Admin, Admin

Got to the bottom of the charges with City Life and the full amount has now finally been paid so reasonably happy there although just checked on RightMove site and the rent for the Park Central property 1 bed apartments seems to have moved up by about £50-£75 per month!. Probably a lesson to be learned about everything coming to the man who waits!

More mortgage stuff coming through on Adelaide Wharf now, not due to be completed until August so it seems a little premature but better now than later.

Getting bombarded with emails and phone calls from people we met at the NEC show last weekend. The problem is that there is just so much information you need some sort of filter so that you only concentrate on the stuff that is valuable to you.

To the Property Investor Show at the NEC

Anne and I went to the Property Investor show at the NEC today. It was very informative and although there were plenty of people there it wasn't packed. It was free to get in although the associated costs where a bit steep. I thought that parking at £7.00 per day was a bit extortionate and likewise the sarnies at £3.00 for 2. I guess its not too bad if your used to London prices but this is Birmingham!

I had thought that it would be primarily a UK based property show but it turned out that probably 75% of the stalls were for overseas stuff. It was still interesting but it was sort of running the gauntlet at times charging down the aisles trying to avoid the barrages of leaflets and invitations to chat about opportunities that you knew you just weren't interested in.

We had a long chat with a company called Smarthouse that were building/renovating purpose built accommodation for students around Leeds University. The guaranteed positive cashflow for a year sounded good especially after we are losing money on Park Central but I can't help thinking this might be just another form of discount. If we are interested the I probably need to follow up and see exactly how long it lasts and talk to other investors as to how easy the property is to let after the initial guaranteed period.

We went to a seminar given by Jonty Crossick from Ready2Invest, got to say it was one of the best free seminars that I have been to, mainly because he was trying to give actual advice rather than explicitly trying to sell us something. The seminar was basically about buying the sort of property that was right for you and he covered financial goal setting and doing your own risk profiling. We had a long chat with him afterwards when he gave his thoughts on the UK property market (not as buoyant as it has been, still lots of life in it but be careful to pick your location) and some of overseas areas that he was looking at. He came across as down to earth decent bloke who had made good with some intelligent strategies.

All in all a good day even though it was a bit rushed and we couldn't find the car in the car park!

First Rent comes through - eventually !

Took a while to get the first payment through from CityLife, rent paid on the 2 March by the tenent but didn't actually get my cash through until the 13th which I wasn't exactly happy about however I guess that there are inital set up processes to go through also they provided a detailed breakdown of the costs they had taken from it. The problem is that it seems to be extremely light from what I was expecting, Serliana brokered a deal with CityLife for property club members but it looks like I've been put through at standard rates.

I rang them (late on a Friday) and managed to get through to a lady in accounts who promised to look into it Monday for me. I sent her the emailed confirmation and she said it should be pretty straightforward to resolve so hopefully it will get shorted out pretty quick.

I've spent the last week or so reading the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books 1 and 2. They seem to be pretty seminal reading for would be property investors so intend to write my review of them next week. I might have a go at using the Google documents and spreadsheets functionality and providing a link to them rather than simply writing up in the blog.

Good News on PC

Got some good news from City Life on Tuesday, they had someone who wanted to make an offer on Park Central, hurrah! The couple wanted to move quickly (double hurrah) and be in the apartment by Thursday 1st March. Obviously suited us, so we asked City Life to run the usual background and credit checks and when they came back ok, we said ok!

Even though we got the apartment cheap and the letting fee is more than Serliana estimated, the cash from the let doesn't cover the mortgage which is a bit of a concern especially with the management fee taken out however its still a damn site better then paying mortages on your own house and the apartment. I guess the way to look at it is as if you were simply paying money into a long term savings account. Still I think for the next property that we buy we will look to make a small profit on.

I wasn't too sure if we needed to do anything or sign anything but apart from the inital agreement with City Life that seemed to be about it. There was a bit of an issue with the keys, I had left them with Arkade who were orginally marketing the property for us so I needed City Life to get them and have additional keys cut for themselves and for the lettor, unfortunetly they only picked up 2 of the keys so while the lettor can get in the building and the aprtment, they can't as yet get out on the balcony! Still plenty of time to get them the key and its not exactly balcony weather yet anyway.

Couple of things to confirm with City Life such as who holds the letters deposit, what are the arrangements for paying us the monthly fee, Serliana discount etc. Probably drop them a line later today. Its getting exciting again!