Compounding Part 1

It’s interesting how many people, when they find out what I do for a living, smile knowingly and say words to the effect of “ah, bad luck, it’s not possible to make money in property nowadays, is it?” I usually smile back and say something like “yes, it’s not like it used to be” and…

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Equity and Finance Part 6

There are two principles that I am trying to get across, both of which are crucial for any property investor. The second principle is that ninety-nine times out of one hundred the most successful investors are the ones who come to terms with, and learn how to manage, debt, and who are prepared to be…

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Equity and Finance Part 5

There are two principles that I am trying to get across, both of which are crucial for any property investor. The first is that a key tool you can use to accelerate the growth of your business is the efficient, but I stress considered, use of gearing. The reason why many investors have been able…

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Equity and Finance Part 4

I wouldn’t say that in order to be a successful property investor you need to rush off and remortgage your home or your existing property investments but let’s look at the arguments for and against doing so. The first argument against is that you shouldn’t spend your capital. But in a sense you’re not really…

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Equity and Finance Part 3

As our equity increases, we’ll be even better off. This is because, as active investors, as the equity in each of the investment properties increases, we would have the option to refinance and buy yet more properties meaning we’d have far more equity than the £1.11m. But I think you get the point. Now, for…

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Equity and Finance Part 2

Let’s look at what can happen when we release and invest our equity. Let’s assume that our home is worth, say £250,000 and that we have an outstanding mortgage of only £50,000. So we’re assuming that we have about £200,000 in equity. Really the figures in this example are not that important, just the principle.…

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Equity and Finance Part 1

Let me say from the start, that what I am about to say is not to encourage you into debt, at least not recklessly taking on debt. I would not expect anyone to adopt the principles I am about to outline unless they were absolutely sure of what they are doing and the possible consequences.…

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Due Diligence Part 7

Sensitivity Analysis graph (du dil 7)So far we have been thinking about single factors or one-off events. But the property market is highly complex and there are numerous things that can affect the performance of the market as a whole, and individual properties in particular. So you might want to do an analysis that considers…

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Due Diligence Part 6

Let’s have a more detailed look at how we can do some risk analysis. Often the different scenarios are not as black and white as our rudimentary analysis suggests and we might want to assess the risks of, and look at the consequences of, events within a range of possibilities. What do I mean by…

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Due Diligence Part 5

Having asked the relevant questions, you may identify a scenario that could happen. Whether it is, in reality, a worst case scenario is to some extent subjective and probably a matter of semantics. But if you have identified a possible negative outcome of owning a particular property, you will need to clarify what this means…

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