I've made £40k - what do I do????

moyville

Thanks for all the replies. I've been away finding horace's bank account details

I'll add a few more biographical details in answer to some of the points made, particularly from Melissa177, leftieM & Gorgeous George...

I bought the house in 1998, as a shop assistant earning £13k a year. The house was bought for £29,995 [2-up, 2-down terrace in N.England). I've taken out additional borrowing. I now owe £38,900 on the mortgage. The house is valued at £90,000. I've been offered £87,000, which I'll probably take. Minus the fees of about £3,100 [everything] I'm left with about £45,000 profit.

In the last 8 years my income has gone up from £13k to £23k pa.

OK, so that's where I stand. Does that change any of the advice offered thus far?

Thanks for everybody's help.

ManAtHome

Not really - if you look at it in possibly a slightly odd way, you'd have to take out a £42k mortgage to buy the house back (at £87k) which is more than your old mortgage was...

Who profits from housing booms? Banks, governments, estate agent... and your surviving family!

Doozergirl

One of your primary aims in life, if you have a mortgage, is to pay it off.

Buying more property is not a ticket to that destination and taking out additional borrowing on your house is not clever, unless it is directly going to improve the value of your property.

No one can or should rely on the market rising to provide income. We make a living from property and rather than relying on price rises we very much budget for a stagnant market but also have to account for a fall in property prices when we buy in order to safeguard ourselves!

Frankly;
a) BTL rarely pays enough to even bother, unless you fancy subsidising someone to live in your property
b) If you fancy buying a wreck and doing it up, you won't have to pay tax on the profit if that house is your home. That is the way to start to see if being a 'property entrepeneur' suits you. (though I would have thought being an entrepeneur entailed doing something a little different to the rest )

As far as I'm concerned, making money from property is a proper job. I'd be genuinely interested to hear from anyone who makes money and doesn't!