From nothing to £180M

[centurian]

Ah, but if you borrow £19 to buy it at £20, and now it is valued at £13, you're not doing so well.

Obviously.

But this couple built up most of their portfolio years ago.

Hence my example is probably more representative of the situation. They bought low, and although prices have dropped recently, they still make a large profit overall.

They would have made more if they had sold a few years back, so their balance sheet would show a year-on-year 'loss' for the past few years.

So the question of how you can make a profit after a crash - depends on when you base it from.

[OwlHoot]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aE3XgycC1fhk

Fergus Wilson, the former mathematics teacher dubbed Britain’s buy-to-let “King,” says he’s selling 700 rental properties before interest rate rises bring “slaughter” to landlords in the U.K. housing market.

Wilson, who together with his wife Judith rank among the 1,000 wealthiest Britons according to this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, said it was inevitable that interest rates would rise from a historic low, pummeling rental landlords.

The Wilsons, called “The King and Queen of Buy-to-Let” by newspapers including the Guardian, last week agreed to sell their investment for 180 million pounds ($289 million) to an asset management company “possibly representing Russians,” Wilson said. He would not identify the potential buyer, citing a confidentiality agreement. The pair stand to make a 90 million- pound profit after taxes and expenses incurred in the sale, he added.

Not bad. See, asset bubbles are not all bad.

He's done pretty well, but isn't the richest former maths teacher by a long stretch.

I'd gues that title must go to James Harris Simons, who among other things helped develop Chern Simons Theory, and having moved into investment fund management is as rich as Croesus (several billion at the last count).

[Tarquin Farquhar]

Ah, but if you borrow £19 to buy it at £20, and now it is valued at £13, you're not doing so well.

[centurian]

How come they made a profit even after the house price crash

If you buy something for a tenner years back - and two years ago it was valued at £20. Now it's worth £17 - have you made £7 or lost £3....

[Clippy]

Haven't this couple been talking about selling their portfolio for the last few years?

Thought they would have done it by now.

[BrilloPad]

he’s selling 700 rental properties before interest rate rises bring “slaughter” to landlords in the U.K. housing market.

But rates wont rise until there is economic recovery. round about 2013.

[TimberWolf]

He's left things a bit late. Surely the time to have been worrying about interest rates rises would have been more than a year ago. Since then they've been kept artificially low and call me Dave says he will do the same.

[DimPrawn]

I wouldn't call a few percent from peak a crash exactly.

Boomed!

[Menelaus]

How come they made a profit even after the house price crash

even when there's a crash, the crash doesn't take value back to zero.

[Andy2]

How come they made a profit even after the house price crash

[DimPrawn]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aE3XgycC1fhk

Fergus Wilson, the former mathematics teacher dubbed Britain’s buy-to-let “King,” says he’s selling 700 rental properties before interest rate rises bring “slaughter” to landlords in the U.K. housing market.

Wilson, who together with his wife Judith rank among the 1,000 wealthiest Britons according to this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, said it was inevitable that interest rates would rise from a historic low, pummeling rental landlords.

The Wilsons, called “The King and Queen of Buy-to-Let” by newspapers including the Guardian, last week agreed to sell their investment for 180 million pounds ($289 million) to an asset management company “possibly representing Russians,” Wilson said. He would not identify the potential buyer, citing a confidentiality agreement. The pair stand to make a 90 million- pound profit after taxes and expenses incurred in the sale, he added.


Not bad. See, asset bubbles are not all bad.