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Posts Tagged ‘property deal’

Who Says January Is A Quiet Month In Property?

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Some say January is a quiet month in property.  Well not for me it ain’t!

I’ve been working on a few deals through the end of 2009.  Here’s a quick run down …

4 properties all in the same complex.  These came to me one at a time but I’ve ended up with all 4 and they’re all great little renters.  All currently tenanted earning a nice income.  The vendor has owned them for a couple years, maximised the use of the plot (by extending out the back to create two new properties) and now he wants to cash out.  He wants his money and I’m happy to oblige and get 4 good properties earning cashflow from Day 1.

Another block of 4 – this time a new build.  This is an interesting lease option deal on a property that has been converted into 4 falts from a detached family home.  Good terms for me (payment of £300 pcm for a property that rents out at £650) but short timescales on the option (6 months) so the vendor gets his money quickly.  Fair enough I say.  These are great to hold or to sell on, either to investors or owner occupiers.  And I’ve already found my first tenant buyer so at least one will be a sandwich.  I like these, so I think I’ll hold on to the rest.

Then the tricky one …  This deal has been jumping in and out of bed.  Another 4 flats  – these all exist on a single leasehold title.  The developer who refurbed them all to a nice standard with lovely open plan lounge / kitchen areas is going into administration and the bank are looking for a buyer with cash who can move quickly.  There’s a bit of a discount in it but at the moment the sticking point is the price.  I put a great bid together at £320,000, but they are looking for £360,000.  Whether or not we can work this one out … only time will tell.

And finally, I’ve found a builder to do the refurb on the purchase I made in November of last year … so I need to get that underway now.

So, all in all, I don’t think it’s been a quiet month for me at all.  And here we are, Valentine’s Day passed already and well into February.

Here’s to a full house and achieving all of the above – 3 out of 3!

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New Year! New Ambitions!

Monday, January 18th, 2010

So firstly … a belated Happy New Year on the 18th of the month, or as my solicitor said on the phone today ‘It feels like Christmas was months away’.

There’s a lot of talk about goal setting at New Year and I for one struggled with that this year. I’m not going to share my new goals here, but I will say … I worried about this for months, and then when they were the last thing on my mind I woke up one morning and instinctively knew what they were.

And I managed to avoid my usual problem – Making them REALLY complicated! Not this time. They have to be easy to track otherwise I get bogged down in following them.

So … onto my property news.

Since I last wrote, I completed on the 2 bed flat I’ve been blogging about for months. This was the longest running transaction ever (11 1/2 months all in!). It was tenanted from day 1 and I’m in the process of discussing quote with builders. I’ve shown 3 round so far – got 1 quote back. Looks quite interesting, except the first disappointing thing … my request for a ‘quote’ has resulted in an ‘estimate’. I don’t think this is a deliberate ploy and is nothing but a minor wording difference, but I still noticed!

While talking to builders I’ve also been pushing through some other deals and it looks like that’s coming to fruition. There’s a deal in Bitterne that is coming together nicely, figures to follow another time.

And while discussing that deal, I got to hear about another … worthy of a blog post all by itself. Check out ‘Rent 2 Own Progress’.

And there’s potentially another deal in the offing. A small block going at a discount because the title is all messed up and a little tricky. Well worth a look! More news as it happens!

Bye for now!

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Buying Buying Buying … Next Investment Property On It’s Way

Monday, October 19th, 2009

And so after a glorious 2 week holiday in the US to visit relatives and friends, PropertyBob is back and straight on it.

2 things have happened for me already …

Firstly, we’ve actually made some progress on my mammoth long running flat purchase. The last step in the chain to buy the place (going since January!) is to get buildings insurance in place. No small feat when the property has had subsidence AND the existing insurance has lapsed. But it looks like we’re coming through. Delite Insurance Broker has found with what appears to be a great policy from Nelson Insurance The premium is very reasonable and, better still, the excess for subsidence is the same as on a normal policy £1,000. This means it is far easier to get a regular every day mortgage rather than going to one of those specialist lender’s who fleece you. So … good good good. More on this if it comes off, when I’ll tell you all the financial numbers for the whole deal.

And the second thing … one of my estate agent friends has potentially found me another property. And this one could work out quite nicely. It’s a 3 bed house arranged as 2 flats, still on a single title. The bottom flat is rented out, the top one was being used by the owner’s brother, who recently moved out into council accommodation. So the owner’s looking to sell. Only at the moment it isn’t mortgagable because it is neither a 3 bed house nor 2 separate flats (because they’re not on separate title). All of which suggests to me that we could work something out. He gets the price he wants with no haggling from me AND I’ll sort out the split title problems for him (and pay half the costs!) and I get another property. Still very early days so hopefully I can share more details soon if it goes somewhere.

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Buildings Insurance – Dull but Essential

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Hey there guys!

Right I’m going to tackle a dull subject today – Buildings Insurance.

It’s not sexy and it’s not interesting, but it’s oh so important!

Here are the rules:

1. Get it – you need it!
2. Make sure you are covered for the full rebuild cost of the property (that’s not the amount you’d sell it for, it’s the amount it would cost to build – from scratch).
3. Don’t don’t don’t skimp on this. By all means, shop around and get some quotes, but don’t skimp on the cover. It’s not worth it. We all want to sleep at night after all.

The particular flavour of this problem that I’m battling with at the moment is a slightly tricky one.

I’m buying a flat that has had subsidence. It’s been underpinned, which happened a decade ago. And the property looks completely fine now with no signs of any more damage or anything so all is good on that front.

The problem? … The buildings insurance form when the work was carried out isn’t in place any more. This isn’t because they refused to insure or anything like that – it’s just because people are people and sometimes they have more important things to do in their lives. And so the existing insurance lapsed and the new insurer doesn’t know about the subsidence. That is – they didn’t know about the subsidence until I came along trying to buy the flat. So now the new insurer DOES know about it, but they are just a mainstream insurance company and this is a bit specialist so it’s no good.

The solution? … there are a few specialists out there who will sort this sort of thing out. It’s going to cost more money, and you have a bigger excess but such is life – that’s just the way these things go. And that’s what’s going on at the moment. I’m trying to persuade everyone concerned that they need to pay up for this expensive, specialist insurance. And to top that, you have to have a ‘structural engineers report’ written before they’ll even think about insuring the property, and that cost at least £290!!!!

I will buy this flat … it’s been going almost 9 months now, but we’ll get there … Oh YES!

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Your Property Deal Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Until your deal is done it’s not a deal and it isn’t done.

Anticipate every problem you can think of, plan for the worst and don’t be surprised if you’re surprised.

Let me explain …

I’ve been doing one particular deal since January. It’s August now and it’s still not done. And once we complete I’ve got a 3 month refurbishment to do. So all in, I’ll be lucky if I get this finished in 12 months start to finish.

Now it’s a great deal and I don’t want to pull out so I can be patient, but boy does ‘being patient’ take a long time! And it takes LOADS more time than I ever imagined.

Guess what’s caused the most recent problem …. yep you guessed it, finance! It’s been going so long my mortgage has expired, and after 2 extensions the lender has lost all patience (and to be honest I can’t really blame them!).

That doesn’t account for the 7 month delay. There have been lots of other reasons, it’s just the latest. But add them all up and it’s pretty costly. I’ve had the money ready for this deal all that time and it’s sat there doing nothing.

I could have bought another place, refurbed it and got a remortgage in the time it’s taken this one so far!

The lesson … don’t ever expect the deal to get done until it actually is. It’s a good job I can afford to wait. And until it’s done, don’t under any circumstance expect the return or any money from it. Don’t expect anything, and never need a deal to go through. That starts to get dangerous!

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