The Wilsons - 875 buy to let property empire

Judith Wilson's extraordinary success began when she and her husband Fergus scraped together enough cash to buy a second home in order to let. Property followed property and she now has a portfolio of 465 rental houses across the South East of England. The Wilsons have given up their jobs (both were teachers), own a string of racehorses and are having a luxury five bedroom house built for them in the Kent countryside.

At a time previously when interest rates had been cut, Mrs Wilson spent £6.9million on property in one afternoon. The business has been built on buying homes that have both soared in value and proved easy to let.

Mrs Wilson started speculating in 1987 when property prices were much lower. Two of her first purchases, semi-detached houses in Maidstone, Kent, are now worth £500,000 each. She paid just £50,000 apiece. To spot bargains, Mrs Wilson studied the social make-up of her target areas and kept a watch on house price inflation and interest rates. She bought many of her homes ‘off-plan’ and by the time they were actually built the properties had doubled in value. She used the equity in her existing houses to secure mortgages for further purchase. Within five years of her first purchase she had made enough money to give up teaching for good.

The Wilsons now own entire estates of homes in Kent. Their ten racehorses are stabled with leading trainer Martin Pipe and competed in the Cheltenham Gold Cup earlier this month. But this new-found wealth has not gone to their heads, insists Mr Wilson. He says they live ‘modestly – like former maths teachers’. The have sold several homes at a massive profit but have no plans to cash in their business and are preparing to expand still further.