When is a crack not a crack? When it’s a concern. Ok, not a great piece of humour, ironically a little like cracker humour, if you’ll forgive the pun. Joking aside, cracks in our world (of property) are worth understanding – many a deal has turned out to be a poor one because the buyer…
Even in the world of buy to let familiarity really can lead to ‘contempt’, especially when it comes to property management and arranging property repairs. Because the bulk of my buy to let properties are around 150 miles from home I have a number of different managing agents who look after them. Delegating the management…
Following on from my post about how to keep a lid on your repair costs I’m now kicking myself even more because I’ve realised that I could have done even better than Patrick’s much more reasonable price of £1585 for a new boiler in one of my buy to let properties. I could have got…
Search Around For The Best Finance For Renovation Projects. Lenders require a property to be habitable from day one before they will advance a buy to let loan. Many buy to let lenders are reluctant to advance mortgages against properties which require even minor works of repair, modernisation or improvement. The rationale behind this is…
Light Refurbishment Finance Available Today In the previous post we looked at light refurbishment and how it works. Let’s have a look at the different light refurbishment products offered by the different lenders. Paragon Mortgages Here’s how the Paragon limited refurbishment scheme limited works. The minimum valuation requirement is £75,000. Up to 75% of…
Be Clear on How Much The Works Will Cost Before Your Start The amount you pay will depend on where you are located, the size and quality of the property you are working on, the quality of the work you instruct, how many quotes you obtain and how hard you ‘negotiate’ with your contractors, and…
Know How Much Value The Works Will Add Before You Start Before doing any works of repair, renovation, modernisation and improvement, we will want to be sure that they will add value. That is, unless there are other good reasons for doing the work, such as, we are obliged by law to undertake them, or…
Number One – Be Clear in Your Own Mind Why You Want to Renovate There are two main reasons why we will probably want to refurbish a property. The first is because it’s a rental property for letting out. The second reason is because it’s a property we’ve bought to refurbish and sell on. If…
Here’s a property I have just purchased. I now have to decide whether to sell on as is, or whether to keep it, renovate and sell on, or to keep it, renovate and let out as a buy to let investment property
This is a video I made in November 2013. I bought the property through an estate agent in the normal way. The property was on for £83,000 and I paid £82,000, so there was nothing clever in my negotiation. I could have renovated it and kept it as a buy to let investment property. But…