Reply to: Anyone have experience of speculating on land

[PAH]

One of the items on my 'ideas list' is buying some land or dilapidated building in north of france for renovation or development, then commute to SE England via the chunnel. High speed rail link to London may mean it's quicker than commuting from the M4 corridor!

Prices seem a lot more reasonable than in the UK. Just not sure if France has a safer, less corrupt, legal system than say Spain when buying property or land, so needs plenty of research.


Another item on my list, to circumvent the 'you can own land but you can't live on it' problem in the UK, is to buy a couple of acres and dig out a big pond suitable for homing rare species of wildlife. Then plonk a flat bottomed boat in the pond to live on, and stick two fingers up to the authorities and NIMBYs. Not sure if this idea would float though.

If the idea of building your own pond is too daunting. Maybe buying some floodplain land (which should be cheap as it's pretty useless) and waiting for the rain/flood is a possibility. Noah.

[Freamon]

Such as buying plots of land without planning permission(which may look like a good bet) and then putting in applications over the years.

Seeing some interesting plots £50/£60/£100k which don't have permission, have tried previously, but there is a chance in the future.

Anyone done this? Pointers? Experience?

(Adding to that, has anyone bought any woodland at any point?)

Sounds like a great idea: Land Banking Scams - What you must know | LearnMoney.co.uk

[DimPrawn]

Lot of info here. Investing in land is a brilliant idea but the only one demerit is that, it's not easy to liquidate in urgent cases.

This is very true, especially in a falling market.

Try selling a villa in Spain for example

[powdajohn]

Lot of info here. Investing in land is a brilliant idea but the only one demerit is that, it's not easy to liquidate in urgent cases.

[DimPrawn]

My Grandad always used to say, you should always Invest in land because there not making anymore

I own most of the moon.

[Support Monkey]

My Grandad always used to say, you should always Invest in land because there not making anymore

[minsky1]

One avenue to pursue is buying up tulipehole properties at auction. Ones that have been empty for at least 6 months, in need of renovation.

Buy it cheap at auction and the council will give you a grant to develop it into a liveable home, they will then pay you rent and place a family on the waiting list to live there.

I think you have to agree to do this for at least 10 years.

This is driven by a deal to reduce to number of empty houses.

Worth calling the council to get the details.

The urban regeneration scheme?

[DimPrawn]

One avenue to pursue is buying up tulipehole properties at auction. Ones that have been empty for at least 6 months, in need of renovation.

Buy it cheap at auction and the council will give you a grant to develop it into a liveable home, they will then pay you rent and place a family on the waiting list to live there.

I think you have to agree to do this for at least 10 years.

This is driven by a deal to reduce to number of empty houses.

Worth calling the council to get the details.

[minsky1]

No experience of buying farmland, but a couple of years back I found a small plot through the local council. Most councils publish lists on their website of dilapidations, long term voids, plots, old buildings, (eg disused public toilets) and sometimes commercial stuff. The dept that deals with it is asset management, IIRC.

The site did not have planning and had an infestation of japanese knotweed, which, had I known at the time, I wouldnt have touched with a bargepole.

Bought it through the company, paid 15k for it. The plot itself was on the edge of a commercial district just off a high street, so was a prime spot for development.

I eventually got planning about 2 years later after spending a fair few quid on architect fees, and having a couple of schemes refused.

The knotweed cost around 22k to remove (I couldn't wait another 2 years for chemical disposal which would have been a fraction of the cost).

The upside is the company got 150% land remediation tax relief on the knotweed and site preparation (knotweed infested land is deemed contaminated, so HMRC grant a dispensation - you need a specialist tax advisor to prepare the reports as your accountant wouldnt have a clue how to tackle it). Also got Capital allowances on the build, part commercial and part residential and the building is now worth about 225k conservatively.

Well worth doing if you take a long term view, plotsearch/buildsearch and those type of sites are ok but the land is usually overpriced as they sell with OPP - ok for self build but not for investment.

[wurzel]

Looking for other alternatives, farmland to lease back to a farmer, woodlands for sale, paddocks. I'd like to own a little more of Little England.

I've thought about that. Don't think woodland has much potential, what can you do with it?

I've seen a couple of paddocks go around here for £3-4k an acre & for stable blocks to spring up on them a few weeks later. I guess there are no planning issues as the land use is still agricultural. Don't know what sort of returns you'd get though.

[DimPrawn]

Primelocation has a farmland/land section too.

Land For Sale | UK Farms For Sale | Property With Land | Primelocation

[MarillionFan]

I've got a subscription to plot finder.

Home | Land for sale in the UK from Plotfinder.net

If I were going to buy land/property I'd do it through a company.

1. Entrepeneurs Relief

means you only pay 10% CGT if you sell or close the company and dispose of the assets.

2. Stamp Duty

Stamp duty is much lower if you buy as a company.


The other option is to trawl through property auction brochures looking for knackeredold houses/bungalows on big plots with a view to redevelopment, get planning permission and then sell again through auction.

Cheers DP. Was just about to bump this myself.

Absolutely no point buying those speculative pieces where a developer has split a piece of land into 100's of strips. That's just a rip off.

Been on a lot of auction sites recently, been the the last two in my area but not got anything at the price I wanted. Rightmove is not bad if you change the criteria, that shows land.

Looking for other alternatives, farmland to lease back to a farmer, woodlands for sale, paddocks. I'd like to own a little more of Little England.

[DimPrawn]

I've got a subscription to plot finder.

Home | Land for sale in the UK from Plotfinder.net

If I were going to buy land/property I'd do it through a company.

1. Entrepeneurs Relief

means you only pay 10% CGT if you sell or close the company and dispose of the assets.

2. Stamp Duty

Stamp duty is much lower if you buy as a company.


The other option is to trawl through property auction brochures looking for knackeredold houses/bungalows on big plots with a view to redevelopment, get planning permission and then sell again through auction.

[PAH]

Seeing some interesting plots £50/£60/£100k which don't have permission, have tried previously, but there is a chance in the future.

This may be a scam where people buy farm land at the more usual £5-10k per acre, split them into parcels, and sell them off to mugs on the unsubstantiated premise that planning permission may be granted in the future.

So if you're going to speculate, buy the farm land at the normal prices and speculate that it'll be needed for food or biofuel crops in the near future. In the meantime you can rent it out to gypos.

[Halo Jones]

Consider the plot & its location: is it near existing buildings, mains services, access routes?
Many councils are getting wise to the speculative land buys & there are a lot of crooks out there, due to recent planning changes (industrial in to residential) you may be better off going with a brown-field site as you may be able to rent it for car parking whilst waiting for the right time to sell.