What First Motivated You To Start Investing In Property?

Hi Peter

I think there are two ways to interpret your question so I will answer them both.

I first purchased a property for fear of loss. I was 19 years old, it was 1987 and property prices were rocketing. My parents convinced me that if I didn't buy one then I might never have been able to get onto the housing ladder.

I first became a landlord out of necessity. It was 1989. I had already sold my first mid terrace, two up two down and decided to stretch myself and buy a three bed detached bungalow. However, interest rates shot up, the value plummeted and I was in negative equity. I had no choice other than to rent it.

The rest is a very long story - you can read it here >>> http://www.property118.com/my-first-intentional-property-investment-part-1-2/29019/
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I worked for many years in the hospitality industry, where tied accommodation was part of the remuneration. Bought a house so the family wouldn't be homeless if I lost my job, then realised we were rarely using it, so let the property out. Whilst I'm not a "big" landlord, I hope my experience of living in someone else's property, and of Joe Public's treatment of buildings, help me be a good landlord. Thank-you for Property 118, which I find very interesting.

i have been self employed since 1977, was not impressed with private pensions, or the people selling them, then in 1984 my landlord who i was renting a car repair workshop from paid me a visit to discuss a rent review, i asked if he would consider selling me the freehold, his response was yes boy but you will have to purchase the shop and flat out front as well. so i was a landlord, it worked well, and the depressed property market of the early 90s gave me the opportunity to buy buy buy. i sold the car work shop 6 yrs ago, and am now a full time landlord, and i enjoy it.

I can happily say that it was true love that made me get started in property!!

I met my husband Nick ten years ago at my sister's wedding, and it was love at first sight.

Nick and I were, and still are, devoted to one another and we wanted to find a way where we could spend as much time together as possible and take control of our own financial future.

I had two properties and Nick had one, so we pooled our resources, released equity from one of my flats in London, and started investing.

The rest, as they say is history. We celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in 12 days time. 🙂

Property is great to get involved with if you are in a couple as you will find the each of you have a different skillset that can be used in the business.

It has worked well for us!

I got into it accidentally really. My youngest son bought a house on mortgage and his wife ( now ex ) was a spendaholoic and they got into financial difficulties. So we bought a part of the house to ease their problems. They still couldn't afford it so we bought the whole property and they moved out and my mother and eldest son moved in after we had renovated it. In the meantime my wife's business partner's mother was selling her bungalow nearby and my wife wanted it. So we mortgaged the first house to pay for it and we renovated that too and put two bedrooms into the loft space. Since then they have both been rented out mainly to family and friends and we have had very little bad debt over it. At the moment my youngest son is in the "bungalow" and we are awaiting either a new tenant for the other house or we will sell it. We will make a decision by the end of the month. I have little faith in pension schemes and anything from that direction will be a bonus so we have three properties and manageable mortgages so they are our pension scheme. So there we go - accidental landlords!

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "08/08/2013 - 11:50":

Ditto-more or less-especially the time u did it. Sshh. keep quiet on my age.
My story's even longer, I'll tell another day when got more time.

I was a company director on a salary & pension but decided to take that big risk & strike out on my own. I sought pensions advice and all I could get at the time was "take out a pension" but the figures just didn't stack up. At the time I had a mortgage which was around £350 a month and one advisor suggested that I should take out a pension of around the same amount per month which would bring me around £150k (which sounded like a fortune in those days), when I retired which I could obviously increase by paying more into it over the years.

I'd heard about the impending AST's & I thought why don't I just buy another house and rent it out? Then the tenant would be paying the mortgage and I could use that money in my new business. The rising value should give me at least that pension figure if property prices continued to rise and if I didn't need to sell I could live off the rental until I did

When I suggested this to the advisor, he looked at me as if I was a Martian and said I was crazy to take such a huge risk. Well, I was brash and prepared to take risks at that time so I did and the rest is history.

Of course the early 1990's property price crash almost wiped me out but I managed to survive with prudent management and serious hard work.

R

Reply to the comment left by "r01 " at "11/08/2013 - 15:19":

well not that much of a big risk really if done properly, and you lock at it long term. my bank manager told me i was a fool at the time, but whos laughing now?

Reply to the comment left by "andrew townshend" at "11/08/2013 - 19:54":

Absolutely, what a wonderful thing hindsight is eh??

If you look at the way the financial crisis happened, you have to question any advice banks & other so called financial experts offer. Unless you are lining their pockets, perhaps you will always be advised not to do it...

R