Wilsons - The buy-to-let gurus' empire crumbles

dopester

wageslave wrote: »

What's the name of that stuff that grows up everything and has huge, really pretty flowers.

It is driving me mad.

The secret is supposedly in keeping the root cool. I have tried everything and nothing works.

It isn't roses. !!!!!! is wrong with roses?

Passion flowers maybe?

A friend has some growing up a trellis, they have big buds, and open when it rains in the Spring/Summer/Autumn, then go back to bud form when it gets dry (or at least it seems to me they work that way).

I like them.



http://www.viable-herbal.com/combos/herbs/c006.htm

fc123

dopester wrote: »

Passion flowers maybe?

A friend has some growing up a trellis, they have big buds, and open when it rains in the Spring/Summer/Autumn, then go back to bud form when it gets dry (or at least it seems to me they work that way).

I like them.



http://www.viable-herbal.com/combos/herbs/c006.htm

I haven't read much of the Wilsons thread yet:o...but I grew a Passion Flower plant from a 2.99 pot and it is all over our front door and side of house...maybe 8' high and 6' wide...absolutely gorgeous and we get orange fruit in the summer but it's no good to eat.

fc123

Back to The Wilsons...I still feel it 'was the horses that done them in'...LIR knows how pricey a horse habit can be.
Vanity in business is a real Achilles heel too. Maybe they just took too much money out of the business (for the horses) which then left it starved.

Lotus-eater

wageslave wrote: »

What's the name of that stuff that grows up everything and has huge, really pretty flowers.

It is driving me mad.

Clematis?
..........

chucky

dopester wrote: »

I'm sure he's had his moments of feeling pure glory when he's bagged another 'bargain'... from some poor sap he thinks lost their home because they 'weren't paying attention.'

If the market is leading them into a financial mess.. then perhaps they weren't paying attention, and were not actually as smart as they've bragged they were to many journalist over the years, as they bought up a portfolio of hundreds of FTB style homes.

If they've put themselves in a financially vulnerable position then they've done it to themselves as a consequence of extending claims on resources to an extreme that could be supported only if boom and easy credit conditions were sustained uninterrupted into the future. They could have stopped buying when they reached 50 properties years ago, and been very rich, successful and secure.

Their failure? It's so entertaining and gives me a lot of satisfaction.

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article3368828.ece

Mr D, you're one of the few critics of the Wilsons that actually comes back with the facts and figures.

just to be difficult - i've got a question for you

you've highlighted a few times that these guys love to and seem to get some good bargains as far as their property buying goes. If they've been getting so many of these bargains why do you still think this has caused them financial issues?

if you're buying at 20% of each time that would mean that they've just got themselves an extra 25% equity in the property minus any costs buying the property acting as insulating themselves from any falls.

if you think over extending themselves financially has caused them an issue you can't be claiming they get bargains as purchases - it doesn't make sense.

i'm with FCS on this where i don't think their lettings business is their downfall but their other activities.

what's your thoughts dopester?

elona

Could the flower be convulvis (spelling)?

dopester

chucky wrote: »

if you think over extending themselves financially has caused them an issue you can't be claiming they get bargains as purchases - it doesn't make sense.

i'm with FCS on this where i don't think their lettings business is their downfall but their other activities.

what's your thoughts dopester?

That is difficult Chucky. I don't want to wind-you-up, but I'll take a few guesses in my answer. You won't be satisfied with my answer though (had a bad day and got home cold and tired, so don't expect an absolute clear response).

We know they got in big-time during the last crash, at the bottom of the then market... bargains as it were. However I doubt they got bargains all the way along during the boom. The occasional one in distress yes (“People end up in financial difficulty because they don’t pay attention. They’re busy watching the rugby rather than doing their paperwork.”) but paying towards market price for many on the upswing (Perhaps 5%-10% off on a bulk purchase from a developer).

Part of their bulk buying came in 2003/04 didn't it (from memory).

They rode the boom for 15 years, buying 180 houses in 2003 alone.

During one extraordinary spell, in 2003, the tycoon teachers were acquiring a house every day, and they amassed 180 in that one year.

Fergus has put down suggestions he'd discount his portfolio (selling in bulk) but isn't slow to say "agents know to come to me" when he feels others are in distress and he can work a discount, for the odd property (not all).

An EA reckons professional investor/fund would require a 30% discount buying in bulk. If I were running a pension fund (ect) I'd require more than 30%, in an environment of job losses and pay cuts, and, as the Wilsons are finding out... some rents now not covering mortgage repayments.

Look at GG. Practically a 50% crash... if funds were so freely available the seller would have other investors snapping to invest. Money is tight and getting tighter (imo) as GG has found out himself. Where are the pension funds coming to mop up these obvious bargains?

Also, if press reports are to be believed, for all their maths ability, they come across to me as complete idiots who believe in perpetual boom and crazy levels of HPI. (see next quote).

This has to be any part of the reason for their downfall (assuming it occurs), because they didn't have to leverage themselves to get a portfolio of 700+ houses.

They could have stopped in 2001, with perhaps a 101 houses, and used the rents to pay down debt till mortgage free, and gained from HPI from other people buying houses at ever high prices in the credit expansion.

101 houses still a grotesque amount of homes for one boomer couple to be owning/in control of - but they would be near absolute secure position and protected from possible failure, even perhaps, bankruptcy of one of them (guess as I don't know about any company structures possible involved).

You think they've mostly got bargains, and "i'm with FCS on this where i don't think their lettings business is their downfall but their other activities"..

It would be indisputable to me if they do fall that it is more to do with acquiring and leveraging themselves with too much debt.. to go past 100 houses to over 700+... and very little to do with a high-spending lifestyle, even one including racing their own horses. It's just daft to suggest otherwise (imo - and no personal disrespect intended).

The failure would be a direct consequence of the debt and the number of houses they've continued to keep on buying. With 100 houses, now debt fully paid off... they could still comfortably afford to run horses, have a farm, have their own main home mortgage free ect.

Guardian. (December 2006)

House prices in UK will never crash, say Mr and Mrs Wilson of Ashford, Kent. And they should know.

This week Britain's biggest lender, Halifax, issued a warning that the unexpected surge in house prices witnessed in 2006 would not continue and that 2007 would see increases of 4% at most.

But Fergus Wilson predicts that prices will double every seven years and says the typical property he owns - a £200,000 two- to three-bed starter home - will cost £400,000 by 2013, £800,000 by 2020 and £1.6m by 2027.

In Ashford town centre, every estate agent knows the Wilsons. "They own great big chunks of the new-build estates around here, particularly Park Farm," said one. "They have single-handedly pushed up prices in the new developments, buying them off-plan and renting the lot out. It's tough for first-time buyers. As soon as a suitable property for a first-time buyer comes on to the market you get three or four buy-to-let investors putting in offers. You'd like to be able to sell it to a young couple but you just can't."

Like other Ashford agents, he did not want to be named for fear of upsetting the area's biggest landlord.

Did it really never occur to them that prices could ever crash... just magnificent and continuing HPI? Did they never stop and think about the (economy) reasons why prices crashed and people were losing their homes in the last recession?

Sometimes they buy property in job-lots, off-plan or directly from developers, drawing accusations that they are squeezing first-time buyers out of the market.

The couple deny this. "Put it this way," Mr Wilson says. "If you were selling a house, who would you rather deal with? A young couple who might pull out at the last minute, or Judith Wilson, who you know will not mess you around?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431224/How-maths-teachers-clocked-707-houses-240m-fortune.html

They still own that first house and rent it out — 'We never sell anything, my dear' — but these days, it is valued at £320,000. They clearly have a gift for this sort of thing. All the while, they kept buying investment properties on interest-only mortgages.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages-and-homes/buy-to-let/article.html?in_article_id=491788&in_page_id=56

Mr Wilson also denies he is desperate for cash to keep his property empire afloat. He claims to have three buyers 'cutting each other's throats' to buy the couple's portfolio.

Estate agent: Wilsons will have to sell at 30% discount

Local estate agents, however, are sceptical. Ian Fowler, of Savills in Sevenoaks, suggests that institutional investors interested in 700 houses in Kent will demand a discount of at least 20 to 30%.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages-and-homes/buy-to-let/article.html?in_article_id=491499&in_page_id=56

chucky

dopester wrote: »

That is difficult Chucky. I don't want to wind-you-up, but I'll take a few guesses in my answer. You won't be satisfied with my answer though (had a bad day and got home cold and tired, so don't expect an absolute clear response).

you won't/can't wind me up

i'm not a Wilsons fan but would rather look at the facts and make conclusions rather than agree what would be the worst thing that could happen to the Wilsons and say that's wha tis happening. an example is the council tax - it's a non-issue for them.

let me have a read and get back to you in the next couple of days. :beer:

fc123

chucky wrote: »

i'm with FCS on this where i don't think their lettings business is their downfall but their other activities.

I don't think I explained what I meant properly.....as I was being a bit glib.
Note to self ; Don't quote 'My Fair Lady'..

No doubt The Wilsons were in a pretty solid position in say 2000/02? However, it is plain they then felt a bit invincible and the climate at the time aided their expansion. They probably had a bit of the Naseem Taleb syndrome of ''I am here because I am so clever' feeling too not realsing it was a delicate combination of things.
Then, it grew and grew.
Fergus seems (to me) like a man that likes to be adored by his fellow man and loves to feel that he is a bit of a guru. The random interviews where he talks down to the interviewer are fairly telling......and he could convince himself that he truly was The Guru of BTL as he was 'worth' so many million.

What I meant by 'Vanity in Business' is it is important to know what parts of a business success are luck, chance, right moment, hard work, talent, skill and so on. It is very easy to put ones position in a moment as being just down to fabulousness. It's never just that.

Then came the clothes (who knew that it cost so much to look so bad?) and then came the toys. I am guessing that racing cars didn't happen as he couldn't fit into the drivers seat. Then he started to go to 'Rich Mans' events like horse racing.....then he decided he wanted to do that too...afterall, he is A Guru...look at the fortune they had made in just a decade.
So, he figured he could do it all over again....but with horses.
I just did a random google of fergus wilson + horses and this was the first link

Fergus Wilson, horseracing's very own village idiot, is planning to run yet another million-to-one betting no-hoper in the Epsom Derby on June 7, 2008.
The Kent-based 'millionaire' has built a reputation for running horses with no chance in the betting in big races, most notably with million-to-one chances in the Champion Hurdle and Cheltenham Gold Cup. This year he has a useless hurdler called Maidstone Mixture being targeted for the Epsom Derby, for which the horse is 500-1 in the betting but ought to be a billion-to-one.

Maidstone Mixture has never won on the Flat, is trained in France and has been campaigned over hurdles. Fool Fergus has fallen out with Maidstone Mixture's French trainer, Richard Chotard, over his plans to run the useless Maidstone Mixture in the Epsom Derby. So much so that the horse is being transferred to Paul Murphy in England to be prepared for his Epsom fiasco.

Fergus Wilson has been the scorn of the racing press over the years and certainly the owner is either deranged, deluded or just plain stupid. He has risked the welfare of high class horses by running useless nags against them. The racing authorities have yet to do anything meaningful about this ridiculous risk to life and limb. It will take a major accident to stop such idiocy.

Moron Fergus believes his horse "will not be disgraced". In fact it is the entire sport of racing that is disgraced by this donkey Derby romp.

The high living was the straw that broke the camels back. I have no idea what he spent on horses, but, had that cash stayed in the business, he may still be invisible now...just ticking over .

I can't believe I am writing about this couple :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

My sisters best friend lives in Ashford, I wonder if they have heard of this couple? I will ask at the next party.

sss555s

I'm not bothered about the Wilson's but i do like fc123's avatars :A