Remember Fergus Wilson?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

According to the bears he was doomed, was going to lose it all in the great crash as rents fell with house prices, and was effectively bankrupt.

The reality is a tad different.....;)

The king & queen of buy-to-let

Former schoolteachers Fergus and Judith Wilson have 700 houses around Ashford and Maidstone, in Kent, bought using buy-to-let loans. "Life could not be better," they say.

The typical rent they charge on a two-bed house has risen from £725 in 2008 to £850.

Many expected their debt-leveraged property empire to crash during the financial crisis, but the collapse in interest rates has left them making more than ever.

On average, they pay 2.25% interest on their loans, with some of costing as little as 1.65%, compared with the 5% rates first-time buyers typically pay. "Properties that were breaking even or losing us £50 per month are now making as much as £900 a month profit," says Fergus.

The average capital gain on his properties has been "£9,000 per unit over the past year", he says, suggesting he has made a paper gain of at least £6m. "For every £1 we are making in rent, we are making another £1 capital gain."

He expects home ownership in Britain to continue to decline to little more than half of all households, bolstering his rental business.

"There is such a shortage of property, it couldn't be better. Some of the tenants are telling me they have given up entirely on the idea of home ownership.

Gordon Brown said we are 3m properties short in this country and he was right.

Many young people have to get it into their heads that they are going nowhere in the property market.

Thatcher sold off the social housing, which we could probably do with now, but that's all in the past." He adds that most of his new tenants are migrants from eastern Europe. "Around 90% of what we're letting in Maidstone is going to Hungarians … It's a landlord's market for the simple reason that there is such a shortage of housing."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jun/28/new-class-landlords-profiting-generation-rent

GhIFA

It's in The Guardian Hamish, it "doesn't count"!!!

shortchanged_2

Lets just hope they put some away for a rainy day then.

Graham_Devon

To be fair, they couldn't have got a bigger break if they had even wished for one.

Their lender had to put them on a special rate in order that their lender didn't go bust due to their custom.

Basically the wilsons couldn't afford the repayments. That would normally be fine, but in this case, the lender was so exposed if the wilsons had gone down, so would the lender.

You don't get many scenarios like that.

It's not exactly business skill or a great investment. It's purely being down to too big to fail. I suppose some will see that as a good thing, others won't see it as a good thing.

I note they still have the same number of houses. They were supposed to have sold a good two thirds by this point. Again, it looks too big for even them to unwind.

Clearly he WAS doomed, he WAS going to lose it all. The savour for him is that him failing led to the mortgage company failing, so they had to go with what he could afford to pay.

I doubt you would be congratulating a bankrupt in any other scenario for being too big to go bankrupt. But this is about houses, so the fallout and all those paying for it is good.

If he's really making £900 a month per property after all this then I can't say that goes down well with me. 1. Thats excessive and 2, we, the taxpayers are paying towards it, as the last I heard over 40% of his tenants were on housing benefits (another reason he had to be saved as the council had no where to home these people if he went bust).

ILW

They have something like 1000 houses, each now making 2-300 pounds per month after interest payments. No bad going for all the jealous squealing they have to put up with.

the_flying_pig

"It's a landlord's market for the simple reason that there is such a shortage of housing"

nothing at all to do with ZIRP then.

"There is such a shortage of property, it couldn't be better"

what a hero. the economeh needs thousands more like him.

basically the wilsons had a good business model [looking for areas with high yield] in the 90s that became a crazy, doomed business model in the 00s [just hoovering up all property regardless of yield, 100% based on capital gains] that by accident became a good one again in the 10s thanks to ZIRP [next to no capital gains but actually generating cash again].

i don't suppose his ramping has anything to do with his still hoping to sell several hundred houses.

IronWolf

"There is such a shortage of property, it couldn't be better. Some of the tenants are telling me they have given up entirely on the idea of home ownership.

Gordon Brown said we are 3m properties short in this country and he was right.

Many young people have to get it into their heads that they are going nowhere in the property market.

What a selfish pr*ck. Rather than call for more housebuilding he thinks young people should just "get it into their heads" so that scum like him can profit.

One of the things I hate about low interest rates is that over-leveraged morons like this guy are saved while thinking they are some sort of financial genius.

Graham_Devon

IronWolf wrote: »

What a selfish pr*ck. Rather than call for more housebuilding he thinks young people should just "get it into their heads" so that scum like him can profit.

One of the things I hate about low interest rates is that over-leveraged morons like this guy are saved while thinking they are some sort of financial genius.

And it seems some others believe he is too!

ILW

Graham_Devon wrote: »

And it seems some others believe he is too!

I would suggest he is making a better living then 99.9% of the people slagging him off.

so who is the fool?

Thrugelmir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Their lender had to put them on a special rate in order that their lender didn't go bust due to their custom.

Unlikely to have been so simple.

With some sound financial management. The business has been turned around. People with the ideas often lack all the skills required.

dryhat

A zombie business propped up by zombie banks.