Everyone loves property. And who doesn’t like the idea of sitting comfortably at home and being able to invest in another continent? I certainly love this idea (part of the reason why I started my business in the first place). But after a few years of deep dive into the business, I’ve come to face some of the challenges that are not to be ignored, especially if you want to make huge progress in this industry.
There are trainings for overseas investors all over the UK which claim that how easy it is to invest in the UK, and how you can sit and enjoy passive income while sitting on your sofa. Well, this is the UK investors’ imagery of the “layback” life about us — it’s not anywhere near to the real life of any Chinese (Asian) investors (can’t believe that no one has ever written about cultural difference in the context of property investment world).
Time difference - Difficulty Level ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Thanks to Covid-19, many of the networking meetings have moved to the virtual platform, and that allows investors from outside of the UK to meet with other fellow investors, subcontractors, agents and brokers, without the need to travel to the UK. I basically love the whole idea since this has given me the opportunity to speak with local people and put a name to the face. During summertime, the networking meeting starts at 1:30 am and in winter at 2:30 am. I usually get up 15 minutes before the networking event just to make sure I’m wide awake by the time the networking meeting starts, and I also make sure that I’d have a 20 seconds pitch prepared for the particular meeting. But alas! There’re nights that I just wasn’t able to get up because I missed the alarm clock, or when the kids were cranky and didn’t go to bed as early as I’d want them to… The same has happened to other kinds of trainings and workshops that I sometimes signed up for. The day that follows the meeting I often feel like having jet lag…
Getting low mortgage rates - Difficulty Level ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Since you’re not living in the UK, the rates of your mortgage will probably be much higher than that in your own country, since you probably don’t have any credit history or employment records in the UK. You’d be surprised at the rates that you’ll be paying. But don’t panic — You’ll soon get used to it. And once your portfolio has grown a bit larger, the rates would very likely go down. Just accept it as part of the business costs and factor that in your cost calculation.
Cost calculation - Difficulty level ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Investment is fairly much all about making a profit, or not. Knowing your numbers is key. For a traditional purchase, you can do sound researches on house prices from your desktop and that would already reduce a great part of your risk of paying too much for a property. This is the easy part and quite straightforward. But what about the refurb costs and the cost of furnishing different properties? And do you know the monthly operating costs for renting it out to a bunch of students, working professionals, or even short-let guests? And don’t forget about the mortgage payment, insurance, set-up costs charged by letting agents, repairs, maintenance etc. How are you supposed to get hold of all of this information if you’ve never even been to the UK? These are not costs, they are just “uncertainties” as you are not able to attach a price tag to it. If you’re just starting out, this list of “uncertainties” is going to be overwhelming. You’d end up having questions after questions after questions…
Viewings - Difficulty level ⭐️⭐️
Being a savvy investor you need to know what to look for at a viewing. There’re now virtual viewing tours but not every agent does it for every property. You’d need to rely on someone to act on your behalf when doing all these viewings since you want to make sure that this person is not going to snap the property up from you, but knows enough about what kind of information to look for at a viewing. Finding the right person is a challenge, and trusting this person from a distance is even a greater one.
Language - Difficulty level varies (for some it could be up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!)
Not everyone speaks, writes, or reads English fluently. How are you going to overcome the barrier if English is not your strength? Google translate has become better these days and it certainly does a good job by translating the English text into your language. However, when it comes to translating your own language into English, that could cause quite some confusion and it’s frustrating if you can’t get your message translated correctly. Property is not about buying or selling houses, it’s more about people, relationships, networks and communications.
I could go on and on with this list. But I think I’ve done my job by giving you an insight into what is expected of you if you were going to step foot in the posh “Overseas Property Investors Club”. The good news is, you’ll start seeing more and more fun, the longer you stay in the business — but only after you’ve faced the challenges head-on.