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Decent cheap areas to buy property as fail safe before living on a boat


thomask130

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18 minutes ago, Athy said:

I've never heard of those. Although I myself shouldn't require one, it would be interesting to know how they work.

Only for first time buyers. Most Banks etc do them

Can put £1200 in at set up.  max £200 per month.

Government will give 25%.  Min £400 max £3000.

Not life changing, but 25% return on £12k is not to be sniffed at.

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1 hour ago, Athy said:

I've never heard of those. Although I myself shouldn't require one, it would be interesting to know how they work.

Once again, Martyn Lewis/Money Saving Expert (MSE) comes to the rescue...

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/help-to-buy-ISA

Lifetime ISAs are also worth a look, but the money is tied up until you either buy a property (as a first time buyer) or reach the age of 60 (they are intended for either buying property or for retirement)...

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/lifetime-ISAs

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, sueb said:

If you buy a house to let out keep a room for your use. You can then go back any time to check on the state of your investment.

Although do bear in mind that renting a house out minus a room would make it much less attractive to a tenant who doesn't want their landlord turning up to stay whenever they feel like it.

You can always make an appointment to check on the condition of the house without invading the tenant's privacy.

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1 hour ago, sueb said:

If you buy a house to let out keep a room for your use. You can then go back any time to check on the state of your investment.

Not sure what to say to that.... apart from not a good idea, in the circumstances. It's more like taking in lodgers, which is a whole different kettle of fish to letting a property as a whole.

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4 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

Not sure what to say to that.... apart from not a good idea, in the circumstances. It's more like taking in lodgers, which is a whole different kettle of fish to letting a property as a whole.

Yes. And never mind the £100 to £200 a month loss of rent for witholding what could otherwise be a further bedroom. 

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6 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Yes. And never mind the £100 to £200 a month loss of rent for witholding what could otherwise be a further bedroom. 

I would suspect that it would also mean that the property was classed as HMO

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1 minute ago, Jess-- said:

I would suspect that it would also mean that the property was classed as HMO

 

Probably right but I'm not up to speed on HMOs. I prefer the well off, demandy uni post grad type of tenant. I cope well with them! 

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You can buy my place if you like, also 10 mins away from the Peak forest canal so you can pop by on your travels:

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/46911830

Solid investment, good rental potential, if you do it for holiday lets you could stay there yourself when you need to. It's definitely not a 'cheap' area, but it's the cheapest you'll ever find a place here, it's a lovely village.  I'd have rather bought a town class with a RN I had my eye on, but got this place so I could look after my old dad - now it's time to move on.

Has anyone tried the P2P lending route for investments? I've been looking at them for a few years now, they seem to be becoming more accepted as a viable investment, have more controls, some are now tax free ISAs and the most established 'safe' ones seem to average out at 4.6% pa last time I updated my spreadsheet. They're not risk free, but seem fairly solid for a diverse portfolio.

bx

 

 

 

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I'm in a similar position to you thomask130. 32 years old, I bought my boat last week, but still intend to buy a house. I lived in Liverpol for 11 years and love the city. You can easily get a flat for under 100k in the more desirable areas. Or you can buy somewhere slightly less desirable (but in my opinion, more interesting areas to live!) and find a big 3 bed Victorian terrace for around 80k. I've been looking in Tuebrook, Toxteth and Wavertree. There are certain groups of streets in those areas that I wouldn't want to buy in, but I know the city well enough to be able to diffrrentiate between 'good' and 'bad' streets there.

Liverpool still gets a bit of a bad rep from people that don't know it, and there are certainly some areas I wouldn't consider living in, but on the whole it's a fabulous city. Highly recommended.

Edited by blythecooper
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8 minutes ago, blythecooper said:

 You can easily get a flat for under 100k in the more desirable areas. Or you can buy somewhere slightly less desirable (but in my opinion, more interesting areas to live!) and find a big 3 bed Victorian terrace for around 80k.

I hope you realise the effect that this statement will have on some of our Southern members. Think of the Purple Bricks T.V. adverts and you'll be close.

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7 hours ago, barmyfluid said:

 

Has anyone tried the P2P lending route for investments? I've been looking at them for a few years now, they seem to be becoming more accepted as a viable investment, have more controls, some are now tax free ISAs and the most established 'safe' ones seem to average out at 4.6% pa last time I updated my spreadsheet. They're not risk free, but seem fairly solid for a diverse portfolio.

Yes.

I have had money in Zopa for over 10 years and (even more) in Ratesetter for 5 years, about £18k in total. Being one who believes in not putting all my eggs into one basket I spread my money around and would not consider putting more than 5 to 10% of my savings & investments into P2P but I'm well below that so am considering putting more in but using a different provider. I just haven't decided which yet.

The advantage of putting a chunk into P2P is that, at a time of generally low interest rates, it brings the average up to something a bit more acceptable, albeit at a (slightly) higher risk.

This site is very helpful for determining the pros and cons of each provider...

https://www.4thway.co.uk

 

MSE, as usual, is also very helpful...

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/peer-to-peer-lending

 

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Some excellent - and some dreadful - advice here. But then again these are real peoples real experiences, and should all be taken into account.

For my two penerth, I would say putting money in a bank - or into premium bonds, is a total and utter waste of time. Why would you give the financial institutions your money so they can make money out of it and at the same time watch your pile dwindle in real terms?

Put your money into property as you plan. Try the boat out for a bit. Then you have options - keeping the house for yourself and going back a bit when it suits you, or renting it out for a year or maybe just six months in the summer? Or finding a nice lodger that you get on well with - that way you can go back as and when and the place is always lived in. It would be a bonus to anyone expecting to share, finding they have the place to themselves most of the time. You also still have a proper address.

Renting can be a mixed bag - anything from dream tenants where you are literally being paid month on month for doing bugger all - or nightmare scenarios of dreadful tenants - a friend of mine has just had the latter. On the whole the system works, you have their deposit (6-8 weeks rent and a months rent in advance) and most tenants when they move on will need a decent landlord reference in order to secure the next place. Also you can take out landlord insurance quite cheaply to cover unpaid rent - do it with the same people you use for the tenant check to be sure it meets their criteria.

Capital gains - yes it is generally 20%, but that is only on the increase of the value when you sell. So a 60k property sold a few years down the line for say 100k would attract tax on the amount of uplift - 20% of 40k (ie 8k) but you get an allowance each year of I think 10k (which is not accumulative).

Each tax year you can offset costs for repairs etc too so you wouldn't be too badly off.

Anyway - as the o/p is not really interested in renting out right off the bat, he's in a good position.

A good cheap area, which is what you were asking, I'm afraid I can't help, being a southerner that kind of money doesn't really compute. You'd need £250k+ to be in with a chance of getting a little house somewhere not too bad.

Don't forget to think about the boat - what style/size etc - you should get plenty of great advice about that on here!

Good luck!

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On 18/04/2018 at 22:07, Alan de Enfield said:

If your house is not occupied for 30 / 45 / 60 days (depending on insurance company) you will find that your insurance is invalidated.

We insured a house that was empty for nearly 2 years. We took out landlord insurance and the insurers were perfectly happy to insure it for about the same price that we pay for our residential house. 

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41 minutes ago, Johny London said:

Some excellent - and some dreadful - advice here. But then again these are real peoples real experiences, and should all be taken into account.

For my two penerth, I would say putting money in a bank - or into premium bonds, is a total and utter waste of time. Why would you give the financial institutions your money so they can make money out of it and at the same time watch your pile dwindle in real terms?

Put your money into property as you plan. Try the boat out for a bit. Then you have options - keeping the house for yourself and going back a bit when it suits you, or renting it out for a year or maybe just six months in the summer? Or finding a nice lodger that you get on well with - that way you can go back as and when and the place is always lived in. It would be a bonus to anyone expecting to share, finding they have the place to themselves most of the time. You also still have a proper address.

Renting can be a mixed bag - anything from dream tenants where you are literally being paid month on month for doing bugger all - or nightmare scenarios of dreadful tenants - a friend of mine has just had the latter. On the whole the system works, you have their deposit (6-8 weeks rent and a months rent in advance) and most tenants when they move on will need a decent landlord reference in order to secure the next place. Also you can take out landlord insurance quite cheaply to cover unpaid rent - do it with the same people you use for the tenant check to be sure it meets their criteria.

Capital gains - yes it is generally 20%, but that is only on the increase of the value when you sell. So a 60k property sold a few years down the line for say 100k would attract tax on the amount of uplift - 20% of 40k (ie 8k) but you get an allowance each year of I think 10k (which is not accumulative).

Each tax year you can offset costs for repairs etc too so you wouldn't be too badly off.

Anyway - as the o/p is not really interested in renting out right off the bat, he's in a good position.

A good cheap area, which is what you were asking, I'm afraid I can't help, being a southerner that kind of money doesn't really compute. You'd need £250k+ to be in with a chance of getting a little house somewhere not too bad.

Don't forget to think about the boat - what style/size etc - you should get plenty of great advice about that on here!

Good luck!

 

Bang on and worth at least a dozen greenies. Sadly I can only award one. 

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To be totally on topic, my old stomping ground of Sheffield has a great deal going for it in housing terms, it's a very vibrant city and has 'Northern priced' houses in decent areas. A great deal of students end up staying there after graduation, as it's got such a friendly and safe atmosphere. It really freaks Southerners out when they're stood at the bus stop and get engaged in conversation by all and sundry. Aw, I really miss it tbh...

The canal environment there is less than stellar however.

bx

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On 20/04/2018 at 01:00, barmyfluid said:

Has anyone tried the P2P lending route for investments? I've been looking at them for a few years now, they seem to be becoming more accepted as a viable investment, have more controls, some are now tax free ISAs and the most established 'safe' ones seem to average out at 4.6% pa last time I updated my spreadsheet. They're not risk free, but seem fairly solid for a diverse portfolio.

I've been looking into this recently (mainly via reviews on 4th Way and Financial Thing) and have just taken the plunge by investing a few grand with Growth Street. We already own a flat that we rent out and when our house sale goes through, hopefully in the summer, we're intending to split our income-generating 'investment' pot three ways: the flat, peer-to-peer lending (via at least three different providers), and a range of share/bond funds. It's all pretty new to us and quite a learning curve, but we reckon we can achieve a return of just over 6% without getting into anything too risky or putting too many eggs in one basket. We may yet end up just putting the lion's share into a bigger buy-to-let property, though. 

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11 minutes ago, magictime said:

I've been looking into this recently (mainly via reviews on 4th Way and Financial Thing) and have just taken the plunge by investing a few grand with Growth Street. We already own a flat that we rent out and when our house sale goes through, hopefully in the summer, we're intending to split our income-generating 'investment' pot three ways: the flat, peer-to-peer lending (via at least three different providers), and a range of share/bond funds. It's all pretty new to us and quite a learning curve, but we reckon we can achieve a return of just over 6% without getting into anything too risky or putting too many eggs in one basket. We may yet end up just putting the lion's share into a bigger buy-to-let property, though. 

Despite considering it several times over the years, I have no interest in buy-to-let. This is for various reasons including already having a lot in property with my own mortgage-free 4-bed detached house near Oxford, buy-to-let taxation changes making it an increasingly less-attractive proposition, potential for disruptive tenants and it generally looking more like hard work* than stock-market investment which can be (and probably should be) "buy and forget".

* Unless you use a managing agent to take the potential workload, and some of the profits, off your hands.

However, I have been into peer to peer for 10 years and stock-market investment for a lot longer than that.

From your post I see you are already aware of 4th Way for p2p but if you are new to stock-market investing then I would highly recommend Monevator, surely the best UK blog-site for investing. It includes extremely useful articles on the cheapest index-tracker funds to use, why actively-managed funds are less-suitable for most people, how to spread your money geographically (sticking to only UK indices/companies really is NOT the way to go) and which broker platforms to use to minimise costs.

Best place to start is here... http://monevator.com/highlights/

This is probably not relevant for the OP though - finding an investment that tracks UK residential property prices would probably be the best solution for future deposit money. What that is I don't know as it's not something I want or need to do. 

 

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On 20/04/2018 at 01:00, barmyfluid said:

Has anyone tried the P2P lending route for investments? I've been looking at them for a few years now, they seem to be becoming more accepted as a viable investment, have more controls, some are now tax free ISAs and the most established 'safe' ones seem to average out at 4.6% pa last time I updated my spreadsheet. They're not risk free, but seem fairly solid for a diverse portfolio.

bx

 

 

 

I should say that I'd only been looking at fairly easy in / easy out short term P2P's, and that 4.6% was the averaged rate from the most well established/best reviewed ones. There's really a lot of new stuff out there at the moment, seems like it'd be easy to do a very diverse spread with small amounts.

Even if I had the cash to spare (for a boat) to keep this place on, or get a cheaper place after I'd really not want to rent it out. I do know that many have no trouble at all with tenants, and there are ways to minimise the risk (at some cost it should be mentioned), but nightmare tenants seem far too common for it to be worth it to me - you really do seem to be playing a game with quite high odds and possibly awful outcomes in terms of finances and stress, I've known people with lives really torn apart. It may not be so bad if you've diverse pots of multiple properties, savings, P2P etc, but for a person with a boat and one property, maybe depending on rental income for costs on the cut...?

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1 hour ago, barmyfluid said:

I should say that I'd only been looking at fairly easy in / easy out short term P2P's, and that 4.6% was the averaged rate from the most well established/best reviewed ones. There's really a lot of new stuff out there at the moment, seems like it'd be easy to do a very diverse spread with small amounts.

Even if I had the cash to spare (for a boat) to keep this place on, or get a cheaper place after I'd really not want to rent it out. I do know that many have no trouble at all with tenants, and there are ways to minimise the risk (at some cost it should be mentioned), but nightmare tenants seem far too common for it to be worth it to me - you really do seem to be playing a game with quite high odds and possibly awful outcomes in terms of finances and stress, I've known people with lives really torn apart. It may not be so bad if you've diverse pots of multiple properties, savings, P2P etc, but for a person with a boat and one property, maybe depending on rental income for costs on the cut...?

I will be still be working and earning and saving but it will be for myself rather than having to find a job and be stuck somewhere which why I'm not considering rent money

Until I know I know I can achieve the above, then I know going to live on the canals is not really a viable option for me.

 

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6 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

From your post I see you are already aware of 4th Way for p2p but if you are new to stock-market investing then I would highly recommend Monevator, surely the best UK blog-site for investing. It includes extremely useful articles on the cheapest index-tracker funds to use, why actively-managed funds are less-suitable for most people, how to spread your money geographically (sticking to only UK indices/companies really is NOT the way to go) and which broker platforms to use to minimise costs.

Best place to start is here... http://monevator.com/highlights/

Thanks, I'll take a look. I don't think tracker funds are for me - unfortunately, because the simplicity certainly appeals! - because I'm looking for income first and foremost rather than capital growth.

6 hours ago, barmyfluid said:

I should say that I'd only been looking at fairly easy in / easy out short term P2P's, and that 4.6% was the averaged rate from the most well established/best reviewed ones. There's really a lot of new stuff out there at the moment, seems like it'd be easy to do a very diverse spread with small amounts.

Even if I had the cash to spare (for a boat) to keep this place on, or get a cheaper place after I'd really not want to rent it out. I do know that many have no trouble at all with tenants, and there are ways to minimise the risk (at some cost it should be mentioned), but nightmare tenants seem far too common for it to be worth it to me - you really do seem to be playing a game with quite high odds and possibly awful outcomes in terms of finances and stress, I've known people with lives really torn apart. It may not be so bad if you've diverse pots of multiple properties, savings, P2P etc, but for a person with a boat and one property, maybe depending on rental income for costs on the cut...?

Yes, I can't deny I've got my doubts about keeping on an investment property - but the return is hard to match (7.5%-ish), and it's just good to know we have a clear route back onto dry land and the property ladder if we need it in years to come. Maybe we should just sell up, invest the cash and count on that investment keeping up with property prices, I dunno. Hmm.

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6 hours ago, barmyfluid said:

, maybe depending on rental income for costs on the cut...?

That's well worth looking into, yes. Our rental flat pays all our annual boat expenses with a bit left over. That's after a reputable property agency company has taken its 10%.

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19 hours ago, magictime said:

Thanks, I'll take a look. I don't think tracker funds are for me - unfortunately, because the simplicity certainly appeals! - because I'm looking for income first and foremost rather than capital growth.

Yes, I can't deny I've got my doubts about keeping on an investment property - but the return is hard to match (7.5%-ish), and it's just good to know we have a clear route back onto dry land and the property ladder if we need it in years to come. Maybe we should just sell up, invest the cash and count on that investment keeping up with property prices, I dunno. Hmm.

I wouldn't dismiss tracker funds simply on the basis of wanting the income rather than capital growth. Total return is what really matters and there's nothing wrong with drawing down dividends plus part of the capital growth if it's needed, particularly after each good year (which most years are).

The FTSE 100 currently yields just under 4% (https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/dividendyield.py?market=ftse100) and can be obtained at a cost of 0.1% pa or less (avoid the Virgin tracker!) whilst active UK income funds only yield a similar amount (as can be seen here... http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/help-choosing-funds/wealth-150) but have annual fees of 5 to 7 times that amount and are certainly not guaranteed to beat the index. 

Whilst being a fan of index trackers (for cost, reliabilty, simplicity and peace of mind) I will admit to hedging my bets and having a mix of trackers and active funds (mainly selected from the Hargreaves Lansdown Wealth 150 list).

Incidentally, I am not advocating use of HL as a platform. Whilst their website and customer service is excellent it comes at a price. 

Monevator's broker guide (http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/ ) is a good place to help figure out which broker to use. The best for you will depend on how much you want to invest and whether it's lump sum or ongoing monthly investments. Above a certain amount (probably about £50k to £70k) a fixed fee broker is usually best and below that a percentage-based broker is usually cheaper.

I use iWeb, Interactive Investor (both fixed fee) and Fidelity (via Cavendish Online) for ISAs and Hargreaves Lansdown (benefiting from a special 0.25% long-standing client deal, their normal fee is a high 0.45%) for my SIPP.

By the way, I'm not advocating selling existing property, particularly if you're getting a yield of 7.5% (I'm not sure where else you would get that, stock market or otherwise, without significant levels of risk), to buy into the stockmarket. But it is worth considering for new investment, if only for diversification reasons.

 

Edited by Lily Rose
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On 21/04/2018 at 13:57, barmyfluid said:

To be totally on topic, my old stomping ground of Sheffield has a great deal going for it in housing terms, it's a very vibrant city and has 'Northern priced' houses in decent areas. A great deal of students end up staying there after graduation, as it's got such a friendly and safe atmosphere. It really freaks Southerners out when they're stood at the bus stop and get engaged in conversation by all and sundry. Aw, I really miss it tbh...

The canal environment there is less than stellar however.

bx

How do you know the canal system is less seller? Have you ever done the South Yorkshire and Sheffield system, ever took your boat to Sheffield? I doubt you have as it looks like you don't even have a boat, lol.

Edited by PD1964
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