The Wilsons - 875 buy to let property empire

HelpWhereIcan

Ian_Griffiths_Halifax wrote: »

It's better to die owing a million than to be owed a million:rotfl:

Or

"If you owe the bank £100,000 you have sleepless nights. If you owe the bank £10,000,000 the bank has sleeples nights"

Or some other such words of wisdom to that effect someone once expressed much better than me.

Dithering_Dad

HelpWhereIcan wrote: »

Their 'line of credit' or portfolio mortgage is likely to have been specially negotiated and is unlikely to be of the same kind of deal that a standard buy to let mortgage is eg 2 year fixed.

Excellent & informative post. Regardless of the morals behind buying up all the property in a single area, it's just too simplistic to say that this couple are clueless at business and how it was easy for them to build a property empire. If it is so easy then why haven't you all done it? (and don't give me any tosh about how it's morally reprehensible - would you really turn down millions of pounds because of your morals?)

As far as their empire crumpling? I don't think so. They might not be able to use their equity to purchase any more properties, but given they already have so many that isn't much of a problem. They seem to have made sure that the rent covers the interest and so unless they have an urgent need to sell up, I would suggest that a drop in the value of their properties will have little impact on them.

Usual case of the 'have-nots' sitting on their behinds moaning, watching the 'go-getters' make their millions and hoping that at some point it all goes wrong for them, allowing the 'have-nots' to justify their lack of ambition.

ruggedtoast

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

Usual case of the 'have-nots' sitting on their behinds moaning, watching the 'go-getters' make their millions and hoping that at some point it all goes wrong for them, allowing the 'have-nots' to justify their lack of ambition.

I agree that there isnt much point in waiting for the Wilsons to go bankrupt. Even if their business does go they'll have more than a few million stashed away by now where their creditors will never get at it.

I can see why people hate them though, theyve artifically blown up prices in one locale, priced a whole generation of locals out of ownership and are by all accounts, awful landlords.

TBH from your posts you seem to be more the one who has a problem. I presume you dont like it that prices are dropping either because youre geared yourself or youve advised a family member to buy recently.

Maybe youd care to elaborate and set us all straight?

Generali

In my experience, a line of credit would normally be arranged at LIBOR + x.xx% for a fixed period of time (say 5 years). It will probably have staging payments along the say so they'll pay interest monthly or quarterly (probably monthly) and then make capital repayments at certain agreed times. There will be other caveats in the agreement too (eg what happens if payments are missed or if they want to refinance).

As their incomings are pretty much fixed they'd have been wise to swap the floating rate for a fixed one. It would be pretty expensive to do that for more than 2 years.

Actually it's a pretty simple business model they've got and a pretty good one. The main risks are lack of diversification (everythings in Ashford) and rents falling due to economic hard times. It's rather tough if you want to buy a place in Ashford but there are plenty of other towns nearby.

MissMoneypenny

Generali wrote: »

Actually it's a pretty simple business model they've got and a pretty good one. The main risks are lack of diversification (everythings in Ashford) and rents falling due to economic hard times. It's rather tough if you want to buy a place in Ashford but there are plenty of other towns nearby.

They own half of Hawkinge too, according to a Folkestone EA. The Wilson's seem to like to get in at the start of housing developments and (it seems) be near proposed high speed rail links to London and Europe. Didn't Ebbsfleet steal that thunder?

neverdespairgirl

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

If it is so easy then why haven't you all done it? (and don't give me any tosh about how it's morally reprehensible - would you really turn down millions of pounds because of your morals?)

Usual case of the 'have-nots' sitting on their behinds moaning, watching the 'go-getters' make their millions and hoping that at some point it all goes wrong for them, allowing the 'have-nots' to justify their lack of ambition.

I don't think it is. I'm not sitting on my backside, lacking ambition, but I have absolutely no ambitions in that line. I don't want to own half of Ashford, and don't want to be a multiple landlord, and don't want to be heartily disliked by most of a town to boot. Not worth it for the money.

Dithering_Dad

ruggedtoast wrote: »

TBH from your posts you seem to be more the one who has a problem. I presume you dont like it that prices are dropping either because youre geared yourself or youve advised a family member to buy recently.

Which posts?

Dithering_Dad

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I don't think it is. I'm not sitting on my backside, lacking ambition, but I have absolutely no ambitions in that line. I don't want to own half of Ashford, and don't want to be a multiple landlord, and don't want to be heartily disliked by most of a town to boot. Not worth it for the money.

Have you said that it was easy to make money by just buying property and wait for its value to increase? My remarks were obviously aimed at those people. It's never easy to make millions of pounds at anything, property or otherwise - or we'd all be millionaires this time next year, Rodney.

I wouldn't want to be hated either, but they could have easily just invested in a wider geographical area to avoid that. Methinks that they quite like being 'lord of the Manor' and so invested in that small area. Perhaps they even enjoy the resentment?

ruggedtoast

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

Which posts?

Your posts.

Dithering_Dad

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Your posts.

Lol, thanks for elaborating. I suspect you couldn't actually justify your statement based on my posts and so didn't even try.

It never ceases to amaze me how people on here make such huge assumptions based on no evidence. Just because I don't think these BTLers are going to bust and just because I don't think it's healthy for people to waste their time worrying about what other people have and hoping they lose it, you have decided that I'm worried about house prices falling! I mean, where is the logic????

To put you right, I bought my current house in 2002 (with a hefty deposit gleaned from selling my first house which was bought for £38k and sold for £140k) and the last housing advice I gave was two years ago when I told my pal to sell his home because I thought a housing crash was on the way (he was going to be working overseas for several years). He rented it out instead and has agreed that he should have followed my advice.

Just because I don't wring my hands and spit hatred at people who have made money out of property (or anything else) doesn't mean I'm a BTLer who is about to go bust!! :rotfl: