9 things you should NOT miss when choosing an investing area

 In my last post, I talked about the danger of doing TOO MUCH research.

In this post, I want to share what to cover in your area desktop research, to avoid doing too little research.

Here are the 9 things to check when considering an area to invest in, and how to do a quick high level assessment:
 

1. Typical property types

Is the ‘average’ property in this area terraced houses, or flats? How many bedrooms are the most common? Are they Victorian conversions or ex-local properties? Just by browsing through Rightmove, you should get a rough idea.
 

2. Average rents for the above typical property types

For each ‘typical property type’, what is the average rent? Again, you can get a rough idea from Rightmove or Zoopla.
 

3. Sales prices for the above property types

For each ‘typical property type’, what is the last sold price and price moves over the past few years. You can find this on Rightmove.
 

4. Gross yield for each property type

With each of the ‘typical property types’, do a quick calculation of the Gross yield. Gross yield = Annual rent/ Sales price
 

5. Know your area by postcode

You should ideally know your area by postcode – sometimes two postcodes right next to each other could be the best and worst investing areas. I used a tool called PropertyData to get data by postcode. Very useful and worth paying a small price for, especially in the beginning of your property journey. Definitely check it out if you are serious about investing in property.
 

6. Is this area ‘up and coming’ or ‘slowly dying’?

You can pretty much just Google this one. What are the news related to this area (city/borough)? What are people’s first impression of this area when mentioned? I know I have advised against reading too much news on property investing. This one is different. What you want to know is ‘other people’s opinion’ towards this area – because what they think impacts whether they want to rent or buy there.
 

7. How far is it from where you live?

This is a realistic question. In the beginning, you will inevitably be travelling to this area frequently, before you build up a trustable team. This is also true if you use a sourcing company. You still need to know your area to be able to tell a good deal from a bad one. And don’t just check the distance on Google map. Check the actual time required to get there considering your chosen way of transport.
 

8. The nearest major employer hub

A quick Google on this one should do. The purpose is to gauge the whether there will be a stable supply of potential tenants to the area, and the tenant profiles.
 

9. Variety of local demographics

It’s always good to invest in areas with a variety of local demographics who could become your potential tenants. So search for any university, major employer (see point above) in the area. And don’t forget that local families are always a good source of potential tenants (except for central London).


To summarise, the above 9 things should never be missed. At the desktop stage, you can start with doing a high level quick assessment before you decide to focus on a particular area. Google, Rightmove, Zoopla, PropertyData have been my best tools and resources – make use of them!


Happy data crunching :)
Emma

*I can teach you how to build an extra £2000/month income through property within 6-12 months – CLICK HERE to book a free strategy session with me.

Are you thinking too much?

 We all know the importance of carrying out thorough research before any major investment.

But do you know that thinking too much is not contributing to your success, but only taking you further away from your goals.

Hard to believe? Read on…


Analysis causes paralysis. This is especially true for people who are analytical, academic, and data driven. People have a natural tendency to fall into attempting to do either too much or too little research. We all know too little research is no good. But today let’s dig a bit deeper in the damage of doing too much research.

I was this type of person from an analytical education and corporate career background. I would enjoy collecting data, more information, news, learning new things on the topic. And this just never ended. I would always discover some more ‘research to do’.

Then I got sucked into this and never moved on from the research stage. And the more data I had, the more I needed to analyse and the less confident I got to actually make a decision or take any action.


Solution:

Over the years, I found an easy way to break this vicious cycle. It seems so simple in hind sight but you really need someone to tell you that this works at the time.

The best thing to do is to set yourself a timeline, by which you HAVE TO make a decision, or take an action.

Surprisingly simple right? But you might worry if you will have done enough research by the deadline. The truth is, given your analytical nature, you will be ‘carrying out research’ all the time anyway. As long as you give yourself a reasonable time frame, you should trust that the amount of research you will have done by then is sufficient.

And it took me a while to get used to this. As I had to resist worrying about making a ‘bad’ decision. What I have realised over the years is, a ‘not so great’ decision is better than ‘no decision’ (as long as you have a firm and safe bottom line that you should never breach).

Now I believe the worst thing in life is stagnation, not making mistakes. If you are the type of person that tend to overthink, try the method above – set yourself a timeline by which you have to do something. Whether it is 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, make sure you stick to that deadline.

Warning: Do make sure that you have a systematic approach to your research though, so that you will have covered the important items before the deadline. You shouldn’t spend too much time researching, but do make sure what needs to be done is done.


Watch out for my next email, where I will share what you should cover in your desktop research for your investing area.


To moving forward,
Emma

*I can teach you how to build an extra £2000/month income through property within 6-12 months – CLICK HERE to book a free strategy session with me.

Being confused is good for you!

 Have you been confused at some point in your life? Overwhelmed even?

I was very confused and overwhelmed when I first decided that I wanted to invest in property.

Why was I confused? I read everything I could, everywhere; watched every free training available; and bought many courses over time and learned all these different strategies.

I felt like I had all the knowledge that I needed to go out there and start investing. But when I tried to put an actual plan down, I struggled!

The problem was that everything I learned was in THEORY, and I had no idea how to replicate it in my area, by me, and the very first thing I should go out and be doing!

Having learned more than one strategies can be great in that it gives you the knowledge and you feel you have the option to choose between strategies. The downside is that you can be paralysed by the choice and not be able to decide on a particular strategy.

Then you end up not doing anything!


So is confusion all bad?

Not at all!


One mentor of mine has said that confusion is a phase of inner growth, if you handle it correctly. You will come out from the other side of the tunnel stronger, and clearer with your goals. You should welcome confusion.


However the key to overcoming confusion isn’t more thinking, which most of us naturally end up doing. Because we are confused, we want to find answers, we start seeking more information and analyse even more in our heads, which keeps us in a vicious cycle.

The solution to confusion is THINK LESS, DO MORE. This is counter intuitive for many of us. By decluttering your mind, you will feel less overwhelmed. By doing more, you will gain valuable practical feedback which you can never get from thinking alone.

As soon as I started testing the knowledge I learned through classroom training, and as soon as I started trying EVERY strategy I learned, I quickly gained more clarity on what strategy could suit me better, how easy a strategy could work in my area, and what adjustment I would need to make it work.


Property investing is a long journey. Those seemingly useless actions I took has taught me things that I find useful years later. And most importantly, you will move on from the confusion phase. That’s how the ‘dots get connected’.


To making it happen,
Emma

P.S. Are you confused about how to get started in property investing and what strategy could work for you?
Book a free strategy session with me CLICKING HERE, and we can come up with an action plan specifically for you, so you start taking that first step!

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5 ways to combat the issue with lack of funding in property investing

 

Per request of many clients, I will discuss some of the ways that can be used to get around the issue of lack of funds in property investing, and their pros and cons.

 

1.       Private Finance

Private finance is a mortgage not issued by a bank or mortgage lender. It’s money lent to you by private sources, such as crowd, friends, businesses, even pensions. It can be a great source of funding when you have a deal that can’t get the traditional mortgage. However, private finance is typically more expensive than a traditional mortgage. And depending on what type if finance it is, can have extra costs such as entry and exit costs. So you need to find a deal that gives you enough margin to use private finance and still make a profit.

2.       Joint Venture

You can joint venture with cash investors to carry on investing when you don’t have any of your own funds. It is important to structure the JV correctly so that both parties would benefit from the deal. Other than the financial side, you also need to make sure you discuss your end goal and exit strategy early on. It is no good if one of you want to sell it in 5 years and the other wants to keep it for life.

3.       Vendor Finance

You can tell by the name what this is about. So the seller will finance your deal! Yes this can happen. But you need to find a vendor that doesn’t need the lump sum money straight away, but you buying the property is solving a problem they have (could be cash flow, could be stress.) This can sound too good to be true. Depending where you are based and what type of property you are buying, this can be hard to come by.

4.       Strategies that doesn’t involve huge capital investments

Sometimes, being active in property investing doesn’t have to start with you owning a property. There are strategies such as Rent to Rent (which I explained yesterday), and Lease Options etc. that doesn’t require a big upfront investment. Lease Options is however hard to find in expensive regions such as London. Rent to rent, however, you can do in most places but you would have to adapt quite a lot to the area.

5.       Equity in existing property

And some people already have equity in their own home, which strictly speaking is your own funds, just not readily available. That equity is sitting there, giving in no return. If the cost of releasing that is much less than the return of your investment, why not!

If you missed my explanation on a creative finance strategy Rent to Rent, which I used to build up a portfolio of 60 properties in 5 years, each bringing in £700-1000/month cashflow, check out my post this Monday. Or CLICK HERE to book a free strategy session with me, and I will share with you the exact type of properties that will give you £700-1000/month compliantly.

Let me help you achieve financial freedom through investing in property!

Emma