Blog

Guides & explainers

Plain-English articles on the numbers behind buying, owning and investing in UK property — each one backed by the calculators on this site.

Investing

Bricks vs stocks: does leverage still win in 2026?

Put the same cash into a leveraged property or into the markets and you get very different answers. The honest maths on leverage, costs and the ISA tax advantage.

11 min readRead article →Buy-to-let · Tax

Section 24: own your buy-to-let personally, or through a company?

How Section 24 can tax higher-rate landlords on more than they keep, and how holding through a limited company changes the maths as a portfolio grows.

10 min readRead article →Stamp Duty

Stamp Duty across the UK: same house, three very different bills

Buy the same £300,000 home in England, Scotland or Wales and the tax ranges from nothing to nearly £29,000. SDLT, LBTT and LTT compared side by side.

9 min readRead article →First-time buyers

What it really costs to buy your first home

The deposit is only the start. The real cash a first-time buyer needs on the day, how much you can actually borrow, and what the monthly reality looks like.

10 min readRead article →Mortgages

Overpay your mortgage, or invest the money?

A spare £200 a month can knock years off your mortgage or grow in an ISA. How to weigh a guaranteed, tax-free return against an uncertain but higher one.

9 min readRead article →