Mistake number two – They are too cautious in their negotiations. With the odd and often notable exception it’s part of the British psyche not to want to cause offence. Add to this that we often accept the asking price without questioning it, and the result is often weak negotiations. Let me explain. When most…
Quite often, when I talk about my experiences in property I’ll be asked what the difference is between a good property investor and a poor property investor. Truthfully, that’s a hard question to answer. Some people are naturally good at things and some people are just good at property investing. Putting natural talent aside, over…
Over the last few years several things have coincided to boost the market for private residential property investment: The performance of the stock market has been relatively poor over the last decade. Here’s a fact you’ll very often hear quoted. On January 1st 2000 the FTSE stood at 7,000. Today, as I write, more than…
In my experience, one of the most common mistakes made by property investors is that they do not have a clear idea of what they are trying to achieve, and as a consequence, they do not really have any sort of a plan or strategy. As the old saying goes “if you don’t have a…
Hand in hand with buying BMV, the investing community has embraced ‘going back to basics’ and concentrating on ‘the fundamentals’. In particular, most, if not all, investors are intensely interested in cash-flow. As a minimum investors want to buy property which at least breaks even, although many will not be satisfied unless they find a…
The buy-to-let scheme was designed to address the problems we looked at earlier. The original lenders were now prepared to: Consider lending on residential investment property as a mainstream activity – the risks involved in a loan going bad were now reduced because vacant possession could be guaranteed under the provisions of the Housing Act.…
If you think that buy-to-let is for you, you need to: Decide what you want to achieve from property investing and by when – in other words, set your property goals Decide on the best strategy to achieve your goals Make a plan Decide upon the type of property that will best fit your strategy…
I’ve noticed that a large number of lenders have cut their mortgage rates since the start of the year, possibly as a consequence of Funding for Lending. Within the last couple of weeks a number of lenders have cut rates on their buy to let products. BM Solutions, owned by Lloyds banking group, cut rates…
A recent survey of buy to let landlords by specialist buy to let mortgage lender Paragon Mortgages shows that landlords are more optimistic now than at any time over the last 3 years. Strong tenant demand means that the average void period is down to 2.8 weeks, and more landlords consider buy to let mortgages…