I have been investing in UK property for about thirty years. I have made some money, and lost some, but net I'm ahead. I don't claim to be a genius, or a 'guru', but I am looking a lot smarter now than many buy-to-let investors who took on excessive leverage with short-term and expensive financing. I have also stayed out of the market for the last six or seven years, which has helped a lot.
The market has changed. You probably noticed, but you probably didn't crunch 'the numbers'. I have been looking at the prices at which houses sold at auctions in the SE over the last few months. In order to do this I accessed the Essential Information Group's website, using a trial short-term login. Some basic information about past and future auctions can be obtained from a login, but full property details require a subscription.
I plan to buy some UK property in the new year. I could leverage up my expertise if I could join forces with some other investors to form a syndicate. You could be passive or active members of the syndicate, but you cannot become a member unless you are prepared to restrict investments to older houses with good yields and prosperous locations; you can also not become a member if you think that gearing is some kind of magic.
I could either set up the investment through a limited company (my preference) or through some other structure, like an LLP.
If you are remotely interested in joining forces then drop me a line to steve.hemingway@gmail.com. At the very least we could share access to research resources such as the Essential Information Group.
I am thinking of buying leads which will give contact details of people facing repossession and looking for landlords who are prepared to buy their house and agree to a tenancy so they can continue to live there and pay rent (sale and rentback, sale and leaseback - a classic business trick for obtaining liquidity that is now more and more popular with individuals who borrowed to much). These leads cost money (the sellers of the leads spend a fortune on Google Adwords - just do a search for 'quick sale' or 'quick house sale' and see the sorts of sponsored links that appear).
