Mortgage underwriting is an exercise in risk mitigation.  The cheapest rates are only available where lenders have mitigated the most risk.  This includes your personal circumstances, the type of property you want to mortgage and every little detail of your financial track record.  These lenders will decline to lend if there’s even a tiny issue that happened years ago.

The...

Saving up – especially in today’s economic climate – is tough, and when you need to save thousands to amass enough for a deposit on your first buy-to-let, it can take years.  However, many people start looking at property when they receive an unexpected windfall.

This might be a chunk of cash that comes as an inheritance or may even be a property, that gets the little...

The last year has changed the property world - and yet, despite predictions of doom and gloom, it’s remained buoyant and property is still a first class investment with prices increasing.

The past couple of years have demanded a level of flexibility from the property industry and, in general, most property businesses have risen to the challenge.  There have been more virtual viewings...

Property can be a lonely world; non-property people tend to foresee doom and gloom about the property market; other people in property are chasing the same deals as you are.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

With the right environment, you can learn from your peers - sharing experience and helping each other to avoid pitfalls and discover some of the smart property moves that make your...

The property investment industry is surrounded by doubting Thomases.  These are the friends and family who think that, while it was easy to make a fast buck prior to the credit crunch, property is now a mugs game. 

These people are not property investors - and never have been - but they know someone who lost their shirt.  Or more likely, someone who has heard of someone who lost...

If you’re just setting off on your property journey you’ll almost always meet people who will tell you that property is a mug’s game.  These people are not in property, but they’ve plenty of tales of disaster, bankruptcy and people who have lost their shirt on a property deal that went wrong.  They may even be your family and close friends.

Of course, you know...

The degree of success you achieve in your property investment career is determined by your mind-set; by your ability to take action, to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.

Education is vital too, as it gives direction to your actions, but that counts for little if you never put your knowledge into action.  

“To know and not to do is really not to know.”

So...

I believe that mind-set is the defining factor between success and failure in property – and in any other area of life.

I meet people in property all the time and the people I meet are at every stage of the property journey from the ‘thinking-about-it’, through the ‘just-getting-started’ and ‘property-as-a-sideline’ to the professional property...

My interest in property started when my mother bought me a book about property as a birthday present; it was called Property Renovation Profits.  It’s a gift that changed my life. I read the book and I did what it said in the pages. I followed the instructions to a tee: I bought property, renovated it, and sold it for a profit.  Then I was fired up enough to do it again. 

...

Go to any property meet and you’ll find at least as many people who are ‘getting into property’ as those who are already successful.  A year down the line many of those same people are still standing on the starting line and haven’t got started yet.

What’s holding them back?

There are three things:

1. Fear – of failure, but sometimes of success
2. Indecision...