i found this clip whilst looking for a trailer for the new transformers film by Michael Bay. it comes out in the UK on 27/07/07. its already been released in most other countries so pirate versions are available on lots of sites. i will resist temptation and wait until its UK cinema release as i’m a huge transformers fan.
the clip shows real people in their transformers outfits that they have made. check out the optimus prime, its so cool.
Being bored and in a funny mood i thought that i would try and see if anyone else on facebook had the same name as me (just in case you missed it my name is Dave So) the search turned up 30, yes 30 other Dave/David So’s mostly they were in the States and i think i’m the only one in the UK.
Anyway i thought it would be fun to create a group called “my name is Dave So or David So” and invite the other Dave’s to join. only to my horror once the group is created you can only invite your friends to join.
thats not going to stop me i thought. i’ll just message each dave so and send him a link to my group. so off i went to message them all. after about 6-7 messages sent, a red message came up telling me that it looks like i’m trying to spam and i should stop or my account will be frozen.
i thought they’d be able to tell that i wasn’t a spammer, but no, i got banned 
so in the end i wrote them a quick email to ask them to reinstate me. this is it:
Hi,
My account with login dave@email.com has been disabled as it was assumed I was trying to spam.
I had just searched for myself and found about 30 people called “dave So” I thought it may be fun to create a group called “my name is dave so or david so” group.
I couldn’t invite the other dave so’s as they were not in my list so I had to message them.
I appologise if my activities appeared as SPAM but I assure you they were not.Please can you reinstate my account.
Kind Regards
David So
lets hope they do reinstate me i was just starting to like facebook and learn about all its useful features. admittedly i do think that social networks are the way forward even for some businesses. i wonder if any businesses actually use facebook as a business tool? how would they use it?
i suppose they could use it to attract new clients by offering their services online on facebook. or they could use it as an online collaboration portal.
now that we are into the second half of 2007 I have set my new goals for the rest of the year. these goals will complement my 5 year goals and my 10 year goals. Is it really important to set goals and why should we do this? well have you ever heard the saying “He who fails to plan, plans to fail” ? a set of achievable goals is a plan for yourself. having a clear set of achievable goals will help you regain focus when you sometimes come slightly off track.
setting goals is something that most people do not do. The reason is quite simple if you set goal and don’t achieve it then it becomes a constant reminder of how you have failed. instead of having a constant reminder of how you have failed, it’s easier for most people to just never set any goals. if you do not set goals in your life, you never know if you are achieving anything significant and you may never achieve anything significant either.
so what are my goals for the rest of this year?
OMG, sounds like i’m gonna be a very busy boy!! but thats how i like to be and wouldn’t have it any other way. work hard play harder.
a friend of mine has just had a slight balls up with a mortgage on a property he was buying. he was buying below market value and hence needed to arrange an immediate remortgage to release his funds for more investment. he used a random mortgage broker who to me sounds completely rubbish. the broker lined him up with a Birmingham midshires product which sounded good enough to him at the time.
my friend needed to release 85% of the property valuation, NOT the purchase price. This would have been possible with Birmingham midshires 12 MONTHS AGO but since then Birmingham midshires have changed their policy and they only allow remortgages up to 85% of the purchase price within 6 months or purchasing.
Anyone who has been buying BMV or any decent mortgage broker would have known that. I think my friend went for a local free mortgage broker to save money. I feel it may have been a false economy for my friend as he has now had to shell out for the valuation of about £400. He has now purchased the property with cash and his money is locked in the property.
note. this is a random image i pulled off google images and is NOT my mortgage broker.
I must really stress that a good mortgage broker is key in the property game. a good mortgage broker who knows what he is doing and understands your business and your market is worth his/her weight in gold. some mortgage brokers will charge 1% of the loan amount for their services. my brokers charge £200 for their services and I find their fees are worth every penny.
what i did forget to mention is that my broker is also a packager which means that he has much more control over the process then a normal broker.
The Bank of England raised its base rates yet again this month up to 5.75% this is the highest interest rates have been since 2001. This is bad news for anyone borrowing money for any reason as mortgages and loans of any type will be affected.
Many homeowners could soon be facing mortgage arrears and financial hardship as monthly outgoings will be increased by the recent rate rise. A borrower with a £100,000 variable rate repayment mortgage is paying £104 a month more than at the same time last year. Experts predict that the rates could hit 6% by the end of the year.
Most homeowners (57%) however are on fixed rate mortgages and therefore will not feel the pinch of the higher interest rates on their mortgage. until at least their fixed rate period ends and they have to remortgage. They may then find that it will be harder to get as good a deal on their home mortgage.
How does this affect investors with BTL mortgages? well as an investor myself I always get fixed rate products for as long as possible. this means that i know how much monthly payments will be for the next 3-5 years for each property. I am finding that new mortgages i take out have reduced fixed periods and increased rates. the current best rate i can get is 5.89% fixed for 2 years. not great i know.
one plus side is that as rates go up there will be more and more people wanting to sell their homes. many in financial hardship will be looking at sell and rent back solutions for their homes. as i am a part of one such company that offers these services it should be good for business.
over the last year the number of companies that offer such services have increased dramatically. there used to be about 3 or 4 companies that did these types of transactions. now a quick google search will reveal a few hundred such companies. its important for anyone looking for a sell and rent back solution to pick a reputable company that isn’t going to let them down. as a property investor myself I always aim to be fair, honest and ethical in all my dealings as i strongly believe in karma.
to succeed in property it is important to have a good reliable team of professionals to help you. without a good to help you, you will constantly be jumping over hurdle upon hurdle on your own. with a good team in place you will benefit from their experience and be able to overcome any problems in a short time frame.
my team consists of:
- 1 for myself and 1 i recommend to work for the sellers of the property.
- this person is key to your success, they will scour the market and find you the best deals. it is also very important that they can also package mortgage applications. a mortgage packager will be able to save you the deal when it may be lost by a normal mortgage broker.
- they must be realistic with their valuations. they must be a fellow of RICS and they must also be on the panel for your favorite mortgage lenders.
- they must be experienced but also offer a good price and be able to work to schedule
- to advise on tax issues and help with the bookkeeping.
- handle the paperwork and the chasing up of all the above!
i will give more detail on each member of my teams role in later posts, but trust me when i tell you that you should have all the above lined up before you need them as it will be very stressful trying to find good professionals when you really need them.
is it better to be the employee or the business owner?
this is a question a lot of people often ask themselves as the toy with the idea of leaving work to setup their own business. usually in the same field that they were in but working for themselves as consultants or maybe being their own boss and employing other people too.
note. these are not my employees just a random image
they generally work 9-5 only and get paid reasonably well to do a job they neither love or hate.
they live comfortably in either rented accommodation or they have just made their way up the property ladder.
they usually get about 30 days paid holiday per year.
unless they are quite prudent with their savings the money they get every month as salary usually gets spent as bills, rent and other outgoings. they usually live for the next pay cheque.
in most UK cities you will notice when most people go out for a few drinks is at the end of the month when they have been paid.
note. these may not be business owners. but that guy can sure jump high.
they usually work many more hours sometimes as many as 12 or more as they establish their business.
they usually own their own home with a mortgage.
they usually find it hard to take any holidays in the early stages of their business for fear of losing customers and also usually payment only comes in when they work.
good business owners will put profits made back into the business after allowing for living expenses and some luxuries.
it seems to be easier to be the employee as you have far less responsibilities, only have to work your set hours and can take your 30 days paid holidays without having to worry about work. would you be silly to want to start your own business?
well lets fast forward 5 years and take another look at the employee and the business owner.
they may have got promoted or moved to a different company to get a decent pay rise, but they now earn significantly more then before.
with higher earning they will have taken on more liabilities such as a bigger mortgage for the bigger house and a bigger faster car.
they still get about 30 paid holidays per year and still work 9-5
they still live for the next pay cheque
the business is now quite established and they may have a couple of employees to help run the business. perseverance has paid off. they now work a lot less hours, maybe only a few days per week and spend a lot more time playing golf.
they can take holidays when they want now and probably have about 3 per year.
they can now take a healthy amount of the profit from the business and enjoy it and spend on the things they like.
they do not have to be as involved in their business and much of their income is passive as they do not have to work to get it.
ok so this is a overly simplified look at things as businesses vary greatly and not all business’s succeed, but then not all employment lasts either.
but given the potential rewards of becoming a business owner it is easy to see why so many people prefer to work for themselves, then seek regular employment.
i know some savy investors who constantly buy properties undervalue and through clever financing can always pocket £5-£10k via a remortgage to release equity , but have little or no cashflow from day one. their strategy is to keep buying at least one a week. cashflow is from remortgaging to release equity and that would mean a profit of between £300k-£500k per annum. i’m not sure how scalable this strategy is. as it involves constantly buying properties and using a remortgage to release equityto have cashflow. they would be really open for any fluctuations in interest rates even if they do fix the rates for a few years. but then again they would be half a million pounds better off each year!!
I suppose if that 500k was then put to good use in other residual income investments or a major development then it would be a good thing to do. my guess is that most of it will be spend on living the high life, women, crack and fast cars!!
me, i’m quite happy to buy 2 properties every month and just borrow enough to cover the purchase prices but with good cashflow. this will leave me in a better position for cashflow even if i stopped buying houses. i would only remortgage to release equity on maybe 1 out of every 5 properties and that would only be when there current fixed rate term finishes.
i have heard that the inland revenue will be cracking down on landlords that do not pay enough tax and my bet is they will be scrutinising these investors who remortgage to release equity to spend. i actually don’t like to do this as i was brought up to think loans and borrowing money is bad and to always repay a debt. i have since learnt the benefits of mortgages and good debt, but i like to keep it sensible and not over borrow.
anybody can purchase a property and rent it out, but there are a lot of things you should consider first. experts will tell you location is most important, but to me the numbers are much more important. i believe that ANY property will rent out so location is not too important. good locations normally command a higher asking price but not necessarily a similar increase in rent prices.
cashflow is more important to me then location in a buy to let property. your property portfolio must be cashflow positive or neutral at least. the income must cover the outgoings and ideally there will be profit too.
in todays market i look to make about £100 per month profit from buy to let property, usually a standard house occupied by a working professional or a family. or about £300 per month can be made when a house is let to multiple occupants such as students or other sharers. this is after all costs such as insurance, mortgage and agents fees. if managed correctly by a good agent this will truly be passive residual income. money you make in your sleep. that could be about £3000 per month if you owned 10 student properties.
lets not forget the capital appreciation that you get in property. the last figures i read were that property values double on average of 7 years and on average that means they increase in value by about £80 per day.. So if you kept a buy to let property for 7 years you would eventually have made £80 per day in your sleep, how is that for passive income!
the drawback of profits made from rent is that it is taxable income, this can however be offset against business expenses, but tax is tax and it always hurts to pay tax. some super savy investors make money without paying tax by releasing equity from the property by remortgaging their buy to let property. for example:
current values:
property value: £170k
mortgage: £100k
rental income: £750pcm
mortgage interest: £450pcm
profit: £300pcm
after remortgage:
property value: £170k
mortgage: £145k
rental income: £750pcm
mortgage interest: £680pcm
profit: £70pcm
equity released: £45k
so by increasing the mortgage ammount to £145k you could actually release £45k to play with. this does however reduce the profits from the rents to £70pcm but at least we are still cashflow positive. in this example the mortgage used was 85% loan to value (LTV) allowing you to borrow up to 85% of the value for the property. there are other products on the market that will allow up to 90% but then the rates may be higher.
in this example i am assuming that the buy to let property was originally bought for £100k and the property is now worth £170k. this would usually be due to buying the property a few years ago and with capital appreciation, but it could be due to the fact that you bought below market value (BMV) at £100k when the true value is infact £170k (a great deal in my book!).
most people will tell you the £45k released this way is tax free and you can do as you please with it as it is not profit but in fact a loan. this is true, but be careful the inland revenue can refuse to let you claim the extra £130pcm mortgage payment as a business expense and may continue to tax you as if you were making £300pcm profit as in the orginal example. so if the £45k is used to reinvest this is ok, but if its used to buy a luxury cruise then i guess not.
making money from property is easy, all you need is lots of houses that you bought 20 years ago for about £5000 each. in todays property market they would probably be worth £100k each. sell them all and retire to the Bahamas. nice and easy…. ha ha well if that is not your reality we can all dream.
You can still make money from property even if you started today. there are quite a few ways that savy investors make money in todays property market. there are two main ways to make money from property
Buy To Let (BTL) where you buy a property and rent it out making money from the rental money and/or the capital appreciation.
Buy To Sell (BTS) where you buy a property to sell (flip) this is usually done in the short term.
as you only make money when you sell a property if doing a BTS this is not passive income. it is a good way to make money from property but it requires a lot more work if you are renovating the property. especially if you are doing the work yourself, that would be very labour intensive.
Category: 
July 17 2007