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!

1. so buying under a Ltd company is more expensive in that you’ll generally pay a slightly higher interest rate (as it’s a corporate loan) and there’s the cost of setting up the company and doing the accounts (although these costs are all tax deductible). If you buy under your own name and then transfer to the Ltd company at a later date, you are effectively selling it to the Ltd company, so will have to pay capital gains and stamp duty, conveyancing costs, survey. So probably best to buy it under the Ltd company to start with.
2. we do interest only, but pay off chunks when we can and we know that we have enough equity in some properties to clear the mortgages on others. Yiu can get buy to let mortgages up to about 80 years of age. But probably if you are planning on buying just a few, you might be better to have s repayment. I suppose it depends why you are investing and how old you are etc.
3. don’t over think!! Do your research, speak to those who know (agents) and then act! Agents are a wealth of knowledge. See my comment up thread about asking them if they kniw of agents who are selling with tenants. Offer to pay a finders fee and guarantee they will keep the management business. See my comment up thread about kitchen with window. You’ll increase the value and the rent by increasing the number of bedrooms.

all the best!!

I would prefer repayment I think but by time we've remortgaged our own home to fund and the interest rates, it cant possibly be worth doing!?

I think I could raise about 90k total via remortgage and small savings. Is it even worth trying?

Hi, OP. I rent out my first flat, a small one bed flat in the south east. There has been one tenant for years and I charge below market rent because the kitchen and bathroom are basic looking, but work fine. An agency looks after it because I live a long way away. All safety checks are done.

My question is, should I upgrade the flat to make it look smarter? I don't mean an expensive complete overhaul. The agency says that the tenant does not want to leave and therefore I don't want to upset him by doing a big overhaul then increasing the rent, he says ge doesn't want that.

Thank you so much! So helpful.

I do have a tendency to overthink so that’s very useful advice! As is the kitchen with a window!

Ive heard that the best thing to do is buy properties at below market value. Do you do this and how do you find properties to buy?

Im assuming auctions are a good place to buy property at below market value. Do you buy at auction?

Do you use bridging loans and are the difficult to obtain?