Want to buy a broom cupboard in London, how to borrow the £££

[Peter Loew]

You have been watching too much of those property tv shows lately. Please don't forget you're not pitching to real estate agents or investors, we are normal people with normal day jobs.

Actually I do not watch TV. Normal people with normal day jobs.. aren't you a contractor?!

[fullyautomatix]

Its possible

Get a 500£ per day contract.

Register for an off shore loan scheme.

Pay peanuts in tax due to tax loophole.

Invest in property using the offshore trust, no stamp duty.

If you get HMRC letter, go bankrupt.

[adam42]

2 questions arising from the thread so far:

(1) if I bought a small place now, would that give me more leverage later once I'd got together a second down-payment in a few years?

(2) Could I mitigate the risk of buying somewhere (theoretically, not considering where I would actually live) if I rented it out and used the rent to pay off the mortgage on a flexible 'account-style' mortgage? I remember Virgin offered a type of mortgage you could pay into and take out of. During good times, the high rent could pay off a lot of the mortgage, during bad times, poor renting market etc, I could just pay off the interest or even dip into the mortgage.

[TykeMerc]

2 questions arising from the thread so far:

(1) if I bought a small place now, would that give me more leverage later once I'd got together a second down-payment in a few years?

(2) Could I mitigate the risk of buying somewhere (theoretically, not considering where I would actually live) if I rented it out and used the rent to pay off the mortgage on a flexible 'account-style' mortgage? I remember Virgin offered a type of mortgage you could pay into and take out of. During good times, the high rent could pay off a lot of the mortgage, during bad times, poor renting market etc, I could just pay off the interest or even dip into the mortgage.

1. Well money invested in property appreciates as fast as the property, what you're describing (albeit in a roundabout way) is getting onto the property ladder and moving up as you can afford.

2. Well if you buy somewhere to let out then you need a BTL mortgage and those don't tend to be of the offset type. The Virgin product you're thinking of was a flavour of offset. If you buy a property and don't live in it then you've got to lay out your own rent as well as pay the mortgage, even though you will get rent in you will have to balance the budget.