Your Property Questions Continued - Deep Dive Q&A From The Progressive Property Community
Welcome back to The Progressive Property Podcast. In today’s episode, Peter continues to answer your questions from the Progressive Property community. Learn the right and wrong questions to ask a letting agency, hear the essential advice you need to know if you’re a complete beginner in property and learn about Peter’s own journey in property own the last 18 years.
Hear the real-life questions from the property investors out there doing it today and taking action. If you’re not yet part of the Progressive Property Community click here to join now.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Questions from the Progressive Property community
What questions should you ask a management company?
One thing to look at is how they structure their company. Look to deal with specialist management companies that also deal with Lettings. This way if you have a tenant move on you can seamlessly market the property and let it out again, inhouse. Look to see if they are a local company or part of a chain and from here you can see their systems and processes. For example, do they do inspections and home visits? Do they specialise in letting certain property strategies? Really you want to know as much as possible and especially “What is your procedure if a tenant goes into arrears?”What would you do differently if you were starting now?
If I knew then what I know now it would most likely have been different. Times have changed since I started investing in 2000 with software, systems, communities and training more available now than ever. Things are now much better for investors than they used to be. To be honest I would have done more flips and been less cautious. If possible I would have looked to invest more in HMO’s and commercial conversions with the new planning laws. I’d also like to have done more options and delayed completion deals during the credit crunch. Finally, if I were to start again now, I would raise a lot more private finance and joint-ventures from the beginning.
What advice would you recommend for a complete beginner?
The key thing for a beginner is getting started. The one thing that always lets them down is simply fear. It’s rarely the case that you’ll go out and lose all of your money if you’ve been educated. Make sure you just get started and take action, you don’t need to wait to find your goldmine area you can get started anywhere. It’s better to invest somewhere than to invest nowhere. The one thing you should know is your reasons why, what you’re trying to achieve and how you’ll achieve it.BEST MOMENTS
“Problems compound with time. You need to nip it in the bud as soon as possible”
“Always back yourself and go for it”
“Your network is your NETworth”
“Even a mistake in property will grow out in time”
“It’s better to invest somewhere than to invest nowhere”
VALUABLE RESOURCES
Join the Progressive Property Community here:
http://www.thepropertyteacher.co.uk/
ABOUT THE HOST
Peter Jones is a Chartered Surveyor, an author and a serial buy-to-let property investor. He has been involved in property for over 35 years and now owns 78 letting units. He is still actively involved in buying and renovating property, and regularly flips properties for profit. Peter has written a number of successful property books. The first, An Insider’s Guide to Successful Property Investing, was first published in 2000 and was
one, if not the very first, book of its kind which was written for what we’d now call buy-to-let investors. On the back of its success, he was invited to be a guest writer for Property Secrets and wrote Spanish Property Secrets, French Property Secrets, and Portugal Property Secrets. He has since written a number of other successful titles dealing with UK investing including 63 Common Defects in Investment Property and How to Spot Them, the highly acclaimed The Successful Property Investors Strategy Workshop and The Property Renovator’s Workshop ,in which Peter describes step-by-step how he built his own property portfolio, starting with virtually none of his own money.
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