“Wake up! No one is going to save you. No one is going to take care of your family or your retirement. No one is going to make things work out for you. The only way to do so is to utilize every moment of every day at 10X levels.” Grant Cardone, 10X Rule

If you are serious about property you need to maximise the effort you put in! You can’t just sit around and wait for the right deals to come along, you need to go out there and see as many (of the right kind) of houses as possible! In order to carry out a buy, refurbish and refinance strategy where you can pull out most (if not all!) of your money - there are not a lot of properties like that. And, most likely you are starting from a position where you don’t have a lot of time to do viewings… So, here are some tips to make sure you maximise the potential deals that will come off as a result of your viewing day!

1. Make sure you view regularly - ideally every week or every other week

2. Book viewings, if possible during the week. This maximises the chance that the person showing you around actually knows a little about the property and its history

3. Find the properties you want to view and pre-qualify them! Go through rightmove and look for the grungy properties and see if there are ‘done-up’ properties that have sold on that street or in the nearby area for much more. Set up a spreadsheet and pop in a nominal refurb value i.e. £10k and then look at what properties in this area of a similar type are renting for. Play around with your spreadsheet! Add in a contingency fund to cover unexpected expenses and insurance (I do around 10%) and to cover a letting agents expenses (again about 10%), then see if the property will still cash flow if, for instance mortgage payments go up to 6%. Does this property look like it might work? Great! pop it on your ‘to view list’.

4. Organise the to view list, by area and by agent. Try to clump viewings by agent and then by area.

5. Create a viewing time sheet and organise your viewings into one per half hour. This gives you about 15 mins to view and 15 mins to get to the next viewing! Aim to book in viewings from 10:30am until it gets dark (you may be able to book viewings earlier but most agents wont start viewing until 10:30am.

6. Ring up/email estate agents to book in your viewings at the times requested.

7. FILL your viewing sheet up! Aim to get viewings into double figures every time you go. If an agent said one of the properties you wanted to view is no longer available go back to point 3 and see if there are any gems you may have missed. Perhaps a little further outside of your area.

8. Use a viewing checklist on the day and take lots of photos (see my previous blog) and take along some flyers to pop in houses that maybe look run down on the street you’re viewing (i.e. “want to sell your home? Call Ana on ….”)

9. Spend a little time on the street before each viewing - while you are checking out the roof - if a neighbour is about ask them a bit about the area and anything they know about the property.

I hope those tips were helpful! Do you have any to add to this list? Do you want to get started out with a buy to let portfolio? I’d love to know or help you out! Drop me a comment below…

Ana ♡

Want to connect? Find me on insta @dranaattlee, or why not pop along to a meet up? If you think I can accelerate your journey to your goals get in touch or book a coaching session!

Interested in this strategy?? Do grab Jacquie Edwards Books on Rent to Rent!

"Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." Francis of Assisi

I started out in property with no money (also no time! ha!) ... my first strategy was to create cash flow so I began with a rent to rent portfolio. This strategy is simply looking for properties on the market that are currently being marketed as single lets but have potential to be made into HMOs by renting out each room individually.

You pay the landlord a guaranteed rent for a set amount of time and you manage the property and any problems that arise. You then, are effectively the managing agent for that property, taking over furnishing the property, tenant finding and tenant management of the property. Do all of this to an extremely high standard and its a great strategy as everyone is happy. You, as a new investor, learn about staging properties and all the legalities of letting a property (perfect for your future dealings with letting agents!) and you make a healthy cashflow…. anywhere between £500-£1k pcm. In my experience it is a quick way to get started, but not a stress free one as the learning curve is steep (see also my post on HMO investing) … not only do you deal with legalities and being out of your comfort zone, it also takes, in my opinion, about 3 months for tenants to settle in properly (in this time there can be bickering amongst tenants and incessant requests for extras, plus many things seem to get broken! Then it takes about 9-12months for things like cashflow to settle into a recognisable state. For this reason I recommend keeping aside 1 rooms rent from as soon as possible to cover voids and build that up to a cash reserve of the full rent you will be paying to the landlord.

For me - I decided to start in rent to rent in November and by January I had my first two properties cashflowing and one more in the set up process! By February I was earning more than I had ever done! So, here are some simple tips to get you started :

1. You need to be prepared to view a lot of properties! Get your comfy shoes on and realise you will learn what you need to say to landlords over time… you dont need to get it right straight away. But, you do need to start to get it right.,

2. Learn your legals!! Become an NLA registered landlord

3. Go out and view rooms in the area you’d like to do rent to rent in… book viewings (at least 5) from spareroom and get to know your market this for me was the single most uncomfortable step but one that cant be missed!

4. Look on open rent and gumtree for properties that would be suitable to rent. Go and view as many as possible.

5. Don’t bother negotiating the rent… but work out how you can make this win win for both you and the landlord

6. Stage your property well!

7. Make sure you know how you will be dealing with cleaning and maintenance - task rabbit was my friend!

8. Advertise and advertise well - do your listing for your market! I went for a high end HMO market so I made my listing look like a serviced accommodation ad… in fact my rent to rent HMOs were almost a hybrid between serviced accommodation and HMO.

9. Have the most personable person you know do the viewings … I am a HUGE people person so I did my own viewings

10. Have systems!!!

11. Make sure the rent for each landlord comes out on the same day near the end of the month and your tenant rents come in at the same day at the start of the mont

12. WATCH your cashflow!!

I hope those tips were helpful! What’s your strategy? Do you want to get started out with a rent to rent portfolio? I’d love to know or help you out! Drop me a comment below…

Ana ♡

Want to connect? Find me on insta @dranaattlee, or why not pop along to a meet up? If you think I can accelerate your journey to your goals get in touch or book a coaching session!

Buy to let’s are the bottom of the investment pyramid. They form a solid foundation from which you build to bigger (and possibly more exciting things! Despite what you may have read buy to let investing is not dead in the UK, and there are lots of great deals out there and good to be done. Yes, good!

Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone aspires to own their own home… and with less social housing than ever good landlords are gold dust.

If you want to get into buy to let investing you can either buy a property that doesn’t need doing up or you can do what I have done which is to buy grotty houses that require renovation and refurbishment to bring them up to market value. I then refinance these properties to market value after 6-12months in order to pull out money to buy again. Here are my tips:

1. Buy to demand!! Check there is demand in the area you are buying before you buy!

2. Do your due diligence…check sold comparables within 1/4 mile and sold in the last few months on rightmove, then use hometrack to estimate end value, cross check values on zoopla and mouseprice. Check, check and double check your numbers.

3. Get a survey before buying … it helps to avoid surprises (although not always!!)

4. Be ethical - don’t gazump people when they have offered on repo’s and don’t kick tenants out of their houses … there’s abundance out there and to me it’s just good karma!

5. Don’t be over optimistic on what value you will achieve … plan for a worst case, min case and best case!

6. Get a few quotes from builders on what work will be needed. Dont necessarily go with the cheapest quote. Choose your builder wisely, get a few recommendations, check them out on line and finally go with who you think you will work best with (despite doing this I have still been caught out a few times). A builder will make or break your deal.

7. Surveyors have all the power. If they are having a bad day, they will give you a lower valuation and there is not much you can do about it!

8. Prepare revaluation pack showing the surveyor what works have been done and what you think the end value is… pass to surveyor and back away meekly!

9. Consider getting two valuations done at the same time, then if one doesn’t come in as expected you have a fall back.

10. Get the right tenant in… make sure you are comfortable with who the letting agent chooses.

11. Be nice to your tenant! You are providing a home for them. Change your mindset - these are not your properties. They are other peoples homes! I want my tenants to stay forever. So far so good! I attend to problems quickly and efficiently. Tenants can have pets, smoke and put up pictures, they can also decorate - because it is their home!

12. Know the legalities of letting - you are responsible for tons! Go and become an NLA accredited landlord.

13. Get an amazing accountant - they can help you decide to buy in your own name or a company. I have done both.

14. You don’t need loads of money to get started in property! Look for houses around £50k… my broker even found mortgages the other day for properties around £35k! At 75% LTV you only need 25% for the deposit and a bit extra for fees!

15. Go for 75% LTV so you leave some equity in…

16. Get an amazing power team!

17. Have a spreadsheet - run your numbers and take into account all costs of buying. Then stress test your purchase on what happens if mortgages raise to 6% - I never buy properties that don’t cashflow over £100 on a 6% stress test.

18. Be prepared when letting to dss tenants that payments from the council or universal credit take time to come through… don’t start evicting good tenants because the government is not paying correctly or on time. I have waited a long long time for payments to come through and have had some very upset (wonderful) tenants worrying I would kick them out…

19. Balance your portfolio - I dont like to buy in only one post code or area, I also balance tenant types to protect cash flow.

What’s your strategy? Do you have any tips for buy to let investing? I’d love to know! Drop me a comment below…

Ana ♡

Want to connect? Find me on insta @dr.anaattlee, or why not pop along to a meet up? If you think I can accelerate your journey to your goals get in touch or book a coaching session!