Property investment disasters

This week we’re putting our usual puppies and rainbows into storage and turning our attention to property disasters. You’re not going to get through your investing career without something doing wrong, but how can you decrease the odds, and what should you do when something does knock you off track?

From speaking to new investors, we identified the five most commonly dreaded catastrophes – and one that left us uncharacteristically speechless…

1. What if I can’t rent my property?. No tenants means no rent, so it’s a concern worth having. We remind you to focus on the fundamentals when buying. The main one being make sure demand is strong, and also knowing what action to take if no-one wants to make your investment their home.

2. What if property prices fall? If you’re investing sensibly this is at worst a non-issue, and at best an opportunity – we explain why.

3. What if my tenant stops paying rent? Prevention is better than cure – a bad tenant is worse than no tenant – however, if you make a bad call, all isn’t lost.

4. What if my tenant trashes my property? The prospect of a big repair bill is a common cause of sleepless nights, so we discuss how to avoid being out of pocket. We mentioned Landlord Referencing as a useful preventative step.

5. What if my property falls apart? A relatively new property that’s still under guarantee, might be best if this is a big worry. Although there are other ways to mitigate your risk.

6. What if my house gets hit by a comet? Yes, this was one investor’s serious concern. But you’ll have to listen to the show to find out what we advise…

Resource of the week

This week, Rob B recommended Check My File as a free tool to check the credit rating of a potential investment area. It also provides the ability to compare it to other locations.

This week’s news

The Daily Express are at it again, predicting that house prices will rise by 30% in two years. We read between the lines to extract what we think is the real good news story.

And following up on Episode 5 on choosing a letting agent, we mentioned that there are now proposals to give formal redress to the victims of shoddy agents.

Mentions and shout-outs

Pete Matthew from The Meaningful Money Podcast got his voice on the show this week. He gave The Property Podcast a big thumbs-up in his episode about asset classes. We’re very excited to be appearing on Pete’s show soon!

We’re also delighted to announce that we’ll be featured on the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast in the coming months.

Tell us what you thought of the show!

Have you had any property disasters you want to warn other listeners about?

Did we miss anything out, or was there a part of the show you particularly enjoyed?