BuyaHouse4aPound

You are running out of time....

2010-03-15T09:55:00.003Z

...to get your ticket for Rick Otton's Live Event this saturday 20th and Sunday 21st March.

Rick landed in the UK on Friday and is doing a whistle stop tour of some property events prior to his full-on weekend of training.

If you haven't got your ticket already then watch the video below with Mark Canning in it from Scotland. He came along in October last year to this 2-day training and he went away and did 47 deals in 6 weeks..!

Ireland is "Open for Business"

2010-03-05T09:09:00.004Z

Having just spent the last couple of days in Cork, Southern Ireland, their market is well and truly ready for the strategies that we use here.

Whilst some of the estate agents that we spoke to, just don't get it and want "proof" that it could work, there are others that get it almost before you have dicsussed how it could help people..!

Because the property market there has been SO turbulent in the last couple of years, there are so many people trapped in property that they can't move on from. The other massive problem is the lack of money coming from the Irish banks which means that it is so hard for anyone to get finance!

I presented to a group of property investors and the overall feedback is that they can't wait to get their hands on these strategies.

I found out that Ireland never had the MX "same day remortgage" product, and is only just getting "sale and rent back" over there. However developers have been doing a "rent to buy" solution on some of their empty newbuilds just to get some income coming in and to pacify the banks that they owe so mouch money to! What this means is that as a concept to most people, it is not completely off the wall. But, this has not been made available to "2nd hand properties" which is our preferred market.

What an opportunity. Oh, and of course, I found a deal...
:0)

18 deals - Video

2010-03-04T06:20:00.003Z

Having been travelling for a couple of days it took me a while to get back to the office to put this together, but see below a quick video from the Estate Agent and winner of the deals that I sourced in Leeds...

18 possible Options deals sourced in Leeds..!

2010-02-24T08:16:00.002Z

I had a great day in Leeds yesterday and a great bunch of investors joined me last night for my presentation on Options last night.

I only had the chance to speak to 4 of the 100+ extate agents in Leeds, but when I got to the 4th estate agent, he “got” what I was talking about. When I told the group last night that we had identified 18 possible option deals, there was an audible “gasp” from the crowd..! ;o)

At the end of the evening, Raj Limbachia (who is only 18 years old) was the lucky winner of my options giveaway. This means that I will be doing a JV with him on one or more of the deals that I sourced in Leeds. How pleased was he!!

Off to Manchester now to do the whole thing again. You still have a chance to see me this week. I will be at Manchester tonight and Birmingham on Thursday:

Manchester Date: Wednesday night (yes, tonight, 24th February) Venue: Travelodge Sportcity, Birch Street, Off Hyde Road, West Gorton Hyde, Manchester, M12 5NT Time: 7.30 for an 8pm start

Birmingham Date: This Thursday evening (the night before Mastermind 5, no excuses guys..!) Venue: Crowne Plaza Hotel (you know it well, it is where we do Mastermind trainings) Time: 7.30 for an 8pm start

Make sure you come along and it could be you going home with an options deal tonight!

Rick Otton & Simon Zutshi - Webinar Replay

2010-02-21T18:45:00.003Z

Please click on the video below to listen again to the webinar that we did with Rick & Simon the other day:

Go to a town, find a deal, give it away..!

2010-02-19T21:22:00.005Z

That might sound quite ambitious, but I was very pleased to be asked by Yvonne Emery to be the speaker at the Peterborough Property Investment Group (http://www.petpig.org/) recently.

I got a bit carried away when she asked me what I would be speaking about and what I intended to do on the evening; I said to her that I would come up to Peterborough for the day, spend the day in town speaking to Estate Agents and see if I could find an options deal.

Well, that all seemed really good in principle, however the only problem was that I did not leave Kent until later than I intended and didn't actually get to Peterborough until 3pm. Ooops, I thought. I may have really "shot myself in the foot" here as I will look very silly when I see everyone tonight and they all think I have a deal that I am going to give away and I haven't found one..!

Anyway, apart from rushing back to the car every 30 minutes to put more money in the meter (gosh it is expensive to park in Peterborough!), I just about had time to speak to 3 estate agents. They all new about property investors, and joked that every time Rob & Mark (from Progressive) do a course, they get inundated with "property experts" looking for 30% BMV deals...

Well the first estate agents I went into, they just weren't interested in what I had to say at all. There were 5 empty desks, where they had laid off most of the agents, but they were keen to tell me how bouyant the market is...

The second agent got what I was talking about, but had to rush out to do a survey on a property, so we may catch up soon. However the third agent really got it and within about half an hour had identified a property that we could do a deal on.

In a nutshell, the owner owes the mortgage company pretty much what the property is worth. She is desperate to sell and move on becuase her fiancee lives far away, they both want to get married and emigrate to Australia. None of this they can do because their mortgage will still need to be paid if they leave now without a buyer. They have the property up with three agents and are getting nowhere with any of them.

We have basically agreed to buy at the amount the mortgage is outstanding and allow them to move on with their life as soon as possible. She cannot believe her luck and at first did not think I was being serious. We are obviously very serious and will be using an "Instalment Contract" to sell the property on to another buyer, probably at the same price, and will make a bunch of cash from the transaction..!

On the evening of the PetPIG event, I put everyone's name in a bucket and we picked out the winner. Pierre Tanner was the lucky guy and we are doing a Joint venture on this property. My knowledge, his legwork... I think he should net about £30k from this. Needless to say, he was very pleased!!

Have a look at what the Pierre and the estate agent had to say about it all in the video below:

2 Guru's, 1 Webinar, this Thursday...

2010-02-17T01:17:00.002Z

I have put two of the best minds in property together for one night only on a FREE webinar!

Simon Zutshi and Rick Otton will be joining me on a webinar this Thursday that you can all listen into. As you know, both of these guys are very well respected in the property industry. I don't need to tell you about Rick as he is all over this website, but if you haven't come across Simon before, he is one the most well known property investors / educators we have here in the UK.

So how do you fancy being a fly on the wall as these two professionals discuss the creative ways that you can put deals together right now, given the financial challenges that most investors are facing right now..?!!

Places are limited, so go to http://tinyurl.com/RickSimonWebinar and register for your place on the webinar now.

"Babysit" peoples mortgages for them

2009-12-17T07:47:00.002Z

Rather than getting a new mortgage for a property that you are buying, why not just take over the exisiting loan on the property and "babysit" it for the seller..? Use the loans that people don't want!

All you are doing is helping people get out of houses that they don't love anymore, and in turn helping people get into the property that love it a bit more.

How much do tenants pay monthly, and up front "getting started money"..?

2009-12-16T05:29:00.003Z

People are always asking me "how do you work out what a tenant buyer pays in rent each month and what do they pay up front for their deposit..?"

The answer to this is basically whatever they can afford and whatever suits you. However there is some maths around it.

As Rick explains in the video below, if you are doing a Lease Option contract with a Tenant buyer then they will pay about 2-3% of whatever the purchase price of the property is. If the tool that you are using to help them buy the property is an Instalment Contract, then they will pay more like 5% of the purchase price.

However back to reality rather than theory, I had a conversation with a lady this week that went along the lines of:

Her: "...we want to buy a property but my partner and I can't save the £25-30k needed to put down as a deposit for a house"
Me: " well how much getting started money do you have?"
Her: "we only have about £18,000 save up"
Me: "Well that is fantastic, I can help you get into this house for only £10k and that means that you have £8,000 spare for all the new furniture that you were just telling me that you wanted..."
Her: "You're kidding! How soon could we get in?!"
Me: "Well it will take about a week for the paperwork to be done, but before xmas. Would that work for you..?"

So every opportunity is different and everyone's situation is different.
Sometimes you will have to "help people" find their getting started money (although that is another topic altogether!), and sometimes they will surprise you with the money they have available to them.

See what Rick says in this video:

The "Cash bit" and the "Debt bit"

2009-12-15T07:03:00.004Z

When you are talking to vendors it is best to talk in plane simple language. If you start talking "mortgages" and "equity" you may alienate them. If you talk "cash bit" and "debt bit" then you are talking "Mum's & Dad's language" and you will create better empathy with people.

However right now in the UK, do you think it is possible that there are some people who have properties with no "cash bit" left? Do you think it is possible that where they have had large mortgages and where properties have come down in value that the amount of "cash bit" they had has whittled away?

Further more do you think it is possible that some people may even have more "debt bit" on their properties than "cash bit"?

Now we know this as "negative equity", but even that phrase is "negative" and has all sorts of negative connotations in peoples minds. Wouldn't it be nice if you could help these people out by "babysitting" their loan for them so that they could move on...

Win/Win solutions with Lease Options

2009-12-14T06:05:00.008Z

Continuing our "London Tour" with Rick I asked him the question that some people are asking which is "why can you actually buy a house for a pound?", to which he gives some examples of big businesses that have been bought for that sum in the past.

I then asked how you get to that "cliched" point that you get a "win / win" scenario for everyone concerned. His answer is very simple that all you need to do is find out what the problem is that needs to be solved, put a proposal together that solves the problem and then just put some paperwork together from the solicitors that helps people get what they want...

Newbie "mistakes"

2009-12-13T08:55:00.004Z

As part of the "London Tour" series of videos that I have done with Rick Otton, one of the questions that I asked him was "what are the main mistakes that people make when they are new to doing options..?".

In the video below Rick identifies three mistakes that need to be avoided to be successful in investing in property with options:

The "old way" (BMV) vs. the "new way" (Options)

2009-12-12T09:03:00.004Z

In this clip Rick talks about how he would rather take a little less profit from each deal but do 20 a month, rather than those investors chasing BMV deals that use up a lot of time, effort and their cash, to do bigger deals but less of them...

"London Cab Tips": Finding Tenant Buyers

2009-12-11T05:48:00.005Z

In yesterday's blog we learnt from Rick about how to find "motivated sellers". In this short clip we learn how Rick "flaps his gums" and lets everyone know that he is in the property business so that, in a very short time, everyone in the neighbourhood knows that he is the "man to go to" if they want to buy a house.

"London Cab Tips": Finding Motivated Sellers

2009-12-10T12:52:00.003Z

Whilst in London recently with Rick Otton, we made the most of a London Cab journey to go over some great tips all about options and instalment contracts. Here we discuss the ways Rick finds motivated sellers of property.

2009-12-09T08:37:00.002Z

After a fantastic 5 days with Rick Otton and his advanced students at the UK's first ever "Go Direct" training in London, we are pleased to announce the next Weekend "Live Event" with Rick.

The weekend of 20th & 21st March 2010 needs to go in your diaries immediately as this is the next time you can get to see Rick in person and learn from him here in the UK.

He will be teaching all about how to acquire property without a mortgage using "Lease Options" and "Instalment Contracts", and this knowledge will catapult your income potential in 2010.

There is no one else in the UK that has Rick's "depth & breadth" of knowledge, so make sure that you make it your new years resolution to learn from THE master of these creative property solutions.

Look forward to seeing you there..!

Solicitor Discusses Options at the Kent Property Club

2009-10-28T01:36:00.002Z

We organised for Shimon Rudich (who is a partner at MS Law) to come down to Kent this month (October) and give a solicitors view on Property Options. We had over 60 people attend the regular evenings property networking in Chatham, Kent (go to www.kentpropertyclub.co.uk to make sure you hear about the events - every 2nd Wednesday in the month), and had some good feedback from Shimon's talk.

I have video'd a bit of the evenings events so that you can see some of the content that Shimon was elluding to...

Wow, what an Amazing Weekend!!

2009-10-20T18:01:00.006+01:00

Well, I can't believe that 2 weeks has flown by since we had Rick Otton on stage in London!

We had a couple of hundred students in the room riveted to what Rick was saying, and amazed at the techniques that he taught over the two days.

Rick is a very charismatic teacher and presenter and it is certainly not hard to listen to, pay attention to, and absorb the information in the way that he teaches. You will see that I have included some videos of the weekend below that give you a taste for what the attendees got over the weekend.

Rick is also a bit of a joker and at one stage he came onto stage wrapped in a Union Jack flag and wearing a Union Jack hat!

Throughout the weekend there were loads of examples of deals that have been done and the comment I got from lots of people who attended was that they were really impressed with the simple language that Rick uses, and how "relaxed" the whole process was.

There were lots of practical examples throughout the weekend with students going through purchase option and sandwich option real life examples so that "doing the numbers" became second nature. Also time was spent on the marketing side,and very practical ways of finding motivated sellers and keen tenant buyers were discussed. After doing a "here's a list of 30 ways you can find..." with Rick direct from stage, individual tables then spent some time getting their own creative juices flowing. That was then shared back with the group as a whole so that everyone in the room benefitted from all the great ideas that were thought of.

After discussing options in detail, we then moved onto some of the other creative strategies and tools that Ricks students use elsewhere in the world. We discussed "Instalment Contracts" and put together some strategies around "negative "equity". The room was completely blown away when Rick showed how you can take a property in negative equity and walk away with over £300,000 profit - You could hear the audible gasps from the room...!

I have put some videos below that should give you a flavour for the weekend:

Countdown to Rick Otton Live Event - 3 Days to go

2009-09-30T17:49:00.003+01:00

Well it has been a manic couple of days which is why I haven't posted for a while...

Rick has been doing some initmate gigs with a few lucky people, pretty much every night since he landed in the UK. We dragged him up to Edinburgh last Friday and I think they were so happy that someone of his stature was repared to come north of the border that we had a great evening with some terrifice questions and answers from Rick, along with some great insight into his past and some of the deals that he has done.

This week, whilst his staff and the London Metropole Hotel have been busy reparing for this weekend's "Live Event", he has been buzzing round london meeting up with some more Londoners explaining how they can buy property for a pound..!

I also put Rick and Glenn Armstrong in the room together and they had some really good conversation around lease options and did an impromptu masterclass on further creative strategies...

Here you can see them talking about why options may not be the best thing for deals lasting more than 3 years, and that "Instalment Contracts" may be the tool to use:

They then talked through a "Negative Equity" strategy using a live example of a house worth £130k that has a £150k mortgage on it:

Finally, they had a chat about how to help a buyer with their deposit and making it easy for them to buy and get into the property:

I look forward to telling you all about this weekend's event in London...

Countdown to Rick Otton Live Event - 9 Days to go

2009-09-23T23:16:00.008+01:00

Well I think that Rick is getting over his jet-lag now and is in full flow, meeting with excited property investors in the UK. He spent Tuesday evening in Ealing and this evening in Central London discussing the exciting new concepts that he is bringing into the UK.

Have a listen to what Rick has to say on "Assisted Selling", one of the concepts that he will be teaching at the "Live Event" on 3rd & 4th October:

http://www.rickotton.tv/musicvideo.php?vid=87f55cc58

On a different note, I am taking Rick north of the border to Scotland in two days on Friday the 25th September. I had a fantastic meeting with about 50 property investors from Glasgow last monday and we are looking to double that number with a meeting in Edinburgh.

There are some subtle differences with Scottish conveyancing that some lawyers are getting hung up on, but in the room last week we had 4 people that had actually completed on options and a solicitor that fully understood the concept and couldn't wait to get going with investors putting deals together..!

It really is "virgin territory" up here, and they don't seem to be procrastinating like a lot of us "Southerners"...! ;o)

Countdown to Rick Otton Live Event - 10 Days to go

2009-09-22T08:16:00.003+01:00

I went to the Berkshire Property Meet last night that Juswant & Sylvia put on in Maidenhead (www.berkshirepropertymeet.com) and as ever it was a great evening with about 250 property investors, new & experienced.

The presentation was from Simon Zutshi who is a well known investor and speaker on the UK property circuit, and someone that I would definitely call a friend. He did a fantastic speech all about getting back to basics and "Taking Action". Also, one of the key points that he was driving home to the audience was about focussing on what you are good at doing and "outsourcing " the rest to others. I can't remember who the quote is from but it makes a lot of sense when you understand it, he said "Poor people spend time saving money, Rich people spend money saving time".

Some of the other experts in the room included Phil Martin, Glenn Armstrong, Richard Shepherd, Vincent Wong, Rob & Mark, John Lee, and Barry Danser.

The overall topic of conversation was around Options. Some people "get it", others are still trying to work out what on earth it is all about and how to find out more information about it. Lots of people that we spoke to are keen to go to the Rick Otton "intro evenings" that are going on before the 3rd 4th October "Live Event" (www.buyahouse4apound.com/rick-otton-live)

You can find out more about the intro evenings that are being held in London and Edinburgh at www.buyahouse4apound.com/training-events

Now why am I bringing up "Property Networking"? Well, I think it is vitally important for any property investor to attend these events. They happen throughout the country every month so there is no excuse for not going. However what you may learn, or who you may meet, could be vital to your ongoing success as a property investor.

What is interesting is that some of the other groups putting on training around options are touting it as the newest thing to happen to property investing as if they invented it and have discovered it for everyone. Some even have out new books claiming to be the first of their kind. I like to point out that Rick Otton has been teaching about Options for many years now and his Home Study Course (www.buyahouse4apound.com/home-study-course) has been available here in the UK for a couple of years now. These are not new strategies for the UK, it is just that the UK is now ready for them and as the saying goes, "when the student is ready, then the teacher will appear"

I look forward to seeing you all at any of the Rick Otton events planned over the next couple of weeks and if you don't know where or when, get in touch for dates and locations.

Until next time...

Countdown to Rick Otton Live Event - 12 Days to go

2009-09-20T18:16:00.004+01:00

Well, as I write this post, Rick Otton and a bunch of his staff are in the air somewhere between Sydney and London.

After almost 3 months since we announced it, the Rick Otton Live Event is almost upon us, only 12 days away on the 3rd & 4th October.

There is huge excitement in the UK at the moment around Options and all the creative strategies for property investing that can be utilised with them. Rick is renowned as the world expert in options as he has been doing them in the US, Australia and New Zealand for many years now. In fact since the last event that he did in the UK in April, lots of the students that attended have now become the teachers, after learning what they did from Rick, and they are putting on their own courses all about options..!

So what is happening over the next fortnight before the Live Event?

Well, Rick will be doing some personal appearances for the lucky few as well as a bunch of media events as well. We will be with him Edinburgh this friday the 25th September and in London on Monday 28th September.

What I will be doing is giving you some video updates on options and some advice on what to do when... Such as "how to market for available properties" and "how to find tenant buyers", so make sure that you come back here each day to get some great info on options.

Introduction

2009-08-07T11:18:00.000+01:00

The purpose of this blog over the coming weeks and months is to give you information about Property Options, associated creative property solutions, and access to the education and teachings of Rick Otton.

You will be kept up to date on all of the free trainings [link back to “Free Trainings” on BH4P website] that we will do, as well as getting an opportunity to see Rick Otton live [link back to “Rick Otton Live” on BH4P website] in the UK, when he is over here from Sydney. You will also have access to the Rick Otton Home Study Courses [link back to Home Study Course on BH4P website] directly from this website, and as new education comes on line, this will be your route to get hold of it.

You can find out more about Rick here and a brief biography of myself here.

So, what can you expect from updates to his blog, and why should you bother bookmarking this site and coming back to it?

Well, very simply as one of only 3 UK Licensees for Rick Otton, I am in a privileged position here in the UK to share with you information that is cutting edge and market leading with regard to creative property solutions based around lease options.

The UK market is absolutely ready for these strategies due to what is going on in the market place at the moment. Here are some reasons why these strategies work:

It is hard for investors to get buy to let / commercial mortgages right now.
It is hard for “Joe Bloggs on the street” to get a residential mortgage to buy a home.
Mortgage companies are becoming much stricter in their criteria for lending to people.
It is hard for people to sell their houses at the moment as no one is buying
Buyers are requiring larger deposits to buy their first or next home
In a nutshell, there is an appetite for these solutions, both from buyers and sellers, as well as investors

What we will show you is how to benefit from these set of circumstances.

In future blogs we will drill down into particular issues and will have video content on here directly from Rick Otton which will have answers to particular questions and hot topics. You will be able to use this blog as a reference point for all your property deals utilising options.

If you want to keep growing your property portfolio, or are just getting started in the property business, you need to have property options as part of your “tool kit” to allow you to do property deals.

I look forward to sharing with you over the coming weeks and months and if you have any direct questions, you can always contact me or my staff and we can help you get where you need to be.

Ben