Purchasing buy to let apartment with savings

Hi, I'm a newbie on this forum so I hope I'm keeping within the guidelines.

Myself and my husband are thinking of buying a property as an investment.

We are both self employed, husband on a contract which should be safe for next couple of years. I am doing sporadic consultancy work for the company I previously worked for but am in the process of setting up a company in the design field. (Kids growing up so going to work more full time now)

Our current gross combined income is approx €90k. (Husband €80k, me approx €10k on a very part time basis)

Property of interest is asking €200k. Potential rent will be €900 pm but we believe strongly that it has growth potential over the coming years. I suspect due to the supposed instability of the above we wouldn't be able to obtain a BTL mortgage. If we could secure say a €50k mortgage does this make sense?

We have savings of €240k and shares currently worth €50k. Savings are in an almost zero yield deposit account. We have no loans and have an outstanding tracker mortgage of €170k on our home which is worth approx €450k

We are very lucky with our current situation but would really like to be a bit more proactive and property is the area we feel we both know best.
Any advice would be very welcome!

1) It makes no sense to borrow at 5.5% interest when you have money on deposit earning you nothing, so if you do buy, buy with cash.

2) If you do buy, make sure to buy before the 31 December as any Capital Gain will be free of CGT if you hold it for 7 years.

3) Given the sporadic nature of your income, I think it's unwise to invest in property. If you need to access your savings, you won't be able to do so without selling the property.

You have a very valuable tracker. There is a small possibility that the lender might offer an incentive to pay it off early. If this arises, it's better to have access to cash.

You have a valuable tracker. If your income drops, you need to be in a position to maintain the repayments , to make absolutely sure that you don't lose the tracker.

4) For a number of reasons, I think you are better off buying a portfolio of shares
Over the longer term, the return should be higher
It's far more flexible, you can sell some of them if you need cash
It's a lot less work
It's better diversification for you as you already have a stake of €450k in the property market

Yes we have a great tracker. I hadn't factored in a possibility of discount on this. With Danske and they were pretty adamant it wouldn't happen. Maybe this new crowd, Pepper? will have different ideas?

Never looked at our PPR as being a stake in the property market. It's just our home!

Will go back to the drawing board. Think you are probably right about investing in shares. It's just the stock market scares me as I've no control!!

Thank you

I think you are right in thinking about investing in property. You have great savings and I am surprised you haven't paid off your own mortgage even though you have a good tracker rate on it you are still paying interest… Anyhow, I think investing for retirement is a better idea here… What you should be considering is that given the mortgage on your investment property will be tiny, most of the income will be taxable. Instead I think you should consider paying off your own mortgage and getting a bigger mortgage on the retail place. You might be able to talk to your current mortgage provider (though they are probably gone from irish market??) and arrange a deal whereby you switch mortgaged properties and potentially pay higher interest rate on the rental property but may be not as high as if yo didm;t have your tracker leverage iykwim? Lenders are very keen to get rid of their trackers so you might be in a position to juggle. You can offset 75% of the interest on your mortgage against your rental income.
On a separate note I certainly would not advise to invest in a portfolio of shares to anyone who doesn't know anything about it...