For my latest property investment, I want to document the whole process from purchase to ready to be let. I hope that this content can help others who would like to do similar projects and provide a real-life case of what it takes financially and in terms of timing and project management. It would be great to hear your stories, thoughts, and questions in the comments below. Let's dive into the case study!

The property is a 2-bed cottage located in Wellbank, just outside Dundee. This property was brought to me by a property sourcer in mid-2019 who had direct contact with the seller. The seller was motivated and was willing to sell at a reduced price. The home report showed a value of £140,000 and it had been on the market at £120,000. However, as you can see from the pictures below, the property was in relatively poor condition and needed quite a bit of work done. The sourcer managed to get the purchase price down to £94,000 and charged a £3,000 fee for his services. I was happy to pay this as he had brought to me a great deal, dealt with the seller and helped me right up until completion. I paid solicitors fees of £1380 and an additional dwelling supplement of £3760. You can view more figures in the pictures that follow below. 

Serviced Accommodation or Vanilla Buy to Let?

When I first viewed the property, I saw that it had great potential and the idea was planted in my head to maybe run this as a holiday let and rent it out per night. The Serviced Accommodation strategy has become more and more popular recently and after seeing others' success it has tempted me to go for it. This will affect the way that we refurbish the property as for a holiday let it should be a high standard of finish since it is for holidaymakers and not long-term tenants.

Finance 

How did I finance this property? I purchased this property with a 1-year bridging finance product. The lender offered me 75% (£68,430) of the purchase price as a 1-year bridging loan, which I pay monthly. Bridging finance is a short-term product and is useful when refurbishing a property as you can then get the property valued again once the property is refurbished and benefit from the value that you added. This means that there is potential to get all of your money back out if it works perfectly but oftentimes you are left with a portion of your money still in the property. It is a great way to recycle your money and avoid it being stuck in properties on a longer-term fixed finance product. I must wait 6 months from the purchase date until I can re-value the property at open market value.

My plan is to refurbish the property for a maximum of £20,000. This along with my other costs of £33,853 means that my total investment would be £53,853. My hope would be that the property would re-value at £150,000 and I would re-mortgage onto a holiday let mortgage at 70% Loan to Value. This would mean I would receive £105,000 (70%) back. I would then pay off the £68,430 bridging loan and be left with £36,570, which would be 68% of my investment back. I would consider this to be decent but would secretly hope (it is a possibility) that it would revalue at £160,000 and that would leave me with £43,570, which would be 81% of my investment back. Fingers crossed!

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*The finance side can be a little bit tricky and I am aware that not everyone will fully understand the bridging finance or the rules surrounding it as it does have a few arms and legs that need to be considered. I can help with any questions you have on this, just pop your question in the comments or contact me here. 

 

Below I have created some graphics so you can see the property and our progress so far. The pictures are from when we first got it up until now - most rooms have been ripped out and walls stripped back but still a lot of work to do. Really we are taking everything back and will build it back up to something hopefully very nice! Please let us know what you think and if you have any ideas or questions! Thanks!