Gallygirl's "A journey of 121,226.67 pounds begins with a single penny" diary

Radish72

We have homework to do?

Sorry miss, the dog ate mine

nattypants

gallygirl wrote: »

Feeble excuse Froggy but hope you're having a good time .

OK girls - can I see your homework please?

Pants weather here, pants forecast.

Pants things happening to good people.

All a bit pants really .

Whassup GG?

unhappy_shopper

Hi GG, hope you recover from the pants-phase ASAP. Can I be included in the refocus group - I did buy a 5p bag at M&S to carry my YS goodies as had forgotten to take my trusty cloth carrybag.

Also I would like an invite to your survey/make-some-money-for TT venture. Thanks in advance.

US

unhappy_shopper

gallygirl wrote: »

I've never really found anywhere so let me know how you get on :rotfl:.

Basically, I'd advise you to not look at big houses or old houses, less demand for former, too expensive on upkeep for latter. I also wouldn't go for student lets (no uni near me anyway) as I wouldn't want the annual hassle. You can go for a nice place to let to professional people who may move on fairly quickly, so you'll get more voids, or an ex-council or cheaper private house where you'll get 'council tenants' who'll want to stay put. Also see what is happening locally about the bedroom tax - I reckon 2 beds will become more popular.

Rightmove is great as you can map out areas you're interested in. Set up a simple spreadsheet showing rental values. Then look at houses to buy and work out yield. Gross yield (simply the annual rent as a % of value) gives an indication of most profitable types/areas. Look at cheaper areas (but not the worst :eek:).

Tax wise it's a bit complex. All buying (and later, selling) costs are not tax deductible (but can be used to offset capital gains when house prices rapidly increase and you sell at a massive profit :rotfl:). The interest part of the mortgage is tax deductible, as are all repairs and maintenance deemed necessary to stop deterioration of the property. So you could redecorate when empty but not claim for gold leaf wallpaper . Insurances etc are tax deductible and you can claim a small amount of non-receipted expenditure for mileage etc.

We aimed initially to have the mortgage paid off in 25 years by the rental income, so say a 20k investment would be worth 100k with no further financial input (and that's assuming 0 house price increases). No chance of achieving that elsewhere if you're not prepared to invest in the stock market. Over time we've paid all the excess income back in so it will be paid off sooner and we can then live on rental income.

Not sure if you or Mr Radish are higher rate tax payers? If you both are then that is a killer. If one if, I believe it's possible to buy the house jointly but determine that all the rent goes to the 20% taxpayer.

It's no good if you stress over things, and you need to treat as a business. You need to sort out landlord insurance, gas safety, protect the deposits and have a list of tradesmen you can call on at short notice.

Happy to advise further with my limited knowledge :cool:. I don't recommend going on the MSE forum as they're scary :eek:.

Do you want me to help you look for somewhere ?

Have bookmarked your sage advice for use if an accidental-BLT purchase happens in future. Thanks :beer:

gallygirl

Goodness US, that was quite sensible from me, wasn't it? I must have been drunk at the time :rotfl:.

https://www.emysteryshopper.com/ - that's the co I use, if you do register you need to do a survey as a trial then they will accept you. If you do register please send me your name by PM as I can get a referral fee . Basically, paid to window shop or research a holiday .

Natty did you do your homework?

nattypants

gallygirl wrote: »

Natty did you do your homework?

I forgot. I got caught up in the merits of coconut oil

unhappy_shopper

gallygirl wrote: »

https://www.emysteryshopper.com/ - that's the co I use, if you do register you need to do a survey as a trial then they will accept you. If you do register please send me your name by PM as I can get a referral fee . Basically, paid to window shop or research a holiday .

Have registered and am now waiting for the email survey.

gallygirl

:j:j:jPAYDAY :j:j:j

Prolonging the excitement, haven't logged on to banking yet .

Em, are you all aware the forums are down this weekend :eek:. I'm trying to decide on a coping strategy as we have a quiet weekend :cool:. Gardening featuring highly, and have a few edig surveys to do. Plus I have about £1,800 cash in my pension fund so going to have fun spending that . Plus the paper gremlins have been breeding :eek:. And I have stuff to get ready for ebay. That should do (actually, if I get through all that I'll be well chuffed :T).

It's Friday :T:T:T

nattypants

Seeing as the forums are down, I might

# finally register for that edig survey thing

# go through my garage 'stock' to prepare for car boot in 2 weeks time

# as above, except to see what else I can fleabag

# pretend I'm gonna do some Uni work

"Happy pay day to you, happy pay day to you, happy pay day to you-hoo, happy pay day to yooooooooo"

Happy Pay Day GG:T

elantan

How you going with deciding which funds for the pension ?

Have to admit I feel like I need a refocus myself