General (main property discussion here) - living in london and btl in the north east

Does anybody have experience of this? If so how is it working out? Any problems or is just too easy. I am thinking of doing this due to better yields,but distance is holding me back,because no matter how much research you do,if something were to go seriously wrong i can't be there in a half an hour! Any advice or experinces would be great. Thanks.

Hi Helena,

I have a buy to let in Manchester and hopefully within the month another 3 or 4 in Scotland and I live and work in Germany.

As long as you get a good letting agent, that is preferrably recommended to you by someone else, you should be fine. But even if you had a property within easy reach there can still be problems.

My first property was my worst and hopefully never happens again, I was let down by a bad agent and the tenants were, shall I say, wasters! Two and two together and I got roughly -£2500.

But dont let that put you off. The agent wasnt part of ARLA and I was naive, I thought the letting agent with the most boards up must be good....I was wrong.

Make sure they are part of an organisation like ARLA. Check they have had a good history with tenants. How long they have been in business.

A good one is to ask who works for them, I found that students on there summer hols were working in my first letting agent, they dont really care about your property and were gone by the end of the summer and didnt give a to$$ about the rent arrears building up.

I would have to fly home if there was a major problem, so I need a good agent taking care.

Sometimes you need to go far afield to get the better yields, dont let distance put you off. Especially if you live in London! You will need to go far afield.

There are horor stories and there are good stories, so dont worry.

Give it a go.

Good luck

Simon

helena,

as simon mentioned, the letting agent is absolutely key. find a good agent and it wouldn't matter if you are renting houses out in the north-east and living in new zealand.

as well as arla, try and get the inside scope from places like forums on the best letting agents and go and meet them.

tom

Thanks for that,Simon. Certainly sounds encouraging,i think for me this is going to be a case of "feel the fear,but do it anyway".

I just think i have been spoilt by having one property 3 miles away,and no major probs in the last 5 years.

I will take a trip to my chosen destination and get a feel for the area and keep you posted of further developments,

cheers

Helena

Good advice, thanks also Tom

Helena

Hi Helena,

Echo what the guys said. All bar one of my propeties are in the NW or NE and I am in Herts. Even when I wasn't in property full time I never found myself going up and down the M1/M6.

When you find you area - post on here. I am sure someone will be able to recommend an area.

If you want to mail me offline please feel free. I am sure I will be able to advice.

Regards

Russell

russell@propertyinnovations.net

Thanks Russell

Will do.

Hi Helena,

There are alot of decent properties in the North East and scotland as there are agents as well if i can be of any help please feel free to contact me offline.

Tom.

thomas_whitelaw@hotmail.co.uk

I wouldn't want to live in many of the places I rent out, so it's hardly surprising that they aren't exactly local.

Buy props as investments. I'm not buying into 5% yields, no matter how nice / secure the area. Even on a good day, I'd be losing money. At least up north I am presently, and hopefully will in the future, make a profit on the capital I am putting at risk.

John

john,

As you say yes you are taking a risk as with any investment, if you get a decent yield thats great but you can sometimes purchase the property at a good price, thus giving you equity and yield.

this is true - many investors only look at yield.

while this strategy has its obvious merits you should not ignore those props that are significantly bmv. often with a very quick refurb you can make a quick 10-20%.

tom