In my last post here I mentioned that Rockall had had a bumper year. Rather than squander all this unexpected cash on fancy holidays (that's "awesome vacations" in American) I wanted to do something sensible with it before the good times ended.
What better than buying an "investment property"? This week we had an offer accepted on a Buy-to-Let property and it's now in the hands of the conveyancors to make it ours.
The aim of doing this is long-term. Being self employed and 37, my retirement isn't something I can take lightly. I have a private pension plan that I've paid in to for years (~15) but it's worth depressingly little at this time. I can't rely on it alone.
I remember my pension advisor telling me that, realistically, for a comfortable retirement you need to have a lump sum of about GBP 500,000 by the time you retire. I was in my early twenties at the time and this seemed an astronomical figure. It's only now that I'm (slightly) more mature that I realise it's not as crazy as it first sounded and it's now my aim, somehow, to have that much "cash" by the time I'm in my early sixties. There seems no better way to achieve this than buying houses.
My retirement will happen (all being well) in about 25 years, which happens to be how long a mortgage lasts. So, any houses I buy now will be paid for by the time I retire. Paid for by my tenants! I then get the choice whether to sell them in 25 years or keep them and live off the rental income.
It seems a no-brainer to me. Effectively, somebody else is paying in to my pension pot for me. What could go wrong? (that's semi-rhetorical).
I'm interested to see if any of you guys are landlords with similar plans? I bought a couple of "Landlord's handbook" books but never got round to reading them, deciding instead to take the plunge and learn as I go (same approach I take to programming).
Any advice gratefully received. Easy on the tenant horror stories though please!
DIGITAL JUICE
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Thank's!