Blog Post

Lessons to be learnt!

Publish Date: 03 May 2022

By Jade Shrubsole

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Further reading

Celebrating 20 Years Exhibiting at Excel London for The Property Investor Show

How to buy a property in 28 days

David was buying and selling properties back in the 80’s and one of the first properties he bought was at auction in 1984. He attended an auction browsed some details of a property in Blackburn with no guide price (there wasn’t guide prices back then) But the income stated £1000 per annum.

David began to bid putting his hand up repeatedly until finally the hammer came down at £10,000 with David winning the property. The next day he drove up to Blackburn with the intention of meeting the tenant and to supply bank details to receive the rental income. However, on his arrival at the property the first issue he was met with was the property had no front door!

Not only was there no front door but the previous tenant used to fix washing machines and the house was full of washing machines that didn’t work! David realised pretty quickly the mistake he had made and thought the only thing he could do is put the property back in to auction.

He quickly fitted a new front door and contacted a local auction agent who put the property in to their auction. With some good news for they David they sold the property £12,000! £2,000 more than he bought it before in London but not without a lot of stress and a big lesson learnt!

A positive lesson to be learnt was that the property sold for more money with a local agent than it did in London so he would bear that in mind when next looking for a property out of area.

The other lessons were… to always inspect the property, read the legal pack, instruct a solicitor and perhaps ask for tenant references!

To read more on how to buy at auction read our guide to buying at auction here.