Anybody Else Buying to Let?

[Melboy]

I am NOT buying any more property! I will sell a couple off over a period of years for tax purposes and lower myself gently into retirement mode for a long holiday away from tenents and associated problems of running a small landlord / renovation type property business which I have been doing now for 20 years.........Yeah! Right!!

OK I got bored.....my main love is renovation of property. I love the challenge of turning a run down flea-pit into something nice and homely but I always make the developer's mistake of liking what I have done so much I can't sell the property on. Well, I say mistake but thank God I did keep my renovated properties back to rent out in the early 90's because nobody saw the huge rise in property values coming and being human I sold some off at the peak prices over a five year period as a reward pension for all my long hours of hard graft back in the early years.

So, when a good EA friend of mine offered me a very nice 1 bed house, quality built in a good location at a reasonable price but requiring renovation work and of course I made the mistake, despite protests from me, of going to look at it and that was that......2 weeks later and I now own the place.

Oh! Well! it will keep me out of mischief for a couple of months. What am I going to do with it? Don't know but as a B&Q anorak (other DIY sheds are available) I shall amuse myself with the project and as a semi-retired tradesman I shall enjoy blowing the dust of my tools.

Mel.

[Mortitia]

I also had the same conversation with myself April 2009 when I bought a ramshackle, empty, run down, decaying high Edwardian stlye lump that no one else would touch - well it was attached to a 1 bed house I had owned for 25 years.

It was a case of starting with the roof and working down - to the cellar. 18 months on and £30K poorer I have a big family maisonette and a 2bed, 2 bath GGF out of it. The cellar was absorbed into the one bed house and makes unique accommodation.

Like Mel I hate to see old character buildings go to waste. Doing this project was almost worth it for the kind comments of passers by, neighbours and materials suppliers as I got carried away with buying faux Bath stone window liners and lintels and kept 2 men in full employment over the winter and an old bricklayer doing the fancy work. I am not a tradeswoman but I don't mind filling a skip.

Both units were snapped up early at viewings and my only beef is with the council planners. The Compliance Officer is now after me because I did not build a 'brick built double cylce store with Sheffield stands and permanent lighting' in the tiny rear courtyard before I began the renovations. Priceless! I will get around it with a large resin shed form Argos but these 'jobsworths' need to be off the payroll at the council and let the creative amongst us resurrect these old buildings for the housing market.

Tool Station was my favoured small item supplier - B & Q is too expensive - check them out Mel.

Mortitia