Property investors often say to me “Deep,
how can I make my existing property portfolio
more profitable?”
It’s a tricky one and there is no ‘one
size fits all’ answer. Let’s look at a
few options:
1. Increase your rents – a good strategy
but not always possible especially
when the market is very competitive
(in fact you may have to lower your
rents in some cases to get your properties
rented quickly)
2. Try to find new more profitable uses
for your property – a classic example
would be taking a large 6 bedroom
detached house and turning it into 3
self contained flats. This strategy can
only be applied in certain situations of
course.
3. Assuming the property is financed
with a loan an investor could renegotiate
financing terms or refinance with a
different mortgage lender. There are
some great rates out there at the moment
so this is a viable option that I
will focus on in this article.
Let’s look at an example of how a property
investor might go about making her property
portfolio much more profitable by
taking the refinance route…
She is paying £600 per month a mortgage
interest on a property which earns her
£800 per month in rent. That’s £200 per
month (gross) that she gets to keep each
month. She has an average level of equity
in the property.
If she could refinance the debt and reduce
her mortgage interest payment from £600
to £500 per month then let’s look at the
figures now.
Her gross profit each month has leapt
from £200 to £300 – that’s an increase of
50%. Keeping everything else equal, let’s
assume she has 20 of these properties.
That would mean her gross income shooting
up from £4,000 per month to £6,000
per month!
That’s a £2,000 increase in her monthly
income for nothing more than speaking to
an honest independent mortgage broker
and filling out some forms.
Let’s look at another example. A property
investor owns £1m of property with loans
of £500,000 secured against the portfolio.
The total rental income is £80,000 per
year. Mortgage interest payments are
£35,000 per year. |
By simply refinancing the £1m property
portfolio up to 80% of current market
value he ends up with £300,000 in cash
(£800,000 - £500,000) that he can use to
purchase more properties. His interest
payments rise to £56,000 which are covered
by the £80,000 in rental income coming
in.
Overly simplistic examples perhaps but
I’m sure you get the idea.
This approach doesn’t just work for BTL
investors either. It can be applied to whole
raft of property investments including
renovation projects, redevelopments, land
acquisitions, conversions, buy to sell properties,
commercial property investments
and even second home investments.
Get A Trained Professional
To Help You
Hitting the web and choosing a mortgage
product from one of the many of lenders
out there can be headache. For a start you
will not be able to access many of the
‘special’ products that lenders reserve for
brokers. Why? Because they have buying
power that you as an individual will not
benefit from.
You will also waste valuable time chasing
people you do not have much influence
with. For example, I’ve just raised £980k
from Lloyds TSB for a development project
I’m working on. My broker called the
bank every other day to answer their
questions and chase the application. Then
more questions and more chasing followed
by bankers taking holidays followed by a
few more questions and so on…
After all that you’d expect them to have an
offer for me within a few weeks wouldn’t
you? The mortgage offer took the bank
THREE MONTHS to get out to me! And
in that time my mortgage broker had invested
many hours either on the phone,
sorting out forms himself or discussing
things with me.
He is not paid a penny unless the mortgage
goes through so why would I want to
waste my time chasing everything when
he can do it all for me?
What Should You Watch Out For?
Be VERY wary of mortgage products with
the very lowest rates. Some deals appear
very attractive until you read the fine print where you will not only find hefty
arrangement fees (sometimes |
added to the
loan but repayable by you eventually remember)
you may also be forced to pay
substantial redemption penalties if you
repay the loan early. This is fine if you
want to be tied in for a while but make
sure you are aware of the flexibility you
have given up.
An independent properly qualified mortgage
broker can you lead to the best deal.
How Do I Find A
Good
Mortgage Broker?
We have several quality mortgage brokers
on our Tycoons forum website or if you
prefer you can drop me a line via
broker@property-finance.com or call our
office on 0121 702 1414 and I’ll give you
the number for the team of mortgage brokers
who handle all my business.
They will call you back and talk you
through the hottest deals on the market.
More importantly they will take all the
hassle and trouble out of finding the best
buy to let mortgage product for you.
Getting The Very Best Deal
It’s important that you secure the very
best terms on offer. My team will show
you how to structure your application in
order to do this. They will search the
market for the most appropriate deals
that will allow you to reduce your monthly
repayments and/or raise extra cash you
can use to buy more properties or do whatever
else you want to do with it.
They can help fund HMO properties
(licensed or unlicensed), ex council properties,
commercial properties, flats above
shops, studio flats, bedsits and part commercial
part residential properties. Tenant
types include students, DSS, companies,
housing associations and councils.
No matter where you are in the property
business – established or just starting out
drop them a line and see what your options
are. Drop me a line via
broker@property-finance.com or call our
office on 0121 702 1414 and I’ll give you
the number for the team of mortgage brokers
who handle all my business. |