All posts by Graham Porter

Dodged a Bullet on this Deal!

Glenn and I were due to buy this nice little three bed semi on the Partnership Programme from a motivated seller and as you can see it has Solar Panels……. All good so far!

We had gone in with a low offer and I negotiated it down further after the offer was2014-12-24_142729 accepted on the basis of the condition.

I put together a document for the surveyor detailing schedule of works and sold comparables and was very pleased when he confirmed in his report that the post works valuation was £115k as we were buying at £65k, he also confirmed it was worth £65k in its current condition….. Happy days!

 

We were keen to exchange ASAP as we were in a contract race.

On the day of exchange we were good to go but required confirmation of that there was no charge against the property for the Solar Panels, however, as this property had an unregistered title we could not see if there were any charges!

We were under pressure as we were in a contract race.

Glenn suggested we ask for a retention to cover our selves in the event that there was a charge against the property for these panels. We also wanted confirmation that the panels had been bought and that the roof space had not been leased on a profit share basis as either of these issues could make the property hard to sell and/or hard to mortgage.

Of course, as quite a few of the lenders are not keen to lend on properties that have Solar Panels installed on lease arrangements this could have seriously impacted on our ability to resell the house.

As soon as we asked for the retention the vendor instructed the agent to go with the other offer and the competing bidder exchanged at their own risk.

 

Call me old fashioned but I didn’t fancy doing a £20k refurb to pay for someone else’s Solar Panels  to end up being left with a house that was hard to sell because it had Panels on the roof that were on  an unattractive lease deal.

We dodged a bullet on this one - that’s the power of the Partnership Programme, buying and selling property is a big boys game and if you don’t know what you are doing you can easily come off the worst. 

Better to loose a deal than to make a mistake!  

Shame as there was £25k in the deal and it wold have been an easy sell at £115k……..Oh well, you live and learn….. onward, upwards and on to the next deal !

Project 1 - Money in the Bank!

 

We purchased this 1930s built semi-detached property in St Helens. It was for sale with an Estate Agent, but it wasn’t selling because it was in a very poor state of repair. Decoratively every room was a complete mess. The vendors were divorcing and wanted to move on with their lives and so just weren’t in a position to wait and wait for someone to come along and buy it at full market price.
  

This was therefore a text book example straight off the Four Day Intensive of one of the circumstances that can provide property investors with an opportunity for a substantial profit. They obviously wanted and needed a quick sale, but because the house was in such a very poor state it wasn’t appealing enough to sell to an owner occupier. This was therefore an ideal property for an investor to step in and either refurbish it so that it would appeal to an owner occupier, or to do a cheaper buy to let refurb and rent the property out. Once this property had been identified, it was then just a case of putting more of the learnings into practice to provide these motivated sellers with a solution that worked for them and ethically give them the opportunity to move on with their lives.

 

Everything about the property was tired. The kitchen was an extremely dated late 1980s style.

Once the appliances had been taken out it really started to show its age. Clearly this kitchen was not going to sell this or any other house!

 

  
 

Exposed pipework ran right through the house as can be seen here in the dining room. It had been boxed in in a very amateur DIY fashion.Clearly this is one dining room that was not going to be hosting dinner parties any time soon!

 

 

 

 

 
   

The bathroom was very small. It didn’t have a shower and unbelievably it didn’t even have a radiator! Hard to imagine such a poor standard of bathroom actually being used in 2014! It was like something from a bygone age.

 

Well that is all very interesting I hear you say…… but what has that got to do with being on the Glenn Armstrong Partnership Programme?

Well, despite having trained as a Quantity Surveyor and being an award winning student in construction management and technology, I didn’t actually have any hands on experience of property investment. I did not therefore have the skills or experience necessary undertake this project on my own. Well, not without learning the hard way i.e. by making mistakes and you don’t have to be a Q.S. to work out how expensive doing it that way could be when buying and selling a house!

 

The benefits to me of working with Glenn on this project were immense.

Glenn has bought and sold literally 100s and 100s of houses in his property career and being the extremely intelligent and resourceful man that he is, it is safe to assume that he has learnt a trick or two (hundred) along the way!

  

 

There are quite a few skills that you need to have fully mastered in order to be able to buy and sell properties safely and profitably, without getting burnt and without losing your shirt on the first deal such as:

  • Sourcing property deals
  • Valuing properties
  • Pricing refurbishments
  • Refurbishing to the correct spec for:                   

                                                          Buy to let

                                                         Sell to owner occupier

If you don’t have these individual skill sets, then buying and selling property safely and profitably is going to be a skill that you just don’t possess! Fortunately all of the above are what you learn to do week in and week out on the partnership programme, it is really just a case of turning up, getting stuck in and doing the work.

Glenn has got such an in depth knowledge of property investment that there are very few people who can’t learn from him. One thing is for certain, you know if he is putting his money into a deal with you, you can be pretty much 100% positive that it is going to work out very well for you.

 
Photos Of The Property Before We Started

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Finished Product

 

 

 

 
 

The numbers:

  •  Bought for £65k
  • £12k spent on the refurb
  • Sold for £120k

Job done - money in the bank – looking forward to project number 2!

Thanks Glenn for all the help and support along the way and from helping me on my journey to becoming a property investment professional!

Graham Porter