From: Ronald Raygun 
Subject: Re: Do most Buy-To-Leter's seek equity gain or rental income???
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:08:33 GMT

Tim wrote:

>> > "Sammy" wrote
>> >> In general the BTLer *expects* house price inflation.
>> >
>> "Tim" wrote:
>> > Not all BTLer's are especially interested in growth.
>> > What about BTLer's who are in long-term, for
>> > the *yield* - who don't intend on ever selling?
>> > [Using BTL income for their "pension".]
>>
> "Ronald Raygun" wrote
>> To be fair, he said "in general", which admits exceptions.
> 
> Exactly - but a large enough minority (or even majority) can hardly be
> classed as "exceptions".

An overall majority perhaps not, but why not a minority?  It depends
how far we generalise, of course.  If Sammy was focusing on the recent,
I hardly think it's wrong to say that most BTLers would expect gains,
even if they were not expecting to realise them (they might instead
use the equity gain to increase their borrowings and hence the size of
their portfolios).

>> > "Sammy" wrote
>> >> Much of the recent BTL activity is just a
>> > speculative, leveraged punt on property prices.
>> >
>> "Tim" wrote:
>> > Do you really believe that a good proportion of
>> > *current* ("recent") BTL purchases are made just for
>> > a gamble on further substantial gains in house prices??
>>
> "Ronald Raygun" wrote
>> You can't just take his "recent" and interpret it as "current".
>> That much of *recent* buying to let, taking
>> this to mean over the last, say, 5 years, ...
> 
> Do you consider all of the last 5 years to be "recent", in regard to BTL?

Yes.
But it doesn't matter what I think, we have to guess what Sammy meant.

> Isn't that around *half* of it's longevity?

I don't know.  Perhaps.  Maybe since BTL mortgages started to be
actively marketed.

> Isn't it like saying that 2 billion years ago is within "recent world
> history"?!

No, it would depend on the context of the discussion.