Last week was a great one for me. On Tuesday I hosted The Property Vault at the Innovation Centre Medway, where property investor Rick Walton told a packed audience about how he started his journey into the world of property.

Me introducing Rick Walton to the audience.

Rick now has a mixed portfolio of property investments that includes HMOs, single lets, flips and trades (wherein he buys properties and then sells them without making any improvements). He told attendees of Tuesday’s event that it is really important to have a solid strategy in place. His own strategy is making sure that he has a mix of steady income from HMOs and single-lets to cover other longer-term investments like flips or trades.

A slide laying out Rick’s strategies.

With over 55 people in attendance at the Vault, it was great networking opportunity. At the next session of The Property Vault Medway, taking place on October 25th, we will be hearing from Martin Skinner, who is a renowned entrepreneur and property investor. He has been investing for over 15 years, in which time he has built up his business, lost it and then rebuilt it all again, to the point that he is now a major player in the London development market.

After taking on his first buy-to-let, Martin did some research and took a novel approach. He found a gap in the market where 95% of people renting in London could afford £500 per month for housing costs. With this information in hand he then created smaller private spaces with shared living areas, for which he charged £500 per month; that was cheaper than most other London lets. Once his idea grew, he later moved on to bigger investment opportunities. To find out more about his journey, I recommend you come along to the next The Property Vault Medway. Tickets are available now and what’s more the proceeds go to charity (once admin costs have been deducted), meaning we can give something back to the community while also building the local property community through networking.

On top of the success of Tuesday’s event, on Friday of last week I celebrated the first anniversary of my company and would like to thank everyone who has helped along the way, including my landlords. We have grown steadily as a business and I now have a ‘power team’ of people supporting me, including new employee, Danny Smith.

Landlord Alert: EPC 2018

Now, I have a question for you. Are you prepared for the upcoming Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) 2018 changes?

You may have heard that from the April 1st, 2018, any property rented out in the private sector will need to have a minimum rating of E on its Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). The regulations will come into force for new lets and tenancy renewals, with effect from April 1st, 2018, and for all existing tenancies on April 1st, 2020. If a property secures a rating of F or G it can’t be rented out. It will become illegal to continue to rent a property that breaches the requirement for a minimum E rating (unless there is an applicable exemption), and fines of up to £5,000 will be handed out by local authorities.

It is important to make sure that any required energy saving improvements are done before these new rules come in. Necessary improvements should be covered by the government’s Green Deal funding, meaning that you can do it at lower or no costs. So don’t leave it until it’s too late!

If you need help and advice on these matters, or anything else, please feel free to contact me via hasan@home-share.co.uk, or give me a ring on 07944 726 676.