Imagine Homes

[SCvilla29]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of buying an investment property through a crowd called Imagine Homes (www.imaginehomes.ie), a UK based company with agents in Ireland. Basically they offer 'buy-already let' properties including furnishing and sourcing of tenants for the first four years.

They have a pretty big operation in the U.K. already including joint operations with Bank of Scotland and mainly offer off-plan investment properties in England and Scotland. They also retain approximately 20% of each development which, I would think means that they are quite selective about which developments they offer on their books as they have a vested interest in each one going forward.

If anyone has any thoughts on this company their operation, experiences, or opinions good or bad I'd be very interesting in hearing them.

Thanks in advance.

 

[simon@empire]

Buy to let in the UK

Hi SCvilla 29,

These are another of the plethora of companies marketing apartments in the UK to Irish investors. The tenanted investment is just another name for 'guaranteed rental'. These investments are normally priced above the market level and result in you just getting your own money back. And don't be sucked in by them claiming to take 20% of the development because just about every company claims to do this.

What is important is the location and the % they are going to pay because you need the investment to cover you mortgage costs as well as factoring in a cushion for another couple of interest rate rises. So you need at least a 6% yield to be safe.

Other factors to think about are that alot of UK cities are swamped with apartments and these and the block you buy in could have a lot of investors (a number of which will be Irish) all competing for your tenants and coming under the same pressures from increasing interest rates.

Buy direct in the UK and not through an Irish middle man because you are just paying for their cut. The UK is so near that you should decide on a city first, starting with London, and then once you have a city decide which area is the best for investment and then go over and check the area out and then look at potential properties.

The UK is a good long-term low-risk location, although some parts are looking over-priced, but don't believe anything the agents tell you and check out all the details yourself. Use only independent government figures on the housing market and local prices. These can be found for free at www.landregistry.gov.uk where there is a house price index where you can find the latest national report with a breakdown on prices for geographic areas as well as the ability to put in a postcode and find what recent properties in the area sold for. There's also a number of websites such as [broken link removed] that will give you background information on the area you want to buy in.

I hope this helps, good luck.

Simon

(P.S. This should really be in the Overseas Property, section not the general property section, which relates solely to Irish property.)