Stewart THE BOOK ON UK PROPERTY

7 Ways to Become a Successful Property Investor
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-77277-707-9
Verlag: 10-10-10 Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 188 Seiten

Reihe: THE BOOK ON UK PROPERTY

7 Ways to Become a Successful Property Investor Everything you need to know about getting started investing in property in the UK. It's all here, warts and all! * Learn how to buy investment properties * Make money from them * Secure your financial future

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Autoren/Hrsg.

Stewart, Neil

Leseproben

My Jobs

So, who is Neil Stewart and how did I start out? I am what is known affectionately (or not) as a “service brat.” That is effectively a soldier’s child. My father was in the Army, and then so was I. I grew up and went to school in probably 5 or 6 different areas, towns and countries. Every three years, my father would be posted or sent to a different area in the world. Of course, as a child, that meant I had to change schools, so I went to five or six different schools while I was growing up. The final school that I did my exams at was a school in Germany while my father was posted to Dusseldorf. The school was a military-run school, so it was British speaking and British teaching. So, it wasn’t that I had to learn lessons in German, although that might have been good as well.

In my final year of O’levels at school, a careers officer from the military came round and did a nice talk about how amazing life was in the services—the Army, the Air Force and the Navy. We were asked if any of us wanted to join. I loved the idea of joining the Army and decided to take the aptitude test, which they gave you in the school. At the end of the aptitude test, they then told you what career in the Army would suit you best. For me, it was a technical position. It was also the best paid one!

After I left school, I joined the Army straight away. At the age of 16, I went to the Army Apprentice’s College, Harrogate in Yorkshire, where I learned to become a Royal Signals Technician.

This was a junior Army college—everybody was under the age of 18— as well as learning how to do your trade that you were going to be doing in the Army. You also were taught Army skills— you were always told that you were a soldier 1st and you were a technician secondly. So, I learned to become a technician in the communications industry, and I joined the Man’s Army.

After that, I decided to leave the Army at the age of 30. I then set up my own consultancy business and IT business. I owned an IT shop for a few years, and I also consulted for both the police and schools in the area where I lived. I did that for another 14 years or so, and that’s when I decided that I really wanted to do something different and not stay in the computer business world. I was good at business computers, but I really didn’t want to keep doing it. It didn’t excite me. It just didn’t, even though I could do it very easily. Someone once said to me, “Do what makes you happy and you will never work a day again!”

Property, coaching and mentoring make me happy.

How I Started and the Mistakes I Made

Back in 2004, there was a lot of talk in the news about how your pension would probably not be good enough to keep you in the lifestyle you are accustomed to.

Well, that hasn’t changed in the last 21 years; it continues to make news every so often. When I heard this and read about it, I decided that I must find a way to have a pension that will keep me in the lifestyle I want to live. I must find something that would give me that.

Guess what I decided that would be? Yes, PROPERTY!

I would buy a property that I could rent out, and it would add income to the tiny pension I will get from the Army, which I will receive when I hit 60 years old. This will increase the total I will have each month to live on when I want to retire.

Strangely enough, I came across a guy who was looking for people to buy one of the first of 12 flats that were being built in a town in Wiltshire called Trowbridge. He was offering a discount on the market price to anyone who committed to buying, if we put a deposit down to secure it before it was built.

Wow! I thought, “This is it. let’s do it.” I went and met him; I looked at the nearly finished apartments and decided to buy one. In fact, my parents had also been talking to him, and they had decided to buy one too. Their circumstances were different to mine, but none the less, I thought, “Hey, if they are buying one, then I must be on the right track.”

The plan was to buy the apartment and rent it out. There would be nothing to do to the apartment as it was all brand new and the rental market should be good there. Off I went and got myself a self-certified mortgage. Back in 2004, you could get a mortgage by just saying you could afford the repayments.

So, I bought the apartment and put it up for rent with a local le-ng agent.

It rented very quickly and, after my first month, I was looking forward to seeing the money come into my bank account.

Now, this is where the real learning happened! The first month you rent with an agent, you pay the agent a fee for setting everything up: marketing it, finding you a tenant, referencing them and then signing them up to a tenancy agreement. That cost more than I expected. Anyway, I was still very optimistic that on the second month, I would start to make some money.

This is where I had another learning moment. Yes, the rent came in from the agent after their percentage to manage (usually 8– 12%), but after I paid the mortgage, paid the agent’s fees and the service charge and ground rent, both of which I had no idea where something I had to pay, I had lost £50. Yes, I was in negative £50 per month.

Now what kind of investment was that!

Not a very good one. This apartment was going to cost me £600 a year, plus any maintenance or other landlord fees, such as a gas boiler service, etc.

I Found the Leaflet, or Did the Leaflet Find Me?

Right about this time was when I discovered Martin Roberts’ Homes Under the Hammer on the BBC. I was absolutely fascinated by the programme, and I loved watching the way that people could turn an old rundown property, bought at auction, into something amazing and provide a great environment, and a safe home for people to live in. So, it really got my attention. I used to watch a lot of the episodes that came out, and I would think, “How does anyone ever do that?”

By coincidence, or perhaps it was fate, who knows? But a leaflet that came through my door that said, “How would you like to earn money from property and do it the right way?” On the leaflet was a picture of Martin Roberts in a bath full of money, which was an interesting advert.

Never mind about the picture, it was exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to find out what it was all about, so I called the number on the leaflet. I am sure many of you come across these kinds of events, where you go along and you get a free couple of hours listening to some very inspirational stories, some convincing stories that absolutely motivate you, if that’s what you want to do to move forward. This was exactly where I was and what I wanted.

The problem was, I went with my then wife, at the time, and she really wasn’t interested in doing it at all. I got very excited about the whole thing; I really wanted to go for it and wanted to pay the deposit. Now there wasn’t a cost implication initially because if you purchased a seat on the course, you were allowed to take along your partner, spouse or even your business partner as part of the package, so there was no extra cost. But she was adamant she didn’t want to go and that I should go by myself. It was something that I wanted to do, so I did just that and went on my own. This was a decision that would have a knock-on effect later in my personal life.

So, I learned that if I was going to do something, and something I am passionate about and value, then I would want the person who is in my life to come along and maybe understand what’s going on—even if they don’t do the whole course but just showed some kind of interest in what I’m doing and listen to some of it, but she was not interested in it at all.

I now run workshops that teach investors exactly what I have learned. If you want to attend one, get in touch at [e-mail] and consider involving a partner.

I Got Trained

So, there I was, standing in the lobby of a very large building, with a lot of other people who were also hoping that this was not a con and there were going to be courses at the end of it.

We all stood there for what seemed like an eternity, hoping that someone was going to come out of the locked doors and welcome us in to start our training. That’s exactly what happened. We were taken into a large classroom, we met our speakers and the support people so that we got into the training straight away.

Now, there were various packages you could take. I had chosen a five-course package; so, that was five courses in which I was going to be taught different ways and strategies of investing in property, with a mentor at the end of it. The way that they worked the trainings was that you did the classroom theory work, and when you completed the theory, you then were given a mentor to go out and do the practical.

You physically go out to a chosen area and buy your first property or follow the mentor’s lead on how you should be finding further properties. You learn how you should be negotiating, talking to agents etc. I took my courses every two months. After completing each course, I would spend time reviewing what I’d learnt and then put it into practice immediately. For example, if I was learning how to get my first Buy to Let property, I would go through all my notes and then take action. A lot of other people didn’t take that kind of action. They thought they would do all the trainings and then start thinking about what we’re going...