The Essential Property Blog

As Michael Porter said, “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do”. At the heart of Porter’s view is the concept of trade-offs. In a world of unlimited resources, there would be no need for strategy. But we live in the real world. Our resources are limited, and eventually the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. So, we’re going to need a strategy, and quick. That’s what this post is about.

There’s lots of talk in property circles about buying below market value (BMV) properties. This fascination with the BMV property deal appears to stem from the idea that buying below market value can help you grow your portfolio quicker by “baking in equity from day one”. In this post, we’re going to look at what a BMV property deal is, what it’s not, and how buying BMV can help you.

This post is all about the property cycle and how to profit from it. Many people have heard of it. But lots of the discussions around it are either overly simplistic or overly definitive. In this post, I’m going to try to set the record straight. We’ll run through the basics of the property cycle, what it is, and why it happens. Then, we’ll look at some rules you can follow to take advantage of the property cycle.

If you bought a home a number of years ago, you may well have accrued a chunk of equity. You might also be thinking about using this equity as a deposit for future property deals. It’s a simple idea that property investors casually throw around. But how do you go about doing something like this and what are the keys to getting it right? We’ll take a look at all this and more in our latest post.

The biggest problem most people face when trying to build a property portfolio is a lack of funds. There’s no quick and easy fix for this. But there are strategies you can employ to stretch your capital further. In this post, we look at a technique that property investors can use to lower the capital they need. This is known in property circles as “buy, refurbish, rent out, and refinance” or BRRR.

It’s not the sexist topic, but saving up for that first deposit is important. It’s important because the quicker you make it happen, the quicker you feel the benefits of compounding and the the “snowball effect”. In this post, we’ll look at how to calculate the amount you will need for your first deposit, where to stash your cash, and how the snowball effect starts to do some of the hard work over time.