Buying a property with our help.

• Do our free Udemy property course: udemy.com/course/uk-buy-to-let/
• Watch a few of our videos Youtube.com/invesmore
• Read through our website

Email [email protected] / WhatsApp: 0044 7814 029751

Ask questions, see our systems in action, define requirements. To book a call, either email [email protected] or message nick on WhatsApp: 0044 781402 9751

Complete the non disclosure and consultancy agreement. We use Eversign.com and send you an electronic document to sign. The document: invesmore.com/terms/

Once the NDA/consultancy agreement is signed, we invite you to our Invesmore WhatsApp group!

Every day we will share between 4 and 10 of the best property deals we can find. They are mostly in the North of England. Our core criteria for a good rental investment property is:

• Valued between £65k and £170k
• 2 to 3 bedrooms
• Above 5.5% gross yield
• In areas which show promising capital growth
• Areas which are economically robust
• Low crime neighbourhoods
• Low deprivation
• Within 10 minutes walk of shops
• Close to good schools
• Good public transport
• Quiet location near green spaces
• Can be rented out within 8 weeks or less
• If sold on, can be sold within 4 months or less
• In reasonable condition so it can be renovated quickly

• We share properties vis our Whatsapp groups
• If you like a property, message Martin (lead analyst)
• First person to express interest and ask for a viewing ‘claims’ the property.
• We book in a viewber viewing

Estate agents will generally not accept ‘blind offers’. I.e. making an offer on a property before viewing the property. So, we organise a viewing

• We set up the viewing appointment
• We use viewber.com
• The viewing process is outlined here
• Once a viewing has been done, the seller will accept offers from you

Important the point about viewings: Viewber viewings cost £36.  We ask you to reimburse this viewing cost. When we find a property, we offset your viewing expenses against our commission.  Why do we do this?

If you pay for the viewing ( even though you get reimbursed in the end ), it means you are serious about the property you are viewing.

Sellers want the most reliable buyers. When we make an offer on your behalf, we send an offer letter. Our template: https://invesmore.com/offer-email-templates/ (Opens new tab)

Important! Personal documents: If you share personal information with an estate agent, they do not share your information with the seller.  What they will say is “this buyer is very proceedable and I think you should take their offer”. Like us, they are bound by confidentiality laws.

For a financed offer we need:

• PDF copy of your bank statements showing proof of funds. The more money you show as proof of funds the better! Sellers like to know you are financially strong.
• Scan or photograph of your passport
• Ideally, a selfie picture with you holding the passport up, so the passport and you are seen together.
• Proof of address is helpful for ‘know your customer’.  This could be a PDF or scan of a utility bill.
• Only relevant if you’re making a financed offer: An agreement in principle and/or decision in principle from your mortgage adviser showing how much money you can borrow on a given property.  Sidenote: In our experience you don’t need an agreement in principle for the property you are interested in making an offer on.  Sellers only want to know that you are creditworthy.

Useful: It’s helpful if you can get your bank statements and proof of address signed by a lawyer.  This is reassures the selling agent that your very organised!

Q. Why have all these documents?
A. The documentation helps sellers understand who you are and how strong you are as a buyer.  And if they offer you the property, they know all the documentation they need for anti-money laundering and know your customer are already in place.  It saves them time.

Once a viewing is completed we get videos and feedback from Viewber.  Martin and Nick will do a 20 minute detailed video assessment of the property.

• Condition assessment going through the property and any potential issues i.e. damp, windows needing replacing, painting, decorating.
• Crime & Demographic assessment, looking at local population characteristics, social housing, crime.
• Capital growth assessment, looking at capital growth trends in the area.
• Location assessment, looking at local amenities, public transport, parking and distance from points of interest.
• EPC assessment, looking at the current EPC certificates and what needs doing to raise the EPC certification level.
• Comparable market assessments using Rightmove plus, (professional version of Rightmove).
• Expected renovation costs and expected rent income
• Suggested offer price
• Full set of financial calculations.

Before making an offer, it’s important to:

• Provide identification and proof of funds. Proof of funds might include copies of bank statements or a mortgage agreement in principle certificate from your mortgage adviser
• Have a conveyancing solicitor ready to proceed if your offer is accepted

We double check you are happy with the suggested offer price. And just to be sure, we will go through all the following with you:

• All the calculations for the property
• Exactly what you’d expect to pay after deposits, renovations, stamp duty, professional fees
• What renovations need doing, how long it should take and how much it would cost
• How quickly we expect to rent the property out from the day you take possession
• How much actual pre-tax cash profit you should make per month
• How much capital growth you can expect over the next five years

The offer process:

• You will have watched our assessment video and decided to offer or not
• If you want to offer, we will message you on WhatsApp or via email to confirm how much you want to offer and what terms i.e. with a buy to let mortgage + the loan to value ratio, or cash.
• We might suggest conditions in which you would offer i.e. the offer would be subject to survey, site of certain documents and so on.
• Once we’ve got confirmation of the necessary details, Nick will telephone the selling agent and scope out the situation.
• If necessary, he will contact you and let you know what’s happening.
• If all okay, he will send a formal offer email: Template here
• Nick will follow up on the offer every day, till there is a decision.  This is important, because it shows the agent that we are committed to purchasing the property.

At this point, you should get a condition survey. You may be investing a lot of money in this property, so it makes sense to have it professionally assessed for condition.

the condition survey is your first actual cost on top of the consulting fee. The survey will cost between £350 to £450.  That is the cost of the survey from the surveyor.  We do not take any profit from that surveying cost.

We have an arrangement with Cosey Homes surveyors. Any rebate we get from them is offset against our consulting fees.

In probability the condition survey report will be in line with expectations.  In your report you’ll get:

• Comments on any issues
• Photographs of the property
• Photographs of issues of note

Since this report will have been undertaken by a chartered surveyor, you’ll  know where you stand in respect to the condition of the property.

And since we will have an accurate condition report, assuming you want a quote from our renovations business, we can draw up a very accurate estimation of renovation costs.

At this stage you’ll know the accepted sale price and condition of the property.  Now it’s time to raise finance if you’re not buying with cash.

If you’re a UK national based in the UK, we suggest you talk to our shareholder Charles Louis. They are probably one of the best specialist buy to let mortgage advisers in this country. then, talk to some other buy to let advisers and see how Charles Louis compares.

Lenders want to know how much a property is worth so they can decide whether that property is suitable for a mortgage or bridging loan.

Important! You’ll need to pay the valuation survey fee of  between £150 – £500. The amount charged depends on the finance provider and the value of the property want to buy.  

Reiterating: You pay the mortgage/financing company directly for that valuation survey.

Sidenote: You might think all lenders have similar lending policies, surveying costs and finance application costs, but it’s not the case. This is why making the right mortgage or loan applications to the right lenders are critical.

If you have a trustworthy mortgage broker, then of course use those people. But if you aren’t lucky enough to have a trusted provider, you should talk to Charles Louis, our financial services partner

They are very good at:

• Finding the right lender for you
• ‘Packaging’mortgage applications correctly
• Following up with lenders to get finance through as quickly as possible

At this stage we have a valuation report for the property, so you will now know: 

• Whether the finance/mortgage provider will offer you a loan based on value of the property, your deposit amount and your creditworthiness.
• You also have a further confirmation that the offer price we suggested will most probably be below the market value assessment from the loan provider.

If you’re working with our partner Charles Louis… you’ll be processing an application for borrowings. There is often a loan application fee which has to be paid at this stage. You will be told in advance what any fees might be.

By now,  you’ve got finance in place, the seller is still selling you their property, so now it’s time to start the conveyancing process.  Lawyers do the necessary paperwork to get the house in your possession.

This process usually takes between 6 and 8 weeks and costs between £1000 and £3000.  We have partner solicitors who work closely with lenders, which means we get the legal work done quicker and cheaper. We explain the conveyancing process here.

In our experience, nearly every property needs some renovation. Whilst the conveyancing lawyers are doing their work it’s worth getting some quotes from renovation companies.

Joe O’Driscoll has a building company AORC.co.uk who is our first choice for building services.

There are services like Checkatrade.com who make it easier to find trustworthy tradespeople. We recommend our building contractor who specialises in buy to let renovation work.

Around one month from when you expect to take possession of your property, you’ll probably want to start organising the letting of your property. Usually you would do some research and find a suitable lettings agent to work on your behalf.

One of our shareholders: Charles Louis Homes offers very competitively priced lettings management for the greater Manchester area

The conveyancing lawyers have done all their paperwork and the property is ready to exchange. This means both your lawyers and the sellers lawyers are happy to proceed with the sale of the property.  At this point you’ll need to place a deposit with the sellers lawyer.  This is usually 10% of the sale price.

You’ve paid your deposit, now it’s time to pay the rest of your deposit (if you have to)

And since both lawyers agree the sale of the property should go ahead, the bank will now forward the rest of the funds to the sellers lawyer.

Sidenote: When we do our cost of ownership calculations, we factor in the amount of stamp duty you would have to pay when buying the property.

Every property will most likely need some renovation work. Since you will have been organised, you’ll have:

• Agreed on the specification for the renovation work
• Got an exact quote
• Ideally be given a project plan, with timescales
• You’ll have a contract in place, preferably with some kind of penalty clause that says ” if you overrun on the project for no reasonable reason, money can be held back”

So, it’s time for the renovation team to get on with work.

If your renovations team are organised, they’ll have delivered all the materials to site.  This includes necessary big-ticket items like kitchen cabinets, bathroom fixtures and so on.

Very important: in the planning phase, you should have made sure all the items for the renovations are in stock and available at short notice.  In the building industry, you’ll often get kitchen manufacturers, bathroom suppliers or carpet manufacturers quoting a six week lead time.

A typical light renovation i.e. painting and decorating, new carpets, new bathroom fittings, some tiling and some cabinet doors, new light fittings for a typical 2 to 3 bedroom property should take 10 days work.

If the job stops because you have to wait six weeks to get a new bathroom suite, you’ve just potentially lost 1.5 to 2 months rent. Not good.

If all goes well, you will rent out your property within one or two weeks of renovations being completed.  That means once you’ve taken possession of your property, within a month it should be rented out.

Tenant selection is obviously very important.  Choosing the right tenant means you will have regular income from somebody who treats your property well.

Our favourite tenant profile:

• People over 30 years of age
• In a stable working situation
• Possibly with a family
• Not wealthy enough to buy their own property
• Wealthy enough to have reasonable disposable income whilst renting

In other words, we want people who pay their rent on time and will stay in that house for years.  Why? Every time you have new tenants you have to renovate the property, re-market it and probably have at least one month void period.  Effectively its £4000 for a new set of tenants.

Let’s assume you’ve bought in An area with good capital growth, you should expect to see capital growth being equivalent to three or four times your net rental income.  At some point you may be able to refinance the property and drawdown funds as proceeds of a loan which are not taxable.