Why Invest in Property?

I started getting into Investing in Property for a few different reasons really. Although a major one sticks out: Money. Not in a 'I'm obsessed and want to take a bath in ?50 notes type of way', but in a 'I've got myself in shitloads of debt, how do I get out of it' kind of way.

Investing in Property and making profit every month seemed like the fastest way to get to my end goal - the relaxed life of a beach bum.  I have no desire to be super-rich at all. To have enough to live simply in various beach huts, in various far flung places has always been the big idea for me. I don't want a Ferrari particularly, I don't want a mansion in the country, to wear sunglasses and a suit and tell everyone how awesome I am. I want sit down, near the sea, and do as little as possible.

That was about 4 years ago, and the fact I am writing this sat in an old house and not in the Bahamas tells you that it hasn't all gone totally to plan.

It all started off pretty well. A couple of mates and I (Ben and Ash) had a look at a few courses, and finally plumped for a 3 day mentoring work shop with a well known property expert. I won't mention his name (for a variety of reasons) but the course was excellent, as was the teaching, and we went away from it having placed a few offers on properties. He also put me in touch with a phenomenal mortgage advisor, who I will speak about at a later date, and certainly reccomend. Most importantly, he taught us how to buy property with as little money as possible. Which was useful, as I had absolutely none.

This is another reason I wanted to invest in property - the bank will actually lend me money to buy it, so that I can make money out of it. Mental.

You can't do some of the no money down techniques we used back then now, which is a shame, but there are still plenty of good strategies out there (I'll talk about them in a later article).

Initially we were concentrating on the rent-a-room style of property investment (HMO's to those in the know), as that is what we had been taught.  Essentially it concentrates on building up cashflow each month, which was definitely my main aim

In no time we had purchased a couple of properties, and were decking them out to rent the rooms out as soon as possible. By our (perhaps slightly naive) calculations, we would be making ?600-?700 profit per month on each property. Well our spreadsheet said so, so it must have been true.

As i collected the first months rent from my first tenant, a chap called Andy, I honestly remember saying to Ben and Ash; "Can it really be this simple?"

Ten million phonecalls from Andy the Tenant in the first week led me to believe that having to deal with him all the time was going to be a bit of a nightmare, and that potentially, this information had been conveniently left out of this idiot-proof guide to making money from property. Andy was not the first, or worst, nightmare tenant I have had. Occupational hazard i suppose.

Enter Jim, who has stepped in and managed all the properties at one stage or another, and saved the last threads of my sanity. This was a big lesson in the importance of having a good team in place to help manage the properties. I am sure I will bang on about that at a later date - having a man on the ground, in the form of Jim has been essential in keeping the places rented, and also in decent condition. He is also a top bloke. So that's nice.

So since then, I have bought four properties, (2 four bed houses, one 3 bed flat, and a little studio flat). They all make a decent profit each month, although thanks to my repaying of debts i racked up during the Uni and just left Uni years, they don't quite make me enough to put my feet up on the beach for the rest of my days, so I'm still hunting for a few more.

That, in a nutshell is why I Invested in Property. So i can retire to a beach life as soon as possible. It seems to me to be the fastest way for someone like me, with very little money, to make some decent income each month, without actually having to do a vast amount of work.

That might seem a little lazy to some, and I'm not sure how that compares to why some of you invest, or want to invest, in property - feel free to give your input in a comment or message....

Cheers!