How do you do ladies and gentlemen.
I was going to produce a video this weekend entitled House Price Headwinds. After all, it doesn’t matter which way you look. Things are in a mess, so maybe it would be a good time to update some of my rules for working out how not to get in a mess.
For those of us who spend time dealing in real estate it’s no good saying that things are in a mess. We need to know what we should be doing. After all, in a sense, dealing with real estate is pretty easy, or should I say it ought to be easy. After all, anyone can buy or sell a house. So how is it that so many people keep getting it wrong?
I have been getting it right since I started out in this business. I worked out how to buy a wonderful property just a couple of miles down from the village where we lived in the UK. Unfortunately, I was a twelve year old kid who was pretty good with maths, and algebra in particular, and the bank manager we were dealing with was a total twit.
I quickly learned that the first way to succeed in business was to bypass fools. When it came to our next venture I was smart enough to do things differently, and for starters I lied about my age. That way the bank manager would not be expected to listen to a kid barely into secondary school.
However, you have to know three basic things: when to buy, when to sell, and when to leave well alone.
Buying real estate is usually a long term deal. I still own a property that I bought in 1968. My daughter lives there now. On the other hand, the first house I built from scratch, I put up for sale before I’d finished the building.
I can go through all the ways that one should use to get things done and make a lot of money, but a good start would be to read my full-length book on the subject. The Ultimate Real Estate Guide. It’s available on Amazon. I’ll leave a link in the show note and at the end of this text.
First and foremost, there are several simple rules you need to be aware off, and this is where most property advisors go wrong right from the start.
Actually, most advisors go wrong before they even start. Let me ask you guys who are reading this blog a few questions. What do you know about house prices? Where they come from; what they should be; and which type of valuation should you keep in mind?
Should you rent or buy? And how do you work out which is more appropriate?
There are also various basic signals that you need to be aware off, but what are they, and which are the most important ones?
And I suppose we could add another question. Why pay any attention to me?
Well, let me start by answering that last question. I started in the business of real estate when I was twelve years old and was tasked by my mother to use my maths for something positive for a change and work out how she could buy Brickendonbury. Here’s a picture of the main house. There are others as part of the deal, plus a substantial Home Farm.
My maths showed exactly how we could afford to buy the place, but as I said earlier the bank manager didn’t understand maths, and couldn’t work out what I was talking about. Not to worry, I not only started studying house prices, but also how to make cement, and by the time I was twenty-five I was a millionaire, and had built two houses of my own from scratch, doing all the work. That means I know what I’m talking about from brute hard experience.
I subsequently bought real estate in nine countries, discovered various formulas, one of which I sold to a prominent UK mortgage company. I invented Buy-to-Let in 1991, five years before the banks got around to discovering the process, and I started and still run the oldest real estate company on the web.
Most people think buying real estate is not worth doing these days. As we go along I will show you deals that I have been doing, and am still doing. And I’m even planning more deals for this autumn. I may decide to copy you in. I’m sure some of you would enjoy the ride.
Okay, that’s the short introduction. Next week I will start to go through how I decide what to buy, and how to buy it, and also what I am thinking about now, and what indicators I need to follow to know when to buy, where to buy, and when to keep my head down and do nothing.
Next week I am going to start with money, and the best way to value a house. And to value a house properly you dont go anywhere near an estate agent. And the good news is, that it is very easy to value a house, and that means discovering its real or intrinsic value as opposed to its assumed value.
See you next week.
Link to The Real Estate book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D3ZW8D2