Jude,
Very simpy I went to Ca. set up a bank account with Bank of America, rang about 200 RE agents until I found one who thought I was serious. Then I signed on about USD$1.2m worth of income property, on my last day of a 2 week trip. After that I went home and worked out how I was going to get a deposit together. I maxed out my credit cards and got a $100k AUD line of credit. Once I had the LOC approved I could pay back the CC's and used the 100kAUD as 10% deposit. The sellers I got to agree to loan me 10% so I could meet the banks 20% down requirements. In that way I managed massive gearing. I recently sold one building and bought another which required a 30% down as it was commercial. I _still_ ended up $30kUSD short on that deal, but found a loan shark (who charged me $6k USD fees for a 25k loan, but I got the property) so I have that too. Thats pretty specific! Have a look at housemouse.co.uk. She introduced me (very nicely) to her broker who can get 15% down (with the aformentioned 130% rental reqmnt) but I have managed to find another broker in UK who can get me 5% down. Housemouse is extremely cagey yet is doing nothing illegal and I would recomend investing with her if you have no other UK link. She is a more down to earth Henry Kaye. She is also smart, dedicated and knows her markets well. She buys for discount, then onsells. Provided the market remains healthy everyone will be happy! I expect she will become a developer in short order. When I met her, I would have been prepared to hand over about stg20k, but I got so few specifics about any projects she was doing (possibly luckily) that I thought I would do better to know more and do it myself. Even the blanket 'well where do I start then?' was answered with 'well I get so sick of people asking me that' Fair enough, I do too, but I actually wanted to start!
Housemouse I assume worked out 'her' HK strategy herself, and we all know it works. Hard in this country and in US as the finance is 'lesser of purchase price or valuation' I would assume this will come in to UK in short order.
You can buy anything anywhere if you have a big enough downpayment! Its that simple! The trick is to get in with as low a downpayment as possible, and that is dependant on how soft the market is and how malleable the sellers are.
Very simpy I went to Ca. set up a bank account with Bank of America, rang about 200 RE agents until I found one who thought I was serious. Then I signed on about USD$1.2m worth of income property, on my last day of a 2 week trip. After that I went home and worked out how I was going to get a deposit together. I maxed out my credit cards and got a $100k AUD line of credit. Once I had the LOC approved I could pay back the CC's and used the 100kAUD as 10% deposit. The sellers I got to agree to loan me 10% so I could meet the banks 20% down requirements. In that way I managed massive gearing. I recently sold one building and bought another which required a 30% down as it was commercial. I _still_ ended up $30kUSD short on that deal, but found a loan shark (who charged me $6k USD fees for a 25k loan, but I got the property) so I have that too. Thats pretty specific! Have a look at housemouse.co.uk. She introduced me (very nicely) to her broker who can get 15% down (with the aformentioned 130% rental reqmnt) but I have managed to find another broker in UK who can get me 5% down. Housemouse is extremely cagey yet is doing nothing illegal and I would recomend investing with her if you have no other UK link. She is a more down to earth Henry Kaye. She is also smart, dedicated and knows her markets well. She buys for discount, then onsells. Provided the market remains healthy everyone will be happy! I expect she will become a developer in short order. When I met her, I would have been prepared to hand over about stg20k, but I got so few specifics about any projects she was doing (possibly luckily) that I thought I would do better to know more and do it myself. Even the blanket 'well where do I start then?' was answered with 'well I get so sick of people asking me that' Fair enough, I do too, but I actually wanted to start!
Housemouse I assume worked out 'her' HK strategy herself, and we all know it works. Hard in this country and in US as the finance is 'lesser of purchase price or valuation' I would assume this will come in to UK in short order.
You can buy anything anywhere if you have a big enough downpayment! Its that simple! The trick is to get in with as low a downpayment as possible, and that is dependant on how soft the market is and how malleable the sellers are.