Wilsons Selling Up. The Lot. All 700 Houses.

MissMoneypenny

They have been trying to sell their properties for nearly a year now, according to this article.

"He said they were now trying to find a major investor to buy their portfolio and were looking for a pension company or investors from Russia or Bulgaria."
Posted 16/10/08

http://www.yourashford.co.uk/kent-news/We-will-not-flood-market-vows-millionaire-landlord-newsinkent17025.aspx?news=local

vikingaero

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

They have been trying to sell their properties for nearly a year now, according to this article.

"He said they were now trying to find a major investor to buy their portfolio and were looking for a pension company or investors from Russia or Bulgaria."
Posted 16/10/08

http://www.yourashford.co.uk/kent-news/We-will-not-flood-market-vows-millionaire-landlord-newsinkent17025.aspx?news=local

Fungus really loves the sound of his own voice!

MissMoneypenny

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

They're not chavs though are they?

Chavs like to wear Burberry. One of the responses to the various articles in the papers, was that the suit Judith was wearing was Burberry.

Not that I would know what Burberry looks like, I was a maths student:D

PasturesNew

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Chavs like to wear Burberry. One of the responses to the various articles in the papers, was that the suit Judith was wearing was Burberry.

Not that I would know what Burberry looks like, I was a maths student:D

Burberry suit: http://www.ihatebryanboy.com/bryanboy/images4/burberry_chav.jpg

Or with a bit more money you can get this:
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00470/burberryBig_280_470734a.jpg

MissMoneypenny

dopester wrote: »

Sorry to quote myself, but thought I'd best back that up with a source.

Express now has the story, with some extra bits and pieces of detail, including about potential buyers, according to Fergus.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/124951/All-yours-for-180m-

"Fergus says it’s hard to put an exact figure on the number of properties they own but it’s around 700, including around 30 apartments that somehow sneaked through the no-flats ban."

bluey890

How did they (Wilsons) amass this fortune, did they start out rich or did they amass a fortune by screwing their tenants out of money while providing a poor service? Sorry if it's already been posted, there's 11 pages on this thread now, and I can't scroll though them all.

carolt

From dopester's link, which also answers your questions, bluey:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/124951/All-yours-for-180m-

"He says he won’t miss the biggest headache of being a mega buy-to-let landlord, which was debt-collectors pursuing ex-tenants for minor amounts of money that they didn’t actually owe."


Eh? What'sthat about then? Is he admitting that he made money by harrassing tenants for money they didn't actually owe, a la the peach bathroom suite saga?

What a bloody crook!

bluey890

carolt wrote: »

From dopester's link, which also answers your questions, bluey:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/124951/All-yours-for-180m-

"He says he won’t miss the biggest headache of being a mega buy-to-let landlord, which was debt-collectors pursuing ex-tenants for minor amounts of money that they didn’t actually owe."


Eh? What'sthat about then? Is he admitting that he made money by harrassing tenants for money they didn't actually owe, a la the peach bathroom suite saga?

What a bloody crook!

Thanks carolt. Unfortunately, with british law, these cases go to county council courts. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't work there. So many innocent unsuspecting tenants can get screwed over by a bad landlord who's more familiar with the law.

PasturesNew

I think (google would be your friend for research) they had a house at the bottom of the last crash and bought another cheap .... but couldn't sell the first. By sheer coincidence and luck a company wanted to rent a house so they rented out their first house to them. They then (I think) saw next door to their new house was up for sale, so they contacted the agent and said they'd just bought theirs for £30k (which was a bare-faced lie) and convinced them to sell that one to them for £30k too. They then remortgaged it and it was worth £120k, so they took that money and went on a property buying spree... which ended in 2008. They bought and re-mortgaged all the way "up".

PasturesNew

Looks like they started a lot earlier than I thought. Early 70s. Wage and house inflation time.

Found a link: http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article1131136.ece

I had a pigeon, Maidstone Monarch. In 1973, I entered her in a national race to the Cherbourg peninsula. She came first in the whole country. Out of 8,947 birds. I’ll never forget that figure. I made enough in prize money to buy our first house in Boughton Monchelsea, Kent.

... really got airborne in 1986, when they realised they had sufficient equity to buy the house 11 doors down. “I had it in mind that I ought to buy a house for each of our two daughters,” says Mr Wilson.
“We rented out the first one and made a loss on it of about £10 a week. Then we noticed prices were shooting up, and so the rent went up. It was only a matter of months before the income covered the mortgage.”

By the time property values crashed at the end of the 1980s, the Wilsons were in the right position to operate. On the first Wednesday of July in 1991, “Judith bought a semi near Maidstone. Gradually the value went up, and the rent. This is good, we thought; let’s buy another”. And they did. For £50,000. Today each semi is valued at £500,000.

By 1992, they had a dozen properties and Judith Wilson had left teaching to focus on the business. They continued to buy, but nothing lavish, although some were mortgage-free. “Rather than have 45% mortgages on them all, we had 85% mortgages on some, and none on the others, so half were unencumbered,” says Mr Wilson. And no voids: their first tranche of properties had sitting tenants with regulated rents. The Wilsons also had a winning way with the bank manager. “We got on so well, he’d say, ‘go and buy the houses and let’s talk about the money afterwards’.”

In 1994, Judith could see that prices were on the move. She began to snap up repossessed houses at auctions, and new-build flats. With 60 properties in the portfolio, the unstoppable pair started to focus on houses. “The average stay of a tenant in a flat is six months to a year, whereas the average stay of a tenant in a house is 2.4 years,” says Fergus.
They bought carefully. “Bread and butter, two-bedroom houses, in what you might call artisan areas. Renters only rent what they need. So two bedrooms are better than three.”

According to him, buy-to-let success boils down to three things: “Don’t expect the rent to make much over the mortgage. Agree a 10% dilapidation programme with the taxman. And look to buy off-plan. By the time it’s completed, the value will have gone up and you can capitalise on the equity.”

There's more on that link.

I liked that last bit "And look to buy off-plan. By the time it’s completed, the value will have gone up and you can capitalise on the equity.”