Buying a property: Research Research and then Research some more!

You’ve heard the mantra; location, location, location, well how about research, research and then research some more.

Skimping on research is a fatal flaw of many would be property investors. Because most people are just focus on location they forget that there is a host of things that need to be researched as well before buying a property.

• What is the best finance option available?
• Do you have a good power team working for you that understand your needs and can move quickly i.e. solicitor, builders, mortgage brokers, plumbers, letting agents, estate agents, finders etc. (One of the best ways to start building a property power team is to ask on property forums) There are many property investors on forums that will help and that can point you in the right direction. There are also many good brokers and solicitors and other potential power team members that are investors themselves that frequent good property forums.
• Is the property going to be easy to sell on, if you want or need to?
• The location might seem nice and might tick all the boxes, but what are your immediate neighbours like? If your tenants are going to have neighbors from hell you might find you have a high turnover of tenants and even high incidences of vandalism, even in an area where the statistics show that it should be safe.

These are just some of the areas you need to make sure you have done your due diligence. Yes location is a key but don’t forget that just having a good location doesn’t mean that much if you have lousy letting agents that can’t get tenants for you or can’t manage your property properly.

The good thing about researching property is that it gets easier. Not only will you become more proficient at it but you don’t have to keep repeating the same things all the time. Once you have found a good location, a good letting agent, good builders etc. you don’t have to continually keep looking for these people again.

It might be wise to have backup letting agents and back up members for everyone of your property power team, but again once you have those you don’t have to spend a lot of time researching them again. So even though a lot of work might be required initially it gets easier as time goes on and the initial hard work will pay off in the end.