to me is just a bit too much given the other things that are going on around you. We're seeing a lot of people that are really stretched and lenders want to see every penny in that bank account for your refurb loan, you know, things like that. So

[00:25:40] Andy Graham: Keep calm, carry on.

[00:25:41] Ellie Broadhurst: Absolutely.

[00:25:42] Andy Graham: But just be sensible at the minute.

[00:25:44] Ellie Broadhurst: Yeah, definitely. And just, Keep your head making your decisions and make sure that you're not making emotional decisions. Don't feel like you need to buy something just because everyone else is doing it. Try not to get caught up in that social media algorithm or whatever. Definitely not your algorithm, Andy.

[00:26:06] Andy Graham: Absolutely not. Ellie, thank you so much. Just quick reminder to all of our listeners today. If you want to speak to Ellie, if you're buying something at the minute, if you're thinking about buying something, if you want to get some advice on your current position, the types of products available to you. If you're looking for a broker who knows what they're doing, knows all the lenders, the right lenders, it is of course Ellie you need to speak to.

[00:26:26] Andy Graham: Just head to thehmoroadmap.co.uk. We've got an area for services. And if you hit that navigation bar, you can drop down to mortgages and finance. And you can drop an enquiry with Ellie and Ellie will probably get back to you very, very, very quickly. Yes. As you always do. Thank you, Ellie. It's been an absolute pleasure.

[00:26:44] Andy Graham: And I think we should probably reconvene in four week’s time. Let's see where housing data's at and whether or not there's been any change to inflation.

[00:26:53] Ellie Broadhurst: Absolutely. Sounds like a plan.

[00:26:55] Andy Graham: Thanks Ellie. That's it for today's episode, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with myself and Ellie.

[00:27:08] Andy Graham: Hope you found it useful. Hope you found some useful insights. In there, I hope more than anything, it's just giving you some practical advice and some good old reassurance. Look, just be careful who you listen to. If they've got a stripy shirt on and they're selling a book about how to profit from the property crash, they're probably not the best people to listen to when it comes to real estate.

[00:27:28] Andy Graham: To what's happening in the property market right now. If you are either thinking about getting started with HMOs or already investing in HMOs, then get yourself over to theHMOroadmap.co.uk. If you haven't already gone, get yourself a subscription, either a premium or a starter subscription, and get your hands on everything we've got to offer inside the HMO roadmap.

[00:27:46] Andy Graham: It really is an essential part of every HMO investors toolkit, expert masterclass, including several from Ellie, herself. We've got more from architects, we've got more from planning consultants and a whole lot more. We've got over a hundred video lessons. We've got dozens of downloadable templates and resources, including loan agreements, including rent to rent contracts, and a whole lot more.

[00:28:06] Andy Graham: Trust me, you won't be disappointed. Look, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't tell you where interest rates will be and where property values will be and what will happen with the property market in the next 12, 18, 24 months. But what I can give you and promise you is that inside HMO Roadmap, you will find the highest

[00:28:22] Andy Graham: quality and the most extensive library of resources to help develop your skill, knowledge and confidence when it comes to HMOs. So head on over there and get your hands on all of that good stuff right now. Thanks once again for tuning in today and don't forget that I'll be right back here in the very same place next week. So please join me then for another installment of the HMO podcast.