bens1234

Ok I'm going to make myself very unpopular I think. :) In the interests of balance and the fact that I like to play devils advocate, I'll express an alternative viewpoint (Note that if everyone on this thread had been supportive of these courses then I'd have given an argument against them.). Firstly, I need to be careful given that someone lost their life, which is a horrible tragedy. My thoughts are with his family and friends. Note that I'm not talking about Samuel Leeds here, as I have never attended any of his courses, and I agree that some of the sales tactics on that vide

Hi, Background: At this time I have 6 investment properties and I'd like to buy more but I don't have any money left for deposits (The classic property investor story). I've already released equity in my own home and got as much out of the other properties as I can, and it looks like property prices are on a slow decline in my area so it doesn't look like there will be any more equity to release for a while. (Also note that if I were starting again now I wouldn't have invested in my local area, but 20/20 hindsight isn't going to help me now). I should be abl

I tried setting up an account with HSBC because their website suggested that they were fast... after 6 months of problems, having to pop into branch to see the bank manager etc I eventually gave up and went to Barclays, who opened the account in about a week. I've not had any problems at all with Barclays (Touch wood).

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but from what I've seen there is a difference between a multi-let and a real HMO, and some lenders will lend on a multi-let as a standard B2L mortgage. I found this link if it helps: Multi-Let without HMO Note that I've just found this link by Googling. I've never heard of the company before and I've not contacted them, but the key point is that it appears that there is a difference and you may be able to get standard B2L mortgage rates (Although I doubt it'll be the best of the best rates, but that's just a gut feeling.).

Thanks for your feedback James. I actually went to Staffordshire University so I do know Stoke a bit, but that was many years ago! Your feedback was pretty much what I was expecting. Basically it sounds like refurb only works if you do it locally (Or you're prepared to temporarily move to the location, as you have). I'm interested in what you said about there being some companies that source, refurb and manage properties though. My gut feeling though is that with them taking a margin from each part of the process (Which is fair enough), there might not be enough disc

Hi all, Up until now I've been following a simple slow and steady investment strategy of buy properties in my local area and letting them out and every few years remortgaging to free up the equity to buy additional property. The problem is that I live in the South East and the yields are pretty poor (At least relative to many other areas in the UK), and having ready Rob Dix book (Complete Guide...) and listened to The Property Podcast I realised that we should be doing much better. What I'd really like to do now is use a Buy Renovate Remortgage (BRR) strategy so that we

Thanks Chris, Whilst I have been doing this for quite a while, I still have much to learn. I've not tried Buy Renovate Refinance yet so that's going to be a steep learning curve I imagine. Still, it might even help in some ways towards my ultimate personal goal (Not investment) of doing a Self Build (I wouldn't be doing any of the actual building work though). Thanks Ben

Hi all, I currently have 6 properties that I let (5 personally and 1 in a limited company), and I'd like to continue to build my portfolio. We inherited a couple of our properties when my mother died and to be honest the ROI isn't very good, so I'm wondering if we'd be better off selling these and buying elsewhere where the yields would be better. Obviously the down side to this is that we'd need to pay CGT on the sale and Stamp Duty on the purchase. So here are the actual numbers for one of the properties: Original Purchase Price (Actually the

Hi all, I'm new to these forums, but I've been investing in property for a while now... about 12 years I guess! We bought our first house in 2001 and lived in it until 2006. In 2006 we decided to move to a much bigger house, but instead of selling the current house we chose instead to remortgage it (With a B2L mortgage) to free up as much equity as possible to put towards the new house, and let the old house out. I guess these days that'd make us "accidental landlords" even though it was actually planned and deliberate. For the next few years we weren't in a