Professional landlord -AMA

[Iwishicouldflyhigh]

Mumsnet gives LL's such a hard time, so i'm going to start this thread and then hide. I started investing in my early twenties (myself and DP bought our first home, then we let it out and bought another cheap one to live in, remortgaged our first and bought another let, did it up, remortgaged it and bought another etc etc). These were in the days of self certs, you wouldn't be able to do it now - it was so lax, and property so much cheaper (our first one was a 3 bed in East London for about 127k). We took money out on credit cards for deposits! Anyway, we now have about 40 odd. We are genuinely decent landlords - we rent out at market rent, but go above and beyond making our properties lovely - we refurb a few each year and put in dishwashers, wine fridges - i make them how i would want them. It helps that i love interior design and i care about the local environment - i would hate one of our properties to be known as one that brings down the street.
Our tenants are mainly students and they are mainly student flats - ie a family wouldn't want them.
We both come from lower working class and neither had any financial leg ups, although my parents couldn't have been more supportive in the early days - helping us paint, clean, put in kitchens etc.

It's been bloody hard graft over the years - many lovely summers in our twenties stripping wallpaper, but its paid off and we are now comfortably off with lots of hilarious memories. We are still shit at DIY.

So AMA!

In Scotland, student flats are often in stone tenement buildings, which were built for (rented) multiple occupancy by huge families and the flats are too big for a first time buyer to afford one all to themselves.

No it doesn't work like that at all.

I was asked if i had 40 mortgages, i don't.

Because a lot of the ones that i've bought in the past have now been remortgaged under one loan.

If i were to buy a property tomorrow, i'd still need to get a mortgage - and i'd need a higher deposit.

‘Professional’ Landlord. More like full-time parasite. 40 properties is absolutely disgusting.

@Caviarandgelatine

Because each time they were going for the cash buyer.
In some cases we actually offered more than the cash buyer.
Cash buyers are more attractive.

I'm puzzled how, in the Scottish property system, a losing bidder would ever know who the successful buyer was (or what they paid, or whether it was cash)

It's a blind offer system. Every contender (cash or mortgage) has their funding in place before closing date; there is no way for any of them to know what the other offers were, or whose offer was accepted.

I honestly don't understand why people find being a landlord "immoral"?

Some people want to rent their homes.

Who would you suggest they rent from, if there were no landlords? The state?

Renting at inflated market prices doesn't make you any better, you are still making a fortune off the backs of others, who have no other choice.

And from what I understand, you have taken large family flats, and turned them into several occupancy dwellings for students.

Homes that could house large families who struggle to find homes big enough, now split up in order to earn more.

I agree with others that owning 40 rental properties is gross.

'And from what I understand, you have taken large family flats, and turned them into several occupancy dwellings for students.'

You haven't taken it correctly, no. The statement above is incorrect.

Iwishicouldflyhigh

*I'm told to do interest only mortgages on the let's and take out life insurance to cover it so it's my childrens when I die but I'm so confused, surely life insurance only covers sudden death etc, not old age!?

(oh dear).

If you're still alive at the end of the mortgage term, how do you propose to repay the full loan?

What’s your annual turnover and profit?

i honestly couldn’t answer that as we have another couple of businesses. We reinvest a lot of our income in to upgrades.

this past 12 months most of our profit has cone from our other businesses as we have been carrying out a lot of refurb work.

What do you pay yourself every year? Do you know that? How much corporation tax do you pay? These are all very specific figures that are not the sort of thing you just don’t know if you are a business owner. Sorry you have lost all credibility with your I just don’t know answer.

How many ‘student halls’ do you think there are? You’re very naive.

Apologies if I dint appear credible to you, not sure what to say to that really. It’s not as simple as giving profit on the buy to lets as they are owned by a Ltd business that doesn’t only own/let those flats but trades in other ways as well. We also have other properties that aren’t owned by the Ltd company. So I don’t know exactly what profit just the properties make, no.

Of course she knows. And she knows people would be horrified at what landlords can make.

You always have a balance sheet no matter how many businesses you run under a ltd company imo you are just being dishonest. It’s really not that complicated to fathom.

I really don’t and I’ve explained why, however this is not a stealth boast post, but more to dispel misconceptions and I hope it’s done that to an extent. I’ve previously stated we have private health/education and love to travel which clearly nods to a certain income.

This is an AMA post. You are being dishonest in your answers because no business person would not know the basics of their balance sheet.

thats your opinion. All I can tell you is that I cannot tell you without going through the figures exactly what income has been derived from the rental income alone… given some are owned by a Ltd company which also trades in other ways, not related to the properties, and some are owned under our own names. I’ve been clear on this annd explained why I can’t give an exact answer and im not going to comment any further.

You haven’t dispelled anything only made it clearer. Thanks.

You did the AMA. How much do you charge per unit and we can times it by 40 easy.

You snooze you lose luv.

Is the OP meant to not buy a house in cash because it makes it more difficult for you to get a mortgage? It’s a dog eat dog world!

We didn't have a problem getting a mortgage, that bit was easy. The problem was getting an offer accepted when competing with landlords constantly.

I know it's a dog eat dog world sadly and people like the OP make it that bit harder for everybody else.

I’m glad I don’t have to associate with the dog eat dog mentality in my everyday life. You can’t buy integrity no matter how rich you are.

I agree

I work in property lettings op. You sound lovely.

Landlords get such a bashing, they're seen as so unreasonable and money grabbing even though it's a business like any other. People forget that for lots of sections of society, renting is desired and needed. Buying a house isn't what everyone wants, for whatever reason that may be. But also, no one has a 'right' to be able to buy a house which is what some people seem to be implying.

The narrative nowadays that greedy landlords are somehow stealing all the property is simply not true. For many landlords I work with, they barely even break even every month due to all the costs.

I don't have any questions but hats off to you. It's a thankless task sometimes especially when you have a high turnover of tenants and a lot of properties.