my buy-to-let dream cost me everything

$$$_12

I have as much sympathy as I would have for anyone buying up a human necessity that is apparently in limited supply.

I have no problem with anyone speculating on shares, tulips etc but if you start gambling on the pricing of food, water or shelter and drive up the prices for everyone else then you deserve everything you get if it goes wrong.

The only thing that surprises me is that she didn't learn not to be so naive before the age of the 52. Financial Darwinism in action.

RabbitMad

I'm torn between sympathy and apathy.

Its been quoted many times before but "If somebody has a risk free way of making unlimited money why the hell would they tell you about it?"

Simple sums would have shown on the first property that it wasn't going to work.
£170K mortgage = Approx £850 pcm interest only at 6%. Target rent £800, means she needs to find £600 + insurance + fees + voids etc.

Generali

She started a business that is all about cashflow without understanding cashflow. She was always going to be on thin ice.

coal9011

CB1979 wrote: »

i'm pretty sure it's this paragraph that gives it away!

Anne, not her real name, has been a taxi driver for most of her life. 'Driving day after day is long, hard work,' she says. So in January 2002, in a brave attempt to escape the daily grind, she parted with £6,000 of her precious savings to attend a three-day property investment seminar in London.

there says it all, if she's dumb enough to pay £6k (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) for someone to say you could make money on property then she was dumb enough to fail like she did, idiot.

Not unlike being charged £12,800 to train to become a Home Inspector to complile HIP's when to many inspectors are already trained or already in the system!!!!!!!!!

I'm not "dumb" but I nearly fell for that one! Only research put me straight

dannyboycey

Doc_N wrote: »

Today's Observer might give you a clue as to what's happening in the market:

House price crash feared as buy-to-let landlords sell http://money.guardian.co.uk/housepri...174921,00.html

A lot of landlords with 'buy-to-let empires' worth millions, could be the hardest hit *if there's a crash and find themselves out on the street, owing a fortune!



*when

Moorepart

That last line madee me realise the difference between recent btlers and old-fashioned landlords - the old-fashioned landlords had financial freedom already, they could buy without btl mortgages - that woman just wanted financial freedom, but at the expense of others - let's hope there are plenty more of these stories to come.

NuLandlordism is largely a product of banking deregulation and post-911 crazy credit. There was no real shortgage of rental properties as the limited demand was met by people who sank real capital into projects:mad:.

All NuLanlordism has done is made FTBs' 'property pounds' worth about 20p compared to the late ninties and created a load of forced renters.

It's also !!!!!!ed up the quality of the housing stockk as housings were 'renovated' with paper-mache B&Q kitchens and tubs of pollyfilla and routine maintenance not done. Once decent terraced streets of working class family homes have become tatty rental and HMO zones.

Every NuLandlord that faces financial ruin is a cause for celebration. I hope millions are wiped, I believe people will always be stupid or tempted but the legislation should prevent them from hurting themselves. that's why good taxi cabs have automatic door locks

coal9011

Moorepart wrote: »

That last line madee me realise the difference between recent btlers and old-fashioned landlords - the old-fashioned landlords had financial freedom already, they could buy without btl mortgages - that woman just wanted financial freedom, but at the expense of others - let's hope there are plenty more of these stories to come.

NuLandlordism is largely a product of banking deregulation and post-911 crazy credit. There was no real shortgage of rental properties as the limited demand was met by people who sank real capital into projects:mad:.

All NuLanlordism has done is made FTBs' 'property pounds' worth about 20p compared to the late ninties and created a load of forced renters.

It's also !!!!!!ed up the quality of the housing stockk as housings were 'renovated' with paper-mache B&Q kitchens and tubs of pollyfilla and routine maintenance not done. Once decent terraced streets of working class family homes have become tatty rental and HMO zones.

Every NuLandlord that faces financial ruin is a cause for celebration. I hope millions are wiped, I believe people will always be stupid or tempted but the legislation should prevent them from hurting themselves. that's why good taxi cabs have automatic door locks

Doohh! ........................ ??? ............... ?!#?!#?!#? :rotfl:

Innys

This person was a "victim" of her own greed and stupidity, plain and simple. So to suggest that she ought to be compensated for being fleeced by the property developers is an insult to those of us who bother to take care of our money.

If she, and others like her, were to be bailed out, isn't that moral hazard, a la Northern Rock?

Finally, what if the reverse had been true? What if she had made a X million on her portfolio? Would she have given 100% to the Exchequer? If not, why should the Exchequer pay her 100% of her loss? She gambled and lost - end of story.

This is just another example of people refusing to accept personal responsibility for their actions.

wherediditallgo

I hope she manages to keep her home, even if she loses the other properties. At her age, rent somewhere after owning a property will take some getting used to.

Having said that, it seems clear to me that she didn't do anything like enough research & was too impatient to reap the "rewards" of BTL investment to think properly about what she was doing. There was a series of programmes on a few years ago about people who made a million out of property investment, one of whom was a single parent who started off living in her mother's home. When she applied for council housing, she was told how long the waiting list was & decided it was too long for her, so she literally walked the streets in her area until she found a run-down house & asked the council for it, on the basis that she'd do it up at her expense & pay the going rate for the rent. As the property was in a hard-to-let area, the council agreed. As soon as she was entitled to buy the house under Right to Buy, she did so, knowing all along she had no intention of staying there long-term. She managed to buy another terraced house locally, & rented that out. Some twenty years on, she had something like 30 properties under her belt & had moved out of the first house into something much better, but she made sure that the property she lived in was paid off so that she wouldn't lose it if all the properties had to go. She was also self-employed. She didn't have any property-related training, but she did have the foresight (& common sense) to plan & take her time. She only bought properties in the local area, because she felt she needed to know her market, & the rent she charged was on the basis of covering the mortgage, insurance etc but no huge profits each month, as she felt that her main profit would come when the mortgages were paid off (I think they were all between 10-15 year terms). Hence, her properties were rented out as soon as the clean-ups had been done, she rarely had a property empty more than a couple of weeks in a year, & some of her tenants had been living in her properties for years.

Contrast her with this cabbie, who threw away £6,000 on a seminar she didn't need, & who didn't show any planning, patience or knowledge of her target market. You can see why she was likely to fail, regardless of what the market was doing.

Conrad

Had a great cold caller contact me from 7CI Property Investments, the opening line is "we teach you how to become a millionaire"!!

Can you imagine real millionaires taking time out of thier busy schedule to call little ole me?

This guy was a non too lucid call centre worker with apparantly all the skills and knowledge to turn me into an overnight property millionaire!

Equivolent to hot dog seller outside a football stadium calling out "role up role up, I can teach you how to become a premier league player overnight"