Home Buyers Show – More “Below Market Value”, Less UK Off Plan, Lots of Overseas Off Plan

I’m just back from the home buyers show at London’s Excel. Great fun superbly organised and as usual I met some great people.
Unsurprisingly, the number of stands offering customers the secrets to buying property “below market value” (or BMV) was up quite a bit on last year. And given the huge interest in this area that’s hardly surprising.
Meanwhile, the number of vendors offering off plan in the UK has now got ever smaller – the few still doing it are only offering really up-market apartments -the sort that may have some unique value for tenants.
The current “big thing” - other than BMV, that is - is in now off plan overseas and the number of vendors selling off plan overseas is well up (except for Coastal Bulgaria where the number of stands dropped dramatically as tales of non existing tenants and huge void periods have now hit home.)
As I said at my seminar, if you went back about 5 years ago, the show was full of vendors selling off plan flats mainly in the north of England. (Unfortunately, only two out of the 200 people who saw me speak over the three days had been at the shows 5 years ago!)
The clever investors 5 years ago usually avoided the heavy marketing of UK off plan flats and went for existing terraces - and they made far more money by doing so.
Sadly, many people at the show last weekend will have bought off plan overseas and may struggle to get any tenants – yields in many places are very low and tenants hard to find.
You can do well overseas and many of the investments on offer were good - but you must do your own research or you could end up with an asset far away that’s costing you lots of time and money.
And if you go down the BMV route you’ve got to be prepared to do quite a lot of work too to find the really good deals.
Sorry, to say, but whilst there is still very good money to be made in property there’s no easy road or quick path to millions for the armchair investor.

MORE ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS AND WHAT WE DO

LettingFocus.com is the home of landlord information.

I’m David Lawrenson, a landlord and property investor myself for over 25 years and author of “Successful Property Letting” – the UK’s top selling commercially published property book for the last 3 years.

Services to Businesses and the Public Sector

Primarily I am a consultant to banks, local authorities, social housing providers and other organisations – helping them with their landlord facing or buy to let product strategies and services.

For example, I help banks improve their buy to let mortgage lending practices and I help housing association / local authorities find private landlords (private rented access schemes, local letting agency models etc.)
I also write for property websites and am regularly quoted by the broadcast media.

Services for Private Landlords

We also find some spare time to help landlords and property investors by coaching them in how to make money in the private rented sector using ways that work, which are ethical, fair to tenants and which involve minimal risk to the investor.
We pride ourselves on giving independent unbiased buy to let advice on either a one-to-one mentoring / coaching basis or through our occasional group seminars. With no links to property firms, developers or bridging loan providers we can advise on where and what type of property to buy for investment and when to buy it. We also show you how to manage tenants properly.

AT OUR WEBSITE LETTINGFOCUS.COM:

THE HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG click here: Blog

THE HOME PAGE OF OUR MAIN SITE click here: LettingFocus Home Page

For general info on our CONSULTING click here: Consultancy and Seminars

ONE TO ONE PRIVATE CONSULTANCY click here: Property Mentoring

NEXT SEMINAR AND NETWORKING EVENT for Landlords and Property Investors:
Next Property Investment Seminar and Networking Event

We have OFFERS on a range of services and products for landlords too; click here including landlords insurance, tenant referencing, tenancy agreements and more: Services and Products for Landlords

TO READ CLIENT TESTIMONIALS – both commercial and private click here: Testimonials

BUY “SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY LETTING” click here: Buy the Book at Amazon plus anything else you fancy at Amazon.co.uk

To JOIN our Free QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER simply send an email to david@LettingFocus.com - Please note we WILL NOT send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers!

IF YOU HAVE A SITE WHY NOT LINK TO THIS BLOG OR TO OUR WEBSITE?

IF YOU SELL SERVICES TO LANDLORDS, YOU COULD BE A PARTNER ON OUR AFFILIATE PROGRAMME.

PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!

See our TWITTER PAGE: http://twitter.com/LettingFocus

Copyright of Blog: David Lawrenson 2007. This blog is updated roughly once a week usually on a Monday or Tuesday.

TO VIEW RELATED POSTS select a “Category” at the bottom of this page.

This entry was posted by lettingfocus, on Monday, March 05, 2007.