Possible to buy-to-let with only 60k / no mortgage

topperdoggle

So much to keep up with, thanks for responses, I'll get to them all soon...

ACG wrote: »

I think most of wales to be fair but possibly the towns.

Go on right move and you can draw an area. Draw massive big area and put a budget of say £65-70k - knowing you can knock the price down a bit?

As for the other bits, i personally wouldnt trust the majority of letting agents as far as i can throw them. Do you not have anyone you can ask? Either existing landlords or people renting and have a good letting agent?

Okay, I've had a look at the map and Cardiff in particular has a university right in the city centre. I guess it's relatively expensive but that's what the mortgage is for, right? Swansea as well - the university is a little further out, but still not far.

I don't think I'd look elsewhere in Wales - it seems that without a university or a good reason for YPs to live there, it's not clear what the rental demand in a given place would be.

RAS wrote: »

Most of West Yorkshire would have lots in your range. Avoiding student apartments, you would still pick up stuff in the £35-45K range and have enough to refurbish.

See http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41122811.html

or

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-38599990.html

And Bradford/Dewsbury/Five Towns would be cheaper.

I'll have a look at the university towns in West Yorkshire. Even if I'm not going to let to students, I'm making the assumption that university towns are generally in more demand. I'd be really nervous trying to let something in a small village - in my view these are more places where people go to settle down.

00ec25 wrote: »

so by law you MUST use a letting agent in the UK OR provide a UK address at which you can be contacted otherwise you cannot become a LL

as said in your thread on the investments board advice on your plans is meaningless without knowing your objectives:
- your age/pension plans and what % of your savings is £60K?
- how much cash do you have after the £60K for contingencies both for property problems and for life?
- do you have any idea what risk you would accept given your objective is rate of retrun measured against fully protected "safe" cash based investments, what is you balance between income and capital risk?

I'm 36 and have pension cover through work, although I confess I don't understand the details too well.

The 60k is the majority of my savings - I do have a little cash over for a rainy day, but it has been a year of heavy loan repayments (just moved house, bought furniture, white goods etc). I anticipate being able to save around £500 / month moving forward (rough figure).

I know that I need to take more of a risk that my so-called "safe" cash in the bank, which in my opinion is wasting away compared to inflation. It's safe in that there is no market at play, but the return is ridiculously low (even negative in real terms).

Equities are all very well, but if you "invest" short-term, you need to keep your finger on the pulse of the market and if you go for value investing, you still need to put in a lot of effort and learning to understand the companies and markets, and after that you're still subject to a lot of factors that I personally don't understand.

I know some people do well, but to me, it is somewhat random (and I have read books on the subject trying to convince that it is possible to make sense of the chaos). Property (in my opinion) is much more of a slow burn, and potentially provides capital growth as well as income.

Of course one never knows what will happen tomorrow, but I'm much more able to understand that people want to live near Lincoln University, compared to that the board of Marks and Spencer have a brilliant business plan which will produce great results and a lot of other people will want to buy their shares, raising the value.