Choosing an area – near or far?

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 12:33 pm

This is a long running debate for people who live in London…. where should I invest? Rob and Mark from Progressive Properties recommend staying close to home – and in some ways I agree and certainly wish I heard this idea before I started The point being if you live in London, depending on your strategy, it can be challenging to find an area that works. Obviously you can use Lease Options etc but if you are looking to buy traditional buy to lets, then where can you get cashflow? Many of you know that I invest in the north west – I had been to places like York, Manchester, Liverpool and even Bath as part of educational conferences … so I picked one at randomn and starting thinking about the opportunities there …. lucky for me the rest is history and I can cope with the 3.5 hour drive each way (thank you Robert Kiyosaki CDs )

One of my mentees picked an area over 5 hours from home and for the last 9 months has been working on building that vital relationship with letting agents and estate agents while holding down a full time job. I firmly believe if you work full time (or for some part time, have a family, want a social life even) then picking close to home has to be a priority. I also believe that you can buy/control property anywhere if you pick the right strategy.

It has taken a lot of hard work and commitment to keep driving 10 hour round trips every other week to look at smelly houses and then often get gazumpted by other, more local, investors. Finally the decision has been made to look for a new area. I am so relieved, the potential for better realtionships with local agents and therefore access to better deals, again something Rob and Mark talk about, will increase dramatically. What is even more surprising to some is how easy the new area appeared, just a little research and we are already looking at a goldmine ….

The new area, although still quite a drive, is just under 3 hours from home. This means that after work it will be possible to drive to a local hotel and stay over, then spend a full day working to enhance local area knowledge and build those vital local connections. Then once estate agents close and viewings complete – it is still possible to drive home and function back in the day job the next day If you are working with Estate Agents or letting agents and they don’t see you and speak to you regularly they will simple forget you – every visit will be like the first time and that is not the way to get a deal.

Happy hunting, if you haven’t heard Rob and Mark speak check out their one day event on Saturday 10th July in Central London, highly recommended