Our clients are usually private investors but we also work for investment companies.

Whether you invest in one property through us or build a portfolio you’ll get the same level of service.

By using your own funds to buy the property and pay for the refurb you receive several benefits:

Control. You control your money, not a third party. Plus, you can have an input into the finish of the property. All the relationships you will have are direct and not through brokers, except for mortgages.

More income. By removing the developer profit your costs are lower. As a result your yield is higher than buying a finished property. Expect 15% to 17% gross compared to under 8% for single-let property investments. (Yield as the income compared to the cost of the property expressed as a percentage).

Use finance to withdraw more of your cash. The end value of the property should be higher than the cash you have put in. Most lenders will allow you to borrow against that higher value. This means you will have less of your own money left in the deal than if you bought a finished property at full price.

Hands-off investment. Your involvement in the project can be as much or as little as you want. Most clients are busy and want us to take care of everything. We provide them with feedback and progress photos during the refurb process.

A typical entry level property will cost £70K and the refurbishment might cost £50K.

Allowing £5K for other buying fees and costs the investor in this scenario would need £125K in cash.

For this investment we would expect the finished property to be worth £125K to £135K .

We would expect gross yields of 15% to 17%.

Before you get to the point of reserving a property we take as much time as you need to ensure you are happy. This might take one phone call or it might take six months. It doesn’t matter. You will not experience any forceful sales people from this company.

From the point that you are ready to having a candidate property for your review can take one to four weeks. It just depends what is available in the market at that time.

From the time that you reserve a property until the conveyancing is complete is usually 4-6 weeks. We work with your solicitor so that we understand the conveyancing timescales. This allows us to schedule our refurb teams to start work the next working day after completion.

Refurbishment of an HMO will take 8-12 weeks, depending on the amount of work required. Conversion of commercial property to residential can take longer.

We have designed the buying process to provide you with as much security of your money as possible. At the same time, it allows us to do our job of delivering a quality refurbishment job for you.

For example:

• You buy the property direct from the vendor and their solicitor and not through us as an intermediary. You know you are getting the property at the correct, agreed price with no markup.
• You can use your own solicitor, or use one recommended by us. We ask that you allow us to communicate with them so that we can help free up any logjams which often surface.
• Our sourcing fee is due at the point of completion of your purchase. Before then we take a £1000 commitment fee. We hold this in our Client Account until completion. At completion the balance of the sourcing fee also becomes due.
• During the conveyancing period, we will have provided you with a fixed price and scope for the work. We need an initial payment of 50% on the day before we start the project. This is so that we can buy materials and pay some of our contractors. The next 20% is due at first fix (when the wiring and plumbing have been laid), the next 20% is due when the plastering has been completed, and the final 5% at handover.
• When we are approximately two weeks away from completing the project we will introduce you to a letting agent. You don’t have to use them, it’s completely up to you. This means they can start to market your property to minimise void periods.

We have two sources of income:

Sourcing Fee: This is 3% (minimum £4500) plus vat based on the purchase price of the property. This is due on completion of your purchase although we hold £1000 in our Client Account on reservation as a commitment fee.

Project Management Fee: We operate with a ‘cost-plus’ model. This means we recharge the costs of the project to you without any uplift and add a fee on top of that amount. The fee is 20% of the costs with a minimum of £10K plus vat.

We provide you with copies of the invoices throughout the project so you can see we’re on track.

We also ensure our own trades and sub-contractors work on a fixed rate for the job so the costs will not run away. It becomes a fixed price job which is completely transparent.

Most of our clients want a hands-off service.  This increases the importance of us providing you with regular updates so that you can track progress.

We have a variety of methods of communication.  There are the usual channels of telephone and email of course.

We also open up a tool we use within the company which is accessible using a smartphone, tablet, web or desktop app.  You can find out more about the software here.

This system is free for our clients and allows us to communicate better than using email.  It becomes a place for written communication, shared files and update photographs.  It’s particularly effective when working on multiple projects for the same client.

We source to order.

Not every client wants the same type of property.  Some clients prioritise location over yield.  Everyone is different.

That’s why we take the time to understand your priorities before going out into the market for you.

Plus, we always have a waiting list of clients for our deals so that if one client choses not to proceed for any reason we can usually pass it on to someone else.

If you are not sure what your priorities are please give us a call or drop us a line.

We have been active in the market in the north west for years.  This means we are in the ‘little black book’ of lots of the estate agents when a good deal becomes available.

We also keep our eyes on Rightmove and Zoopla on areas that we know deliver solid yields.

In some cases, we will also look at the auctions in conjunction with an investor.

Sure.  We do this as part of the final stages of reservation of a property.

As you will appreciate we respect our clients time and therefore only ask this sort of favour at an appropriate time.