Scrutinise borrowing in light of trust tax rise

“Investors need to regularly scrutinise their borrowing because of changing legislation and in terms of how much they can borrow and what tax vehicle will suit them from a tax efficiency point of view.

“The increase in trust tax will make many investors review their investment portfolios even though they cannot do anything about the rise.”

Bansal says the increase in trust tax combined with the phasing out of mortgage interest tax deductibility and changes to the Residential Tenancies Act, will make people think twice about property investing.

He says many first time investors are putting off entering the market – lending is tight because of higher interest rates, the weaker appetite of banks to lend and mortgage repayments rising.

“People have started calculating this in their own minds which I didn’t see a year ago,” Bansal says. 

“New investors always want to know what the repayments on an investment property mortgage are going to be to see if they fit into their household budgets, something I didn’t see previously.”

He says the mindset of the two property investor types – investing for retirement or building a portfolio – has changed and is quite different, Bansal says. 

“A couple in their 30s doing well will invest even if they have to initially make up a small loss. It is a temporary pain they can afford as they will take a long-term capital view in mind.

“The most important numbers for them are equity and whether their income is high enough to buy more properties.

“For people investing for retirement, they generally only want one property and to get the mortgage paid off as quickly as possible.” He says the important numbers of them are the rent and outgoings kept to a minimum to make the mortgage as easy as possible to manage.”