How to Invest in Property for Beginners

How to Invest in Property for Beginners

You’ve decided it’s time to invest in your first property, the question is how to get started? In this article, we cover how to invest in property for beginners including different property investment strategies, expenses involved, and how to find properties.

Property Investment Strategies

Okay, so the first thing to think about when investing in property is the type of property investment strategy you want to go for. Typically the main two property investment strategies people choose are either residential buy to let or buy to sell which is also known as flipping property. However, there are many other strategies that could potentially be suited to your needs and requirements.

Here is a list of more property investment strategies:

Residential Buy to Let
Student Buy to Let
HMO’s
Holiday Lets
Hotel Lets
Commercial Property Buy to Let
Buy to Sell (Flipping Property)
Commercial to Residential Conversions
Property Development
Rent to Rent

Expenses Involved

Of course like any type of investing you are going to need money to get started. Here is a breakdown of some expenses you can expect when investing in property:

Buying a property in the first place – when buying a property unless you are a cash buyer you will need to put down a deposit. Now typically this will be 25% of the buying price but can be as low as 5% especially if you’re a first-time buyer looking to move into the property.
Cover the costs of buying – here we’re referring to solicitor fees, stamp duty, mortgage broker fees, etc etc. These fees can range from 3K to 5K depending on the actual cost of the property.
Renovation work – assuming you’re looking to renovate the property in which most property investors go ahead with to achieve capital appreciation and increase the value of the property – then you will need to put some money aside for this.

TOP TIP – try to carry out some of the renovation work yourself to save money. Having said that you will need to call upon experienced tradesmen for the more specialist things such as electrical work and plumbing.

How to Find Properties

Property purchase and renovation can have potential pitfalls that you need to be aware of and minimise as much as you can. The way you combat this is by making sure you do your research and chose the right property in the first place.

For example, you don’t want to buy a property that has a big structural problem (something like subsidence) that is not apparent when you view the property but can actually lead to far greater expense in renovation costs than anticipated – and which may even cause you to run out of money before you finish the renovation. Not a good thing to happen!

So how do you find properties to invest in? Well, we offer an exclusive property renovation list that you can subscribe to. Each week you will receive our list that includes the latest bargain property renovation and modernisation projects, including below market value properties and properties up for auction.

These renovation opportunities include all price points and are arranged geographically to enable you to easily find properties in certain locations.

View the list here – Property Renovation List

Conclusion

If you’re just getting started with property investment we understand it can seem complicated at times but as you start to break things down it should become more clear. We hope this brief introduction helps you start to understand the basics.

Let us know in the comments below if there is anything you want to know about property investment and we will be happy to write another article diving deeper.