Get Rich Quick - Property Investment

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
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I recently took up an invitation to attend a seminar run by a company called Inside Track on property investment. They claimed it was possible to become a 'property millionaire' fairly quickly and offered some teasing insight into how to do it, the main information to be revealed at an expensive two-day seminar.

Mrs Orchid refused to attend but I didn't mind giving up two hours out of curiosity. It turned out to be three hours and if I'd opted to stay on for a cuppa over which I could talk to the presenters it would have been even longer but I felt it was worth it just to get me to see certain things a bit differently.

I tried to check out the company on the internet last night but couldn't find anything 'against' (so to speak) them, and it seems many cowboy outfits have arisen out of people attempting to copy their model.

I was wondering if any forumites have any experience of the seminars, or know anyone who has. I am naturally cautious if not cynical but the thought of manoeuvring myself into a postion from which I could retire from work without any financial worries appeals.

Any thoughts?
 
If you are of a mind to buy property and the market works in your favour then you can become rich. It would not appear to be rocket science to me. Hitching on to a property investment company will only slow you down.
 
This company seemed happy to admit they made their money from the peripheral services they offered, brokering, commissions, etc. leaving 'us' to do very little in the way of hard work.
 
The amount of work involved in buying a property can be overstated. A good relationship with your Bank Manager and access to a reliable solicitor covers most things. Looking after the rental and maintenance of the property yourself could save you a lot of money.
 
This is a prime time for anyone to say that you can become a millionaire by investing in property simply because of the unprecedented recent boom.
 
I would be very sceptical with regards companies such as this, if it’s that good why should they offer it to you? Why not keep it for themselves??

It’s on a par with say a tipster!! if I could find a system where by I could make big monies/bucks I would obviously be a fool to let others take my system and use it to further their life style or line their pockets wouldn’t I???? :angy:

Or as the late Horace Batchelor (I seen a bit on him in the mail on Saturday) did send different permutations to thousands and the law of averages says he has got to get some returns for the few!! But the masses actually lost, but he NEVER as you had paid him for the so called permutation on how to win the football pool
 
Lee, I take your point but I wouldn't say the recent boom was unprecedented, nor would I say it was a boom. In general, prices have been rising, most of the time ahead of inflation, since the 1960s. We had a recent blip in some parts of the country but in the big scheme of things that's all it was.

Merlin, it was with precisely the same sceptical/cynical mindset as you that I attended the presentation. I got the impression they were inviting individuals (or couples) to join them in order to spread their own risk, get money from 'us' which they could then use for their own ends. They were basically admitting this and asking what's so wrong with it as 'we' were all winning.

Some tipsters (I'd never pay for a tipster) sell becasue there's more money for less risk in it for them than punting.

If, say, tipster Aiken Pickham can sell his 'service' to 1000 clients at £1000 per annum he's taking in £1m. If he's making 10% ROI at punting, to make £1m he'd need to punt £10m per annum. He's unlikely to have the starting bank to support that level of punting.
 
Dessie - there was a programme on, I think, Beeb 2 a couple of weeks ago about a chap offering the sort of service you describe. Now, as I'm not interested in becoming a property millionaire (once past the first 55, more is simple greed), I didn't watch it, but it does seem that the 'how to' seminars didn't actually source the properties or manage them for you. What this company did was to offer you a taster seminar, then another, and another, costing up to £3,000 by the time you'd become an 'expert' in buying and letting property. It was a variation on the pyramid selling theme in as much as you never actually reached any 'end' product!

Now, could Auntie K suggest one or two things for you? (As an ex-property magnate in buying to sell and buying to let, with, frankly, only modest success!) There are now some very sensible books on the market, one is by Sarah Beeny, who's be featuring on a property development show on telly (day time, so you may have missed it) for some years. You could also watch a few of the shows and then write into the presenters for their best advice, or ask them to point you to magazines/books on the subject.

Treat yourself to attending a few property auctions. You'll find it interesting to see who buys what, where, and for why. Discarding the young couples desperate to find a 2.5-bed semi for a fiver and spend £200,000 'doing it up', speak to some of the guys from the building trade, or letting business, who'll be hanging around looking for something they can reduce from four big bedrooms into six smaller ones. Auctions are brilliant at pointing out what is hot, and what's not.

Be very definite about what it is you want: do you want to do up something that's a bit shabby, but with £10K thrown at it, can be remarketed QUICKLY for around a 30% profit? That is realistic these days, provided you do NOT personalize the refurb, you meet all Safety standards in any re-wiring, damp course, boiler and electrics, and there's no known nasty in the woodpile like subsidence. You need to befriend a surveyor and someone who can turn the property around quickly. DO NOT get involved with friends. Reason? I bought a small terrace as a letting proposition, which needed only a few small refurbishments, including an extra loo and a washbasin off the back bedroom. I misguidedly gave the job to a neighbour with whom I was friendly. He got ill. The job was half-bought, half-started, and finally finished THREE MONTHS after - I should've pulled the plug on him, but I thought that would be pretty stinky. So I lost 2.5 months' of rental, and a further 2 weeks waiting to get tenants through an agent.

So if you're buying to sell on, you must turnaround quickly, but with an effective package with no 'just need doing' items left over.

If you're buying to let, you must ensure that the property meets Health & Safety regulations, which includes unblocking any blocked flues (which have caused fatalities due to carbon monoxide poisoning), put in a fire alarm, and preferably also a Carbon Monoxide detector. You get your solicitor to draw up a Shorthold Tenancy Agreement (six months) which you and your tenant sign. You take a deposit in advance, which you can withold from reimbursing when the tenant leaves if they have caused damage. If you put rent collection and house inspection in the hands of an agent, be sure it's one with a good local rep for handling LETTING rather than sales. Another mistake I made was to put my let properties in the hands of the agent who'd sold me the houses, rather than a specialist lettings agency. He never inspected them, and sometimes the rent was late. So I paid his fee for something I could've done myself. If you do it yourself, be prepared to have to take a tough stand with anyone who's being paid by the DSS, as I had to eventually with one tenant. The DSS pays a maximum amount of rent to claimers. If they take on a rental that costs more than their allowance, then it's up to them to find that extra rent. Therein is the problem! You get the DSS money all right, because it's paid direct to your a/c. Getting the extra rent from a DSS tenant can be a real pain in the rear, so best to swerve them.

Anyway, read some books, check out some auctions, speak to some people who are already developing, check out what's hot to trot with your estate agents, and what's to avoid at all costs, and don't overbuy if you want to sell on quickly. Oh, and don't forget to figure in a few fees: solicitor's (for Searches and 2,000 other things), Stamp Duty, surveyor's, estate agent's, Land Registry (for Title), plasterer's, plumber's, roofer's, tiler's, carpet layer's, chippie's, painter's... and make sure all the buggers are insured. Mum hired a 'friend of a neighbour' in Cornwall, who promptly fell off the roof he was re-pitching, straight through the glass roof of the sun lounge, smashing the coffee table, and flinging bitumen liberally all over the newly-decorated, newly-carpeted, and newly-furnished room... and wasn't insured. Once we found he hadn't hurt himself, oh, how we wished he'd broken his miserable little neck!

(That'll be £500 plus VAT, thank you.) :)
 
A friend of mine from Zimbabwe (based over here) has encouraged her parents to join this scheme & they have duly parted with the money. She is convinced that it is bona fide despite plenty of warnings from myself and others. I will get in touch with er to see how things are progressing but I for one would definitely not go down this route.
 
Dessie, there's another way to make a steady income out of a property, which is not widely known. I used this with a very big house I had in Stoke, which was let to Uni students. When the blasted Uni built vast additions to its halls of residence, the student letting market died, and the house was too big, and without any garage space, for the average smaller family of today. So I sold it via a private mortgage to a company which was buying and refurbishing some places, but was going to get a Home Office contract to house asylum seekers in mine. Now, I was very kind, and let them have this deal on a two-year interest-free private mortgage, with a balloon payment at the end, to finish the sale, because, frankly, it was bloody difficult to shift! You would be selecting a desirable res., though, and needn't be quite so kind.

This is a very attractive proposition if you add a % to it, say a little under the average lending rate. You can repossess the property on default (your solicitor draws up the agreement), if need be, and re-market it. The advantage is, you get an income every month of whatever you agree - it could be, say, £1,000 - over whatever months it takes to recoup your purchase cost of the house, plus interest. You could add a balloon (i.e. one-off) payment to be paid on a certain date to finalize the sale and transfer. Perhaps - as an idea - one fifth of the value. Your buyers are responsible for the property in the same way that buyers with mortgage lenders are responsible, so you don't have the hassle of maintenance that a landlord would have.

My venture into this worked perfectly, with a bank payment made every month, and a balloon payment at the end, over two years. You would be able to spread the cost of the property over whatever period of time you wanted: maybe 20 years with a balloon payment. That would give you a nice income, and you wouldn't be paying any Capital Gains tax on it until the final payment went through, as you are in the process of continually selling the property for all those years. I didn't pay any CG tax because I didn't sell at a profit.

(Thanks for that cheque. As it was paid so promptly, this is only £278.13.) <_<
 
Blooming heck Krizon. Had I known you were such an expert I would have consulted you about the house I am currently trying to shift.

Are there many asylum seekers looking for houses in Epsom? :rolleyes: B)

I have just launched it one one of these websites (£79) to see if I can sell it privately instead of via an Estate Agent who wants 1% plus VAT!

I'll stick you on commission if you can help me sell it before Christmas! :D
 
Me hard-working, no speak much English, like very much your Epsom. You are wanting nice clean honest lady work garden, house?

Kathy, how about an ad in the Racing Post - anyone who loves Flat racing would surely fall over themselves to buy in the area? Perhaps some folks who've got horses in training with local trainers. In fact, it might be worth your while sending a flyer to Epsom-based trainers telling them you've got a lovely abode just waiting for their clients. You could mail the racecourse, too, to ask if they know anyone trying to relocate to the area - maybe their own staff, or relatives/friends thereof? You never know - sometimes it's odd the way that the unobvious approach works. The offer of a bottla bubbly in lieu of a finder's fee should be appreciated.

(To Consultation Fee: £1,409.35. VAT exempt. Thank you.)
 
Is the company registered any where?

Appears to be registered under 4444 151

Office:

Addlestone.
Surrey
 
A slight tangent but it amazes me how estate agents in Ireland get way with charging 3% commission.I was listening to a radio programme a few weeks ago saying this was outrageous and in countries like New Zealand they can only charge for the work they do as opposed to a flat commission rate.
 
Might be me,but 04444 151 is there.

The Company had a Spanish branch but it has recently been disolved.

Same details as the UK Company.

I agree with Gareth that there are several "INSIDE TRACK" companies listed.Most of which are no longer trading.
 
I'm almost certain that's the one featured on the Beeb, Dessie. You can certainly take their 'free seminar', but you'll find that after a number of outlines, you're mostly told about what their other non-free seminars will offer, and every step is around £300+, with a total of around £3,000 before you finish. What you've got is a chap who's riding the desire of hundreds of people to be property developers, fuelled by the dozens of property shows on tv these days. He will no doubt take his clients through the optimum processes, and the 'what to avoid' areas.

Just be aware that when you start to sign up, you're getting into a Reader's Digest Book Club scenario, where you get offered another, and another, and another course to 'build' expertise. However, if you feel that it's a potentially useful way to spend some time, and have a bit of loose change in your pocket, then as long as you realize that, no harm's done.

The tv programme didn't say there was anything wrong with the courses offered. It is innovative, of course, and the founder's exploiting a niche, which anyone is entitled to do. At the end of the day, it's your time and your money, and there should be plenty of useful Q&A sessions in which to get the best out of it.
 
With the £3995 two-day seminar being offered at the event for £2495 plus memebrship (optional) at something like £5995 I was aware of the various add-ons. Plus 'finder's fees' and commissions, etc. I was imagining how the costs could mount but at the same time I tend to be pragmatic in such circumstances.

When I 'built' my own house, I subscribed to Build It magazine for about a year. It seemed expensive at the time but the information and understanding of a number of areas I gleaned was invaluable relative to the whole process.

If I'm thinking of buying a car I tend to buy a couple of issues of What Car or soething similar. It might cost me a few quid at the time but there might be something in it (that I hadn't thought of) that enables me to save more than that in the buying process.

If I shelled out even £10000 and ended up getting involved in a £100,000 property actually valued at £120000 which a couple of years later was worth £140000 I wouldn't grumble too much. And they recommend getting involved in more than one at a time.

They also repeated several times "Buy cheap and sell expensive or better still don't sell at all" but as I see it, I'd need to sell at some point and CGT would kick in then.
 
It's not so much 'buy cheap, sell expensive' as 'sell quickly at a profit'. If you have £100,000 in your back pocket now (this is just to make the figures easy, so I can understand myself), then buy for £80,000, spend a TOTAL of £10,000 on it, therefore £90,000 outlaid; market for £120,000 and get a sign-up within 2 weeks of showing.

You want to GET RID of your properties, with fast and effective turnarounds. What the hell do you care what they're worth in two years' time? You want to be handling your third or fourth by then. Borrowing rates might have gone up, there might be mass redundancies, and the property must not stand empty for anything like the time you're mentioning (squatters/break-ins/vandals/damp, and buyer perception that if it's been empty for ages, it's no good). Believe me, if you've been showing a house for three months and not had anyone seriously proceeding, you're going to be reducing your price, your profit, and your opportunity to grab something else to take you forward.
 
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