Bank of England base rate held at 0.5%
The Bank of England has kept the base rate of interest on hold, which means buy-to-let property owners may continue to enjoy low rates on their mortgages.
Following its April meeting, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted to keep rates at their current level of 0.5 per cent for another month.
Due to higher inflation, commentators believe a rate hike may be on the cards at some point this year to bring down price increases.
However, it seems the MPC does not believe now is the right time to tighten monetary policy and has decided not to make any changes just yet.
The panel of economic experts also chose to maintain the size of the Bank of England's quantitative easing programme at £200 billion.
Minutes from the latest meeting will be published on Wednesday April 20th following the next inflation report, which is due out on April 12th.
However, despite there being no increase in borrowing costs for now, landlords may still need to prepare themselves for hikes in the months ahead.
Indeed, economists questioned by the Reuters news agency said they are expecting imminent rises in the base rate.
Philip Rush from investment bank Nomura said she sees a "strong case" for a 25 percentage point increase and believes there is a 70 per cent chance of this happening in May.
Unless landlords have long-term fixed-rate mortgages for their buy-to-let properties, they could be open to increases in their repayments once the Bank of England does make a move upwards.
However, even after a small increase, the base rate will still be historically low, so it may be advisable to compare mortgages, taking both fixed and variable rate options into consideration.
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