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…
DetailsLet me give you an example of what I mean by this. I’ve met investors who own property but they’re not entirely sure why they own them. They’re not sure whether they are going to give them much in the way of cash flow, and quite often the figures suggest that the returns are actually…
DetailsWe live in the BMV (below market value) age. No self-respecting investor would attend his or her local property networking meeting, or post on any property forum, if they weren’t negotiating furiously for 20%, 25% or 30% discounts from <em>Market Value</em>. Didn’t buy it BMV? Then hang your head in shame. That’s just not how…
DetailsHand 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…
DetailsIn it’s most basic form this mistake manifests as not shopping around for the best LTV (loan to value ratio) or the best interest rate (½% over 20 years makes a lot of difference) or finding the loan with the least penalties if you want to swop or pay it off early. A more sophisticated…
DetailsThere were two major changes on the “road” to buy-to-let: A change to the landlord and tenant law A desire by ARLA to promote its member’s business The first step towards buy-to-let as we now know it was that the law on landlord and tenant was changed to make letting easier and more financially attractive…
DetailsThe 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.…
DetailsThe original buy-to-let scheme was promoted by eight lenders. Current lenders associated with the original ARLA scheme include Birmingham Midshires, GMAC, Natwest Mortgage Services, Paragon Mortgages and Standard Life Bank. Since 1996 many mainstream lenders have seen the immense potential of buy-to-let. Although not officially part of the original ARLA promoted scheme, they offer a…
DetailsAccording to figures released by The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) in early 2013 buy to let lending accounted for 11.5% of all lending in 2012, up from 9.8% in 2011and totalled £16.8 billion. A total of 136,000 loans were advanced in 2012 of which nearly half were for remortgage, bringing the total number of…
DetailsThe competitive nature of buy-to-let, with a large number of lenders offering a large number of flexible schemes, means that almost anyone can now borrow to invest in property. This means that most buy-to-let landlords are just ordinary people who see property as a safe and secure investment, often with a view to investing as…
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