Property offers is an exciting process within the life of an investor. The first 80+ offers on buy-to-let properties never got accepted at the start of our journey and a third of them never got a response. That may not be surprising for some of you but there was a lot to learn and observe a few trends from that experience. Specifically: When we managed to place a little over 500 offers in a couple of years time, there is a lot of learnings to share retrospecting on most of them. So: Here are a few things that we learnt about placing considerable volumes of offers on properties. Property Offers ..read more

Learning how to learn is life’s most important skill said Tony Buzan, an educational author and consultant. Is that so relevant for us as a property investor? Probably yes to any one who belongs to the bracket of an entrepreneur. So: Jumping straight into the topic. What are the key property skills that builds up a persona of a property investor? There may be many, but we identified seven of them that we consider are absolute must for a start. Knowing Your Numbers The biggest reason why this features first in the list of property skills is simply because any business and specifically property ..read more

Why property investment is for you probably is the first question anyone would ask before getting into the very investment trench. We pretty much got used to the idea that if anyone asks us a question on the property, we just point to the relevant blog post and let them digest the content by themselves. However: When our younger one in the house asked why should anyone invest in property, we didn’t have a relevant post. Dammit: That should have been the basic post to just outline why to invest in property at all. There you go then: If you are new to property investment and would love to unders ..read more

Property VAT is one of the most expensive and probably ignored costs when it comes to costing a refurbishment and general maintenance. The fact that the majority of investors who operate it as a business via a limited company are under the VAT threshold, they would not be VAT registered and hence cannot reclaim it either. Additionally: From our personal experience, we haven’t known the scenarios ourselves when VAT can be minimised whilst the builders or tradesmen would stick to standard 20% charge. So: This post would probably help you think along the lines of how to pay the right VAT for some ..read more

Productivity blog straight from “The Shard”, one of the icons of London real estate. Productivity is one of the important factors in the success of individuals or companies. Sudheer and I have continuously tried to improve what we have achieved in our property investment journey during our journey as property investors. Result: We managed to increase the number of property viewings from 4 a day to 22 a day. This result is one of the outcomes that we achieved through our continuous improvements. Now: Productivity for me is to achieve better outcomes in your business, your life with the given ti ..read more

Online letting agents are as cool as high street based letting agents and this is going to be the trend for the next few years. Well: I would say it is not that straightforward. As a landlord, I will have my own reservations and nervousness handing over a property for rental without even being able to see an agent. The word trend has few phases hidden in it. Any new trend is not going to be embraced on day one. It goes through a period of uncertainty, followed by a learning phase and then a steady-state before it goes mainstream into the market. Online letting agents are no different. This cer ..read more

Landlords right of entry is a topic that is ever green and ever hot. Every buy to let property investor gets into this dilemma at some point in his/her landlord life. And: Probably is subject to a bit let down on the legalities around the limited nature of access to his/her property with private rented sector. There simply are two sides of coin here. Whilst a landlord can feel let down with the restrictions on right to enter into a property, tenants rights cannot be ignored. Every tenant has the right to have the freedom to live in the property without regular disturbances and any inconvenienc ..read more

Reset yourself!! Isn’t that something we all need right now? As much as one is motivated to achieve their goals, there are always periods of slump that each of us go through unless one is a super human. A period where we question our own self, question what we are doing, question our capabilities, question pretty much everything. Fortunately, that is human and that should not be a surprise. In questioning so, you lose focus and feel the exhaustion from time to time with only solution to reset yourself with what we know. I have experienced this a lot and still today go through this behaviour bu ..read more

It is February, and it is time for winter care for landlords here in the UK. Winter brings festivities, along with that comes winter perils for Landlords, unfortunately. A Winter care checklist will help landlords and the tenants who want to enjoy their festivities with families. Now: Have you been in a situation as a landlord who got a call for boiler, fence, or mould issues on one of those DARK, cold winter days? However: If you are a proactive landlord, you could spend less time and money and ensure you and the tenant have quality time during those cold days of the year. With adequate winte ..read more

How to be confident? Isn’t that a question we all have at some point in our lives in what we want to do? Everyone: Everyone of us, and I say this with a view to include the best of leaders, entrepreneurs that you know off, will have gone through confidence issues. Yes, they are amazing but they have gone through a lot of scenarios, stick from others and pain to operate at a level they operate today. I for one think: If ever we want to witness on how to be confident, we just have to look at our past. Each of us have won over so many battles and achieved what we want in the last 10 to 20 years ..read more