Yet Still They Flock To Worship At The Altar Of Property

[pipllman]

Just today over on property tribes

http://www.propertytribes.com/investing-advice-please-t-127621274.html

"Investing advice please

Hi everyone.

I'm looking to invest in property and thought just coming out and asking for advice and opinions would make sense. I have 160k and want to secure a financial future for myself. I'd like a decent rental income and capital growth too from the properties.

I live in North London and have looked at flats that could be let by the council for £850 pcm. That would be for 40-45k deposit on a 180-200k 1 bed flat. A BTL mortgage at 5% is 562 pcm. Does this £288 pcm cashflow make sense to you guys?

I've also looked at other areas nationwide where similar cashflows are but for smaller deposits so potentially I'd get more properties. If interest rates rise then my £288 would soon get gobbled up? Assuming it went above 5% of course.

What are peoples opinions?? What would you do with 160k??

Many thanks <name removed by me>"

The would be investor has already been advised to be aware of service charges on leaseholds

I am interested to hear your answers to his questions, most specifically, what your advice to the investor with £160k on the hip and a desire to 'secure a financial future for' himself would be.

[wish I could afford one]

...

I am interested to hear your answers to his questions, most specifically, what your advice to the investor with £160k on the hip and a desire to 'secure a financial future for' himself would be.

S/he wouldn't like my answer as it requires hard work and shunning consumerism to accrue the capital. Then some research to understand some basic investment principles followed by investment of the capital into a balanced portfolio of Bonds, Gold, P2P, Cash, Property and Equities both locally and internationally.

My findings are that it's hard work but it's extremely effective at 'securing a financial future for' myself. In seven and three quarter years I've amassed 82% of the wealth I need to never have to work again.

[canbuywontbuy]

Agree with "wish I could afford one" - these people are thinking the wrong way about money. "Investment" is a fancy word for gambling. People think they are doing "due diligence" by "making their money work harder". Make your money go further.

[pipllman]

S/he wouldn't like my answer as it requires hard work and shunning consumerism to accrue the capital. Then some research to understand some basic investment principles followed by investment of the capital into a balanced portfolio of Bonds, Gold, P2P, Cash, Property and Equities both locally and internationally.

My findings are that it's hard work but it's extremely effective at 'securing a financial future for' myself. In seven and three quarter years I've amassed 82% of the wealth I need to never have to work again.

funny you should mention shunning consumerism: the very next post I saw on tribes was this post #6 on this thread

http://www.propertytribes.com/buy-property-with-no-money-t-127621250.html

it warrants repeating here

"I was brought up to never be a borrower and whilst I have borrowed money to buy property I have always paid off the loan as fast as I can.

My wife and I earn both earn around £40,000 a year each and work in the public sector mainly for the pension. We live on my income and save every penny of my wife’s income and still manage to save about £500 per month from mine.

We have now 4 terraced houses in Kent and all the rent goes into one account and with my wife’s income enables us to overpay the mortgage on our latest acquisition by around £2,500 per month and within 3 years will then be mortgage free so we can acquire our next property by borrowing partial against one of our existing properties and the rest on the new property. By never spending any of the rental profits and with my wife’s income the speed we can pay off our mortgages increases month on month. I have a detailed spread sheet showing how the balances reduces each month and this really motivates us seeing our wealth increase each month

Tenants are in the position they are in, in the main due to poor financial planning what we do is hardly rocket science. In its simplest form it is abandoning the consumer lifestyle and making it your goal to be financially bomb proof and learning to get a kick out of saving a pound here and there

We believe that this slow but steady approach avoids any risks and therefore the proposals to restrict tax relief on BTL mortgages will have little effect on us.

But most importantly we are very frugal and enjoy getting through each month on as little as possible. We achieve this in a number of ways:-

1) Never buying take out coffee, sandwiches etc…nothing wrong with a thermos flask

2) Shopping at Aldi and buying dented tins/short life items particularly on a Saturday evening

3) Buying clothes on ebay/charity shops

4) Buying household items wherever possible second hand and sometimes from our tenants

5) We drive a 20 year old Volvo and do my own repairs etc

6) Maintain an allotment

7) PAYG mobile phone

8) Do house exchange for holidays although last year we did house sitting and got paid!

9) Putting on an extra layer before putting on the central heating

10) Doing evening classes to learn practical skills

11) Finding entertainment that does not require spending money, rambling, local history, gardening, etc

Our plan is to have another four properties giving a total of 8 and this along with our pensions and frugal lifestyle will ensure we have a comfortable retirement. My wife will inherit a substantial sum and this will be used to buy a number of additional properties, my own parent left me their own house which started the whole portfolio off."

I just wonder if / when they will get to a point where they might start to spend a touch more.

If they are living on less than one salary now and likely to have a joint public sector pension income of something like that one salary between them and then the rent from 8 houses and then a substantial inheritance (to use to buy more rent)... at what point do they tip over, for instance, from him scratching about on his back under a 20 year old volvo to change its oil so that he can get to the charity shop to see if there are any matching socks for him this week to, maybe, getting a new kettle instead of a second hand one. Otherwise, what is it all for?

Edited July 19, 2015 by pipllman

[wish I could afford one]

funny you should mention shunning consumerism: the very next post I saw on tribes was this post #6 on this thread

...

Other than the lack of diversification which adds risk, all BTL in a single country (although they do sound like they have a couple of gold plated DB pensions to fall back on should it all go wrong), that sounds like somebody with their head screwed on.

I don't do BTL or the 'debt is the way to wealth' thing but otherwise that could be my long lost brother.

[pipllman]

Other than the lack of diversification which adds risk, all BTL in a single country (although they do sound like they have a couple of gold plated DB pensions to fall back on should it all go wrong), that sounds like somebody with their head screwed on.

I don't do BTL or the 'debt is the way to wealth' thing but otherwise that could be my long lost brother.

why aim for a much higher retirement income than they are living on now though I wonder?

[Venger]

Tenants are in the position they are in, in the main due to poor financial planning what we do is hardly rocket science.

There's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, non-Rocket-Science moar and moar BTL purchaser.

[wish I could afford one]

why aim for a much higher retirement income than they are living on now though I wonder?

One hypothesis is simply a few years of intentional living in exchange for a lifetime of not having to worry about money. I'm doing something a little similar. All of my plans are worst case and based on intentional enjoyable living. Probability says it's unlikely I'll get all those worst cases stacked up. If I do then I live well for the next 40 or so years. If I don't then I'm going to end up with more wealth than I can ever hope to spend. Better that than being bullish, running out at age 80 and being forced to live under a bridge.

[wish I could afford one]

I knew someone who was always putting things off until they retired (I mean holidays, getting a new car, taking up a hobby they had always wanted to do ... not putting up some shelves) when retired they would have both the money and the time. Never made it to retirement.

Back to my comment on probabilities. I'll be (hopefully) 44 when I retire. If I was asked to place a bet on whether I'd be alive or dead I'd probably go for alive.

[Frugal Git]

Yeah, I've never understood the higher income in retirement then in work thing - especially at the usual 60+ age thing.

An empty life of cruise after cruise isn't for me, especially if my body is decrepit from a life of full time office work.

I *love* 'wish i could afford ones' philosophy on shunning consumerism, and adhere to it in the main myself. But I differ in that I never plan on retiring - financial independence can be achieved without that for my lifestyle. I want for nothing, but do have a lot of interests and hobbies, some quite expensive.

I work part time, but stick away 2x what I spend each month at the moment into a SIPP. 66% of my gross income is thus saved. With substantial savings outside the pension too - the interest on which means I still run a surplus outside the wrapper. All on the UK average income. This should give me a massive buffer at typical retirement age to allow me to explore other income making interests without the need to worry about how to fund breakfast, lunch or dinner. The tax free lump sum alone will buy a shelter at that point - but hell, I plan on going back packing half the year anyway by the time I'm 55 onwards. That will keep me fit.

And as I already (force myself to) live on the tax free personal allowance, if rules stay as they are I'll be able to maintain that exact same life at retirement age, tax free pulling it out of the SIPP.

Whatever is left will be an effective trust under the new rules to family. They will be explicitly advised to withdraw only when needed too.

So although I won't be retiring by mid forties, I'm already semi retired compared to everyone else by just spreading things out.

I agree that this Buy to letter definitely has their head screwed on, but I'm not sure what the point is for their wealth accumulation.

Edited July 19, 2015 by Frugal Git

[wish I could afford one]

... It is strange that these people have an obsession with buying property rather than building up wealth.

It's more than strange, it's adding to their risks because they have no diversification. If BTL was only 10% of your wealth then the latest government shenanigans wouldn't hurt much at all but with 100% of your wealth (+leveraged to the gunnel's making it worse) it's possible disaster. It also doesn't give any chance for a free lunch on the risk/return curve that comes with holding multiple asset classes that are not 100% correlated. I tried recently to demonstrate this effect with this post which used some simple bonds/equity portfolios to demonstrate.

[longgone]

S/he wouldn't like my answer as it requires hard work and shunning consumerism to accrue the capital. Then some research to understand some basic investment principles followed by investment of the capital into a balanced portfolio of Bonds, Gold, P2P, Cash, Property and Equities both locally and internationally.

My findings are that it's hard work but it's extremely effective at 'securing a financial future for' myself. In seven and three quarter years I've amassed 82% of the wealth I need to never have to work again.

do any of these investments make 10% p/a upwards ?

[wish I could afford one]

Yeah, I've never understood the higher income in retirement then in work thing - especially at the usual 60+ age thing.

An empty life of cruise after cruise isn't for me, especially if my body is decrepit from a life of full time office work.

I *love* 'wish i could afford ones' philosophy on shunning consumerism, and adhere to it in the main myself. But I differ in that I never plan on retiring - financial independence can be achieved without that for my lifestyle. I want for nothing, but do have a lot of interests and hobbies, some quite expensive.

I work part time, but stick away 2x what I spend each month at the moment into a SIPP. 66% of my gross income is thus saved. With substantial savings outside the pension too - the interest on which means I still run a surplus outside the wrapper. All on the UK average income. This should give me a massive buffer at typical retirement age to allow me to explore other income making interests without the need to worry about how to fund breakfast, lunch or dinner. The tax free lump sum alone will buy a shelter at that point - but hell, I plan on going back packing half the year anyway by the time I'm 55 onwards. That will keep me fit.

And as I already (force myself to) live on the tax free personal allowance, if rules stay as they are I'll be able to maintain that exact same life at retirement age, tax free pulling it out of the SIPP.

Whatever is left will be an effective trust under the new rules to family. They will be explicitly advised to withdraw only when needed too.

So although I won't be retiring by mid forties, I'm already semi retired compared to everyone else by just spreading things out.

I agree that this Buy to letter definitely has their head screwed on, but I'm not sure what the point is for their wealth accumulation.

We sound quite alike in approach. When I retire I will certainly not be cruising or sitting in a sun lounger drinking margarita's. I will however relocate to a country which suits me (and my family) and pursue interests (which will surely contain some work but will also contain more non-work activities which today aren't possible because of my 60 hour work weeks) that I want to when I want to. The difference between then and now is that now I know I have to get up at 0530 tomorrow morning to work in a job that no longer holds the interest it once used to.

Our difference seems to be that you are going for enough wealth for early partial retirement where I'm probably stacking a little more as a % of spending giving optional early full retirement. Given I'll also probably work a little in retirement it probably just means my 'trust fund' as a % of spending when may end up a little more.

[wish I could afford one]

do any of these investments make 10% p/a upwards ?

Some years they do and some years they don't. For example last year my index linked gilts (part of my bonds allocation) returned 18.8%. The year before they returned 0.6%. Overall I plan on a real (after inflation) return from my portfolio of 4% per annum during the wealth accrual phase. Sequence of returns risk mean I'm then planning to start drawing down at 2.5% of wealth to minimise the "risk of running out".

It's certainly not a highly leverage bet on the UK property market. Thus my comment about being hard work. The 'low' annual return means you have to build quite a lot of capital via other means, which you then invest for the long term, if you want early financial independence/retirement. Thus the comment I make often - Save Hard, Invest Wisely, Retire Early.

[longgone]

Some years they do and some years they don't. For example last year my index linked gilts (part of my bonds allocation) returned 18.8%. The year before they returned 0.6%. Overall I plan on a real (after inflation) return from my portfolio of 4% per annum during the wealth accrual phase. Sequence of returns risk mean I'm then planning to start drawing down at 2.5% of wealth to minimise the "risk of running out".

It's certainly not a highly leverage bet on the UK property market. Thus my comment about being hard work. The 'low' annual return means you have to build quite a lot of capital via other means, which you then invest for the long term, if you want early financial independence/retirement. Thus the comment I make often - Save Hard, Invest Wisely, Retire Early.

i have done the save hard bit , but getting next to no return any investments paying 4-5% with no risks or very minimal would suit me

Edited July 19, 2015 by longgone

[wish I could afford one]

and if you want to experience the types of joy and pleasure that comes from being a landlord just watch 'Slum landlords, nightmare tenants' (ch5 IIRC). Thousands in lost rent to go with the lost nights of sleep and stress. The non-rent paying tenant constantly says 'no understand' goes to court on the day of the hearing and says the rent has not been paid because there is no heating and the judge says OK Mr LL, come back in six weeks with proof the heating works ....

No thanks, better things to do with my days. I'm a dirty renter at the moment and sometimes I do think landlord's get what they deserve. I won't say it though as I would never wish ill on anyone.

I've been renting since before I joined this site. When I joined I wanted to buy, now it suits me to rent as I'm nearly over the line but when I emigrate I will be buying once I've rented long enough to know the area I want to live for a long time.

[WideAsleep]

funny you should mention shunning consumerism: the very next post I saw on tribes was this post #6 on this thread

http://www.propertytribes.com/buy-property-with-no-money-t-127621250.html

it warrants repeating here

"Snip"

I read that and at first was impressed by the amount of wealth they have acquired by being frugal and following rules that I too follow.

But once I read what they plan to do with incoming inheritance and the fact they are already expecting a comfortable retirement now, I was a little bit saddened by the sheer greed of the whole affair. You see they are living life like a massive spreadsheet and seem to plan to live the rest of their lives that way too. I hope they stop and actually enjoy their retirement and do not keep buying up first time buyers homes until the end of their lives. I wonder if they will look back at it all and wish they had lived life instead of taking chances away from others?

The comment about how tenants are somehow responsible for their position because they are following a different mentality or whatever was also bit sinister. I guess making your tenets seem somehow less than yourself gives you the right to take advantage. I wonder if they see the damage they are doing and are trying to justify it? If they had not been driven by this greed how many of these houses would have been bought by first time buyers instead?

I myself live to the rules they list not because I have to but because I can. I earn above average, live well below my means and save over half my take home every month. I am also a tenant. It is not my mindset that is wrong. Sadly the situation I find myself is in part caused by people like this bidding up local prices and taking away the opportunities for me to buy a house to live in.

Once you have enough to retire comfortably what is the point in taking more?

[Venger]

So although I won't be retiring by mid forties, I'm already semi retired compared to everyone else by just spreading things out.

I agree that this Buy to letter definitely has their head screwed on, but I'm not sure what the point is for their wealth accumulation.

They probably won't be wiped out but need to experience HPC, with so much of their wealth strategy involved on acquisition to landlord to dumb renters. Smug kers. These Kent equity release / landlord buyers can also have HPC, on their London property and Greek villa. http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/201726-will-buy-to-let-investors-be-caught-out-by-eu-rules/

JEEZ!

They borrowed £400,000 . Why are they smiling. They just cannot see any downside. I think they are mad.

"I was brought up to never be a borrower and whilst I have borrowed money to buy property I have always paid off the loan as fast as I can.

My wife and I earn both earn around £40,000 a year each and work in the public sector mainly for the pension. We live on my income and save every penny of my wife’s income and still manage to save about £500 per month from mine.

We have now 4 terraced houses in Kent and all the rent goes into one account and with my wife’s income enables us to overpay the mortgage on our latest acquisition by around £2,500 per month and within 3 years will then be mortgage free so we can acquire our next property by borrowing partial against one of our existing properties and the rest on the new property. By never spending any of the rental profits and with my wife’s income the speed we can pay off our mortgages increases month on month. I have a detailed spread sheet showing how the balances reduces each month and this really motivates us seeing our wealth increase each month

Tenants are in the position they are in, in the main due to poor financial planning what we do is hardly rocket science. In its simplest form it is abandoning the consumer lifestyle and making it your goal to be financially bomb proof and learning to get a kick out of saving a pound here and there

We believe that this slow but steady approach avoids any risks and therefore the proposals to restrict tax relief on BTL mortgages will have little effect on us.

[...]Our plan is to have another four properties giving a total of 8 and this along with our pensions and frugal lifestyle will ensure we have a comfortable retirement. My wife will inherit a substantial sum and this will be used to buy a number of additional properties, my own parent left me their own house which started the whole portfolio off."

[wish I could afford one]

i have done the save hard bit , but getting next to no return any investments paying 4-5% with no risks or very minimal would suit me

Since 05 Jan 2008 (strange dates as I update my position weekly) my portfolio has achieved an annualised return of 6.1% (real 3.3%) to 04 July 2015. If you follow the link in my first comment in this thread and look about half way down you'll see the up's and down's graphically. I also compare this to a benchmark and inflation. I wouldn't for a second suggest my portfolio is no/very minimal risk though but what portfolio is. Invest too conservatively and your risk is you'll never get enough and be living on beans. Invest too aggressively and Mr Market might also see you living on beans. For me I'll take the Goldilocks option.

[Frugal Git]

We sound quite alike in approach. When I retire I will certainly not be cruising or sitting in a sun lounger drinking margarita's. I will however relocate to a country which suits me (and my family) and pursue interests (which will surely contain some work but will also contain more non-work activities which today aren't possible because of my 60 hour work weeks) that I want to when I want to. The difference between then and now is that now I know I have to get up at 0530 tomorrow morning to work in a job that no longer holds the interest it once used to.

Our difference seems to be that you are going for enough wealth for early partial retirement where I'm probably stacking a little more as a % of spending giving optional early full retirement. Given I'll also probably work a little in retirement it probably just means my 'trust fund' as a % of spending when may end up a little more.

Good stuff - it was your blog that inspired me, so thank you very much. I just adapted the approach given my choice to work part time throughout the rest of my working life.

This has definitely meant compromises - work know they have me by the balls in the sense that I don't necessarily have an easy way to go elsewhere and maintain a 22 hour work week - so they underpay me relative to what i think i could get jumping ship (but as i would probably have to go back to full time, its not worth it). But given my strategy is utterly unorthodox - a token amount of tax paid, my 'wealth' still grows at a very decent rate.

I estimate with this strategy my effective net hourly rate to be the same as my manager's manager's manager's manager. In effect I'm trading my time for the same value as someone who's on 120k+. Except whilst they have no time at all (they are pulling 80 hour weeks), I've plenty to do what i want :-)

Thanks again by the way - there's plenty more tweaking i need to do.

[wish I could afford one]

Good stuff - it was your blog that inspired me, so thank you very much. I just adapted the approach given my choice to work part time throughout the rest of my working life.

This has definitely meant compromises - work know they have me by the balls in the sense that I don't necessarily have an easy way to go elsewhere and maintain a 22 hour work week - so they underpay me relative to what i think i could get jumping ship (but as i would probably have to go back to full time, its not worth it). But given my strategy is utterly unorthodox - a token amount of tax paid, my 'wealth' still grows at a very decent rate.

I estimate with this strategy my effective net hourly rate to be the same as my manager's manager's manager's manager. In effect I'm trading my time for the same value as someone who's on 120k+. Except whilst they have no time at all (they are pulling 80 hour weeks), I've plenty to do what i want :-)

Thanks again by the way - there's plenty more tweaking i need to do.

Thanks for your story. As with all plans there are some compromises but as long as they don't damage the goal to much I guess they're acceptable. It's also nice to know there's now 2 of us who read my blog On a more serious note I think there's quite a few of us out there now but many are still lurking. The blog now has more than 1,000 regular readers most of whom are in the UK. If only more would comment regularly I'm sure we'd all be learning a little more. Maybe one day. I wish you much success with your plans.

[dances with sheeple]

World of difference between 44 and 65. And I don't disagree with the 11 'actions' to save money as I do most of them already, bar the second hand cloths ... my PAYG mobile last had £10 put on it two years ago. It is strange that these people have an obsession with buying property rather than building up wealth.

Holy f*uck, thought I was tight with phone spend

[spyguy]

The letter's a scam.

Its another variant of hard saving, careful LL vs. feckless renter, spending it all on booze + iphones FFS!

If the couple were so hard working (both public sector I see) and frugal then why would pour more + more money into housing - unless they were idiots?

The post starts off along the lines 'never be a borrower or lender' and then they go and buy 4 houses with mortgages FFS!

[Bloo Loo]

Overall, in an economy that is Losing Money every day due to deficit spending, the goal to become independently wealthy is a game of chance.

Overall, all are becoming poorer every day.

The longer this lasts, the lower the chance to reach "escape velocity" and the more you need for "fuel" the goal.

[iamnumerate]

funny you should mention shunning consumerism: the very next post I saw on tribes was this post #6 on this thread

http://www.propertytribes.com/buy-property-with-no-money-t-127621250.html

it warrants repeating here

"I was brought up to never be a borrower and whilst I have borrowed money to buy property I have always paid off the loan as fast as I can.

My wife and I earn both earn around £40,000 a year each and work in the public sector mainly for the pension. We live on my income and save every penny of my wife’s income and still manage to save about £500 per month from mine.

We have now 4 terraced houses in Kent and all the rent goes into one account and with my wife’s income enables us to overpay the mortgage on our latest acquisition by around £2,500 per month and within 3 years will then be mortgage free so we can acquire our next property by borrowing partial against one of our existing properties and the rest on the new property. By never spending any of the rental profits and with my wife’s income the speed we can pay off our mortgages increases month on month. I have a detailed spread sheet showing how the balances reduces each month and this really motivates us seeing our wealth increase each month

Tenants are in the position they are in, in the main due to poor financial planning what we do is hardly rocket science. In its simplest form it is abandoning the consumer lifestyle and making it your goal to be financially bomb proof and learning to get a kick out of saving a pound here and there

We believe that this slow but steady approach avoids any risks and therefore the proposals to restrict tax relief on BTL mortgages will have little effect on us.

But most importantly we are very frugal and enjoy getting through each month on as little as possible. We achieve this in a number of ways:-

1) Never buying take out coffee, sandwiches etc…nothing wrong with a thermos flask

2) Shopping at Aldi and buying dented tins/short life items particularly on a Saturday evening

3) Buying clothes on ebay/charity shops

4) Buying household items wherever possible second hand and sometimes from our tenants

5) We drive a 20 year old Volvo and do my own repairs etc

6) Maintain an allotment

7) PAYG mobile phone

8) Do house exchange for holidays although last year we did house sitting and got paid!

9) Putting on an extra layer before putting on the central heating

10) Doing evening classes to learn practical skills

11) Finding entertainment that does not require spending money, rambling, local history, gardening, etc

Our plan is to have another four properties giving a total of 8 and this along with our pensions and frugal lifestyle will ensure we have a comfortable retirement. My wife will inherit a substantial sum and this will be used to buy a number of additional properties, my own parent left me their own house which started the whole portfolio off."

I just wonder if / when they will get to a point where they might start to spend a touch more.

If they are living on less than one salary now and likely to have a joint public sector pension income of something like that one salary between them and then the rent from 8 houses and then a substantial inheritance (to use to buy more rent)... at what point do they tip over, for instance, from him scratching about on his back under a 20 year old volvo to change its oil so that he can get to the charity shop to see if there are any matching socks for him this week to, maybe, getting a new kettle instead of a second hand one. Otherwise, what is it all for?

Does the allotment really save them money? I would love to see how much it saves per hour as what they would get post tax working in McDonalds on Saturday.