DIARY OF A PROPERTY INVESTOR – DAY 18

We have been negotiating with the Seller at Orell Park. We are negotiating via the Property Introducer who bought us the deal.

Property Introducers are a familiar feature in the Buy to Let landscape especially for those who are larger Land lords or Property Clubs requiring lots of property to sell. They can be a waste of time or they can perform a useful function. Of course, you have to pay them a fee but that in itself is not a reason not to use them if the deal is right. We do not use them on a regular basis but now and then they can work and this particular person has proved useful. He is very good at negotiating and understands the imperatives of speed in our transactions. He also gets the points of concern we have which many people involved in these transactions do not.

He reports back that there is another Buyer interested who are a Property Club. Not unusual because this is the type of deal they like. They get an exchange and a long completion date or if they can an Option and then sell off the individual flats before completion. So, they will sell each flat with its Tenant and keep the freehold and the management. Obviously, they will be selling long leases.

The other offer comes from another Introducer so our Introducer clearly has an incentive to do the deal for us. We are hoping for a price reduction in return for speed but clearly that is trickier if we are in competition with someone offering the full asking price. We do need some finance but would hope to be ready to exchange in no more than 4 weeks and then complete whilst the other party needs at least 4 months.  We can also sense that the Seller is concerned that the other party may not deliver because of the need to sell the flats on.

The bottom line is we agree a small reduction of the price to £430,000 on the basis we move quickly and the deal is ours. That is less than we hoped to negotiate but it is enough to allow us to proceed. Now we have to get it ready.

In the meantime, another interesting deal has come back on the table.  More on that next time.