Personal Situation

Aged 34, I returned from travelling at the end of 2009 with no income but some savings in the bank. I currently rent a property and intend to earn a living by renovating houses.

Experience

My experience is limited to owning and selling two houses. The first I bought with a friend when I was 21. We sold it a couple of years later for about £4,000 profit each. The second one was purchased around 2001 and sold several years later at nearly 3x what I paid for it. Whilst I had done some work to it (approx £10,000 spent), the rise in value was almost entirely down to the rising market rather than any skill on my part.

My DIY skills are limited to painting and putting up shelves!

Finances

I’m using the profit from the aforementioned house sale to live off and to fund this venture.

I’ve partnered up with a friend and we’re both have £50,000 to put into this. That is our initial ‘stake’ and we’re not prepared (at this time) to invest anything further. All of our profit and growth must come from there.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE:

At this time (end of 2009) it is difficult to earn much interest on £50,000 so we don’t have much to lose by taking it out of a savings account. The other thing in our favour is that we intend to buy all of our properties outright (at least initially). This means we avoid a whole heap of expenses such as:

• monthly mortgage and interest repayments
• mortgage arrangement fees
• mortgage insurance premiums

If you were going to get into something similar without that initial lump sum available (or indeed if interest rates on savings were better than they are now), then these costs can significantly cut into your profit.

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