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

wynnvegas

Evening All,

Just finished off with the Financial Advisor. As gung ho as usual and he's helped us spot another couple of potential buy to let places in West Lothian and North Lanarkshire to go with the two we've seen in Falkirk and Grangemouth. We're spreading out already - watch out Glasgow!

Let's deal with the land piece first. I've got a list of questions to hit the vendor with tomorrow and we need to see how far beyond the £125k he's actually looking for. We can stretch a bit but if it gets silly, we'll have to be ready to walk away and that would hurt. We need to find out just how far we can expect the outline permission to be stretched (even with a new application) as, if it doesn't look a goer, we'll need to walk away. With a bit of luck, both these things will go in our favour, or at least not end with us chucking it. Having five acres and only being able to use 1/50th just won't make a lot of sense, however nice the plot is. A lot may progress come Monday when I meet with the planning department woman - best Billy charm on!

Onto the BTL - that's a definite goer. We'll hear tomorrow what the best offset options are (Lloyds TSB is getting the best write up thus far but we'll see what shakes out). We've stressed that we want maximum flexibility on the offset as we'll be juggling money about so fast and frequently that my spreadsheetism will be tested to the nth degree. In fairness, now that we're onto level 3 of seriousness, it'll be a combined effort between excel and project - milestone markers at the ready...We've employed our Home Improvement Specialist to come round on our visiting with us tomorrow night to one of the properties we saw yesterday and two that came to light tonight. There's clearly no time to waste in this game!

As for the volunteering, I need to be careful not to commit to too much. I really like the helping mentally and physically disabled folk back into work one and I'm ok with the helping young families in crisis one (although that's third on the list as it predominantly deals with post-natal depression and I wouldn't know where to start - although I wouldn't be an "on the ground" volunteer but more of a business co-ordinator). The one I'm really keen on is the charity that deals with the 12-21 year old crowd. Motivating kids to make the right decisions in life and helping folk who are hopefully open to it in work and life would be fantastic. Seeing the woman who runs that one on Monday morning but that goes to the top of the list.

Cheers,

Billy

waughc01

Hi Wynnvegas,
We used to do most of the jobs ourselves, but through time we have realised it is not cost and time effective. So we have started using local people that have been recommended to us or workmen that have done work in our own house. If it's a small job and i can fix it I will do it myself or my dad will do it. Have a fab roofer, we were getting qoutes of £800-£1000 he charged us £180 problem solved, i do feel when some workmen find out it's a btl the price goes up, so be careful what you say.
When we do a house/flat up, we spend between 1-2k depending what work needs carried out. Carpets for 3 bed house maxium £500 get one colour throughout not too light, get off cuts of vinyl for kitchen and bathroom and fit it yourself (you can lift the old vinyl and use it as a template) talking from experience. Magonlia paint for the walls .plain light shades no fancy lighting, good loft insulation (epc). Take loads of photos good idea about filming it.
Never went down the road of self assessment pay £300 pound a year for an accountant in Bathgate to do mine and my husbands and he has saved us a fortune.

wynnvegas

Thanks Waugh,

We're not at all handy so we know we'll have to spend a bit of money getting jobs done. We definitely need to start building a network of peeps who we can rely on. I've got a few folk on team Billy that I'm perfectly happy with (financial guy, letting agent, joiner / carpenter) but we'll need a lawyer, an accountant and a massive variety of good specialist tradesmen no doubt. I'm ok with sorting out the odd lick of paint but anything beyond that will need to be slopey shouldered at a cost. Where do you tend to get your carpets and offcuts from?

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

Just a brief dip in as it's a pretty hectic day (aren't they all!). Summary version of life this week:

Work going exceptionally well - pay increase backdated so will hit the bank on Tuesday - strategy agreed - fully stocked with the likely final piece coming in on Tuesday for a chat.

Seen 4 houses - rejected 2 - waiting on details for one - offered and had verbal acceptance on one - 2 more to see in the next 72 hours. Offset set up with Coventry Building Society (who!?) as that seems to tick all the boxes in terms of rate (2.79%) and flexibility.

Spoken with 4 volunteer opportunities - need to knock back 2 - accepted one and have a load of forms to fill out to accept the fourth (20 hours a month is the plan - hopefully that time can be banked against any crimes I may wish to commit in the future).

Land not looking good - 6 potential buyers in (damn their collective eyes) - seeing the planning officer on Monday - pretty much resigned to losing our lovely plot!

Cheers,

Billy

lulabelle1

If it's meant to be the plot will be yours Billy...... Fingers crossed it all works out.

Twiddy

Hi Billy

Do I recall correctly you bringing in some other investor(s)? Will this not support your claim enough on the plot?

Chin up mate, in the words of Wayne on "Waynes World"......"It will be yours, oh yes, it will be yours"....

All the Best
T

wynnvegas

Hi L / Twiddy,

We're already being quite philiosophical about things - not quite to the "excellent" (wink to camera) standard of Wayne's World!

Twiddy, Investor 1 has been incommunicado for the last few days. He'll doubtless be unimpressed that we're off and running without him but that's what happens when you don't pick up the bloody phone!

Cheers,

Billy

Twiddy

wynnvegas wrote: »

........but that's what happens when you don't pick up the bloody phone!

His loss Billy, he's got to understand that you're keeping the ball rolling....if he doesn't want to roll with it, thats his choice...

All the best
T

wynnvegas

Hi Twiddy,

I don't think it will matter much. We've started building the appropriate contacts so we can help push him in the right direction with his portfolio. It was increasingly likely that we were going to do this at the same time rather than together due to the potential complications down the line with legal wranglings and the like.

Cheers,

Billy

Tiggger

Hi Billy,

CBS is our local society and we have had our mortgages with them for the last 14 years, they have been excellent, really supportive to overpayments and even suggested a better deal when I went in to open an ISA, and they noticed our mortgage wasn't on the best deal!

I would recommend them.
Cheers,

Tiggger