Mortgage Free - so good they'll do it twice! Wynnvegas aiming for the big house

wynnvegas

Thanks L,

We'd best take account of that then! That could well affect the figures pretty dramatically. We've done the initial sums and everything looks quite promising but we'll firm everything up before we rush into buying anything. I'd be keener on houses than flats in the main.

Just about to chase up Investor 1 about the plot. We don't want to hang about and we should be in a position to secure the deal within 7-10 days all things being equal. The architects may throw a required spanner in those works though as we'll almost certainly need to do some questioning of the local council planning board.

Cheers,

Billy

gallygirl

Plot looks stunning Billy :j. What's the situation re planning? Can we have the guest suite overlooking the trees in the last piccie please, if all right with everyone else .

waughc01

Hi Wynnvegas,
We pay roughly £40 a month factor fees for our flats (new build flats). Some flats we have no factor fees as they are four in a block all have there own main door (outside) and no stairwell. I would stick with houses as there is more demand for them than flats in our area. When I advertise my houses they are away within a day. If possible go for 3 bed ex council house, this is all to do with council tax, try and stick to band b as this can be a big issue with renting, everyone is on a tight budget these days. Good luck.

wynnvegas

Hi Gally,

The Gally Guest Suite is one of the main priorities on everyone's mind! consider it reserved...

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Thanks Waugh,

That's really helpful. Ex council houses it is for us I think. How many do you have in your portfolio? I'm trying to work out what is manageable.

Cheers,

Billy

gallygirl

I think that's the right route Billy, there will always be 'council house' tenants around. Just make sure you don't get HB paid direct to you as if they've been overpaid it's you who will be liable :eek:

wynnvegas

Thanks Gally,

Had a good chat with an experienced BTLetter this morning and it certainly seems that inviting trouble is the way to go. He said he's had tenants who he thought were really good and, because of that, he didn't mind spending a good bit of money to spruce the place up. Needless to say, that example went awry and they qwrecked the joint. His advice was to go for DHSS folk as that way you expect and plan for the trouble but you're then pleasantly surprised when it doesn't happen. Bit of a sad way to look at society but I'm all for a bit of realism upfront. There is now a scheme where the council kindly puts the house back into the appropriate state of repair after a tenant leaves if it is necessary to do so. As such, the potential losses are mitigate quite considerably. I believe that the councils no longer allow payments direct to landlords for that very reason.

Just contemplating whether it's better kicking this whole thing off in March or April once the worst of the weather is out of the way...

Cheers,

Billy

waughc01

Hi Wynnvegas,
We have 5 rental propertys, had more but some of our tenants have wanted to buy our properties from us. We would have bought more but my husband now works in Africa and can only get home every 3 months for a week or two. I also work and have two teenagers to look after, I have my hands full. We won't be buying any more btl properties as I feel that is enough for us (me) lol.
Don't take too much on to quickly, you have to find out what works best for you. I have a friend that has 1 btl and I have another friend who has nearly 100 btl. Everyone is different and we all have different goals in life.
Hope this helps.

wynnvegas

Thanks Waugh,

We've had a stupidly busy day - update to come. I agree that it needs to be manageable so we're maybe not going to dive in and grab 5 right off the bat. 100 sounds like quite the thing! Maybe we need to set some clear goals for the next ten years or so. All this uncertainty is no good for my control freakery...

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Evening All,

What a day! It started at 6:30am and finished at 9:30pm and encompassed nearly everything I and we are either currently or prospectively into.

Let's kick off with work. Today, I managed to hold an appraisal first off where we're pushing the guy in question into a Junior Consultancy role over the next 18 or so months. Quickly moved onto an investigation of fraudulent activity that needs sorted out, went from there to a dismissal meeting to kick a not so brilliant guy out of the place, ran an induction session for our newest member of staff, confirmed a promotion for one of the girls in the Call Centre, completed the November payroll report, pushed the ownership of our Consultancy team to a more appropriate person, slopey shouldered an anlaysis of one of the Group companies' work records and obtained all the necessary information to run an analysis and renegotiation of our fleet costs with a view to renegotiating the existing deal or identifying and pushing a new deal. That was just the morning!

Met with the architect in the early afternoon to visit the prospective site. Still looking pretty good as he is not overly concerned about any aspect of what he saw. Still a lot of boxes to tick but that is stage 2 cleared! Next is building the list of questions that we need to push to the seller / vendor after which we'll need to make a call on buying the plot or leaving it alone. I'm hoping we might get something along the lines of a conditional sale but I'm told these aren't commonplace in this type of game. Investor 1 and I are going to see the place on Saturday to see if he wants to get involved. I'm going to visit the local planning office on Monday to gauge just how good or bad they will be in assisting us with this site or any other prospective site as we're ok with the general area. Architects are coming round on Thursday and are currently prepping a fee proposal so we'll need to see what their services are going to run us.

Moved onto meet with the CEO of a local charity on my volunteer kick. This one is looking pretty promising as he wants to me join the board of directors immediately. There's a few forms to fill in but I like the organisation and the guy that runs it so it's already looking decent - it's a charity that tries to help vulnerable groups back into employment. That should progress this week alongside another couple of volunteer opportunities. I'll need to watch my time with these so I'll probably stick with a maximum of 3 at the moment.

Went for a bit of a swim and then a game of badminton with Moyra (won at the swimming with 30 lengths and got beat in the badminton 15-7, 15-9, 15-17. Damned her eyes and booked again for next week.

Subsequently picked up the letting agent and went to visit two flats and a front door. The first flat was a pokey 3-bedroom number with the smallest bath I've ever seen (no 12-jet jacuzzi either but that may have been hoping for more than is reasonable!). Carpets were minging and the rooms were a strange shape but the rental income could well come in at around £550-600p/m which then starts to make sense. We're going to get our home improvement guy into that one in the next couple of days to get an idea as to what will be necessary to bring it back up to a lettable standard. Secondly, we went to visit a front door. The girl has popped off to America until January and didn't leave the keys which is a shame as this is the one with the mental colour scheme. I was really interested to see if the BLUE was quite as loud in living colour. Not likely to be much use for us as I do at least want to understand what's going on in a prospective place before we buy it. Someone else is interested according to the agent (isn't that always the case...) so we'll likely let that one go. The third property was a 2-bedroom flat with a sitting tenant (no financials on this one yet mind) and it was a brilliant flat with a decent level of upkeep at the moment and loads of potential if anything was needing done to it in time. The last one was the best of the bunch so we'll be taking that forward as our potential first purchase. The next stage is to see the Financial Advisor tomorrow evening to look at setting up the offset for the BTL project (although I'm told about equity discounting which may not require any money upfront - need to find out more about this) and the potential lending for the Big House plot.

Hope everyone else is well...and a bit less manic!!

Cheers,

Billy