Buy to Let starting out – Families DSS Student HMO?

Buy to Let starting out – Families DSS Student HMO?

10:11 AM, 28th March 2016, About 8 years ago 33

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Firstly hello everyone. I am a 55 year old single man. I lost my job a year ago, and it was recently suggested to me I look at BTL as a business idea.start

I have my own home with clear equity of £200k, and liquid savings of approx. £60k. I am expecting an inheritance to come through in the next four to six months that will be around £400k.

I would be looking at buying properties for cash, no leverage to start with until I have a little experience. I am looking into properties in the North of England, and I intend to move up there as soon as possible. I have a friend who lives in the area with experience as a letting agent, her husband is a retired builder, and both are willing to help me where necessary, so there is good local knowledge.

I will only buy for cash to start with, probably with a start budget of around £300k but I would appreciate a little advice if possible. I am carrying out a lot of due diligence on the area, the types of property, local services, schools etc where relevant to the type of tenant I am hoping to attract. The area I am looking at is between Sheffield and Leeds.

Where I am in need of helpful advice is the best type of properties to go for at the start.

Do I look at buying five or so for £60k each and letting to DSS or similar low income?
Do I consider HMOs, for students or also DSS?
Do I consider fewer higher priced properties for small families and nicer parts (3 bed semis for example?
What about small but attractive flats for young individuals looking for small cheap rental accommodation?
Another possibility is two or three far cheaper properties that need renovation and then let or even flip?
A combination of the above?

Any advice is very gratefully received, thank you.

Stephen


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Comments

Jeremy996

14:51 PM, 5th April 2016, About 8 years ago

If you are not heavily involved in property now I would suggest that you keep clear and stick to conventional investments as you are going to have quite a learning curve.
If you are determined to go down the property route, set up a limited company, make loans to it, buying and administering your property from the limited company. Use the limited company to route as much as you can into a pension scheme in your own name. If you use a SIPP wrapper, you can invest into commercial property with your pension money. Unless all of your property makes a surplus of cash year on year, you will have problems, so manage the cash flow carefully and treat any capital gains as a happy accident.
Central government appears to have declared war on the private landlord, so build a structure that you can sell to someone else as a cash machine.
I have a number of clients who have set themselves up as small scale property developers who are enjoying themselves immensely. Selling houses that are ready to move into is proving rewarding in North Nottinghamshire.

Paul Fay

23:01 PM, 25th April 2016, About 8 years ago

Personally I believe that if implemented, Clause 24 will cause a real shake out in the market and I would sit back, see what happens and take stock. I can only see property prices going south from here until C24 works through the system.

If you see a bargain, great, go for it but in the absence of same, keep your powder dry and wait for the right time to invest. It's the buying that makes you money and at the moment the market is massively overvalued (IMHO).

Michael Fickling

9:04 AM, 26th April 2016, About 8 years ago

Property only really works well as an investment with significant leverage through borrowing.Despite all the hype the long term average capital growth on homes in the uk is around 3% per annum. You should note that even that figure is significantly false on the high side.. as it takes no account of improvements to houses over the years............Attic bedrooms,extensions garages new kitchens etc etc etc.Walk down any street thats say fifteen years old and you will find at least half the homes have been improved.Those significant improvements massively inflate the supposed figures. The addition of further bedrooms particularly so.

So what about rents ?..The typical house will return around 4% of its purchase "price" per annum in rent...
No small business can operate on margins around 3 and four percent.
Only the longer term relatively ensured capital growth and rent growth COUPLED with leverage makes this possible to be a sensible investment.
Get a job and set your rentals up on sensible leverage in the best area you can find for long term growth....It is highly unlikely to be in the north of england. Understand leverage on capital growth and also clause 24..note the frequent misquotes and misunderstandings around the so called 20% allowance........
..and its three pronged selection process..so rarely commented upon....then take a maths based approach and i suspect you might want to change your plans.

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