Kathy Gee, 52, is hoping her property investments will help support herself and her husband in retirement.
The couple, who live in Cheshire, and have three children aged between 15 and 21, decided to become buy-to-let investors after making good returns on their own residential property.
Kathy bought her first house over 20 years ago, renovated it and then sold it for twice this amount two years later. She says: “This is something we have done several times. My husband Andy is very good at doing all the work himself, so this saves us money. It’s about finding the right property at a good price and then getting it up to a high standard before selling it on.”
Kathy says this has allowed them to live in a home that they would otherwise not have been able to afford, if they were simply relying on their earnings.
She says: “We are just an ordinary family. I’ve previously worked in retail and my husband has worked in sales for most of his career. We haven’t had lots of money to invest, but this has helped us to make the most of our money.”
Stumbling Block
Given the good returns they’ve made on their own home, the couple started to look at buying another property they could rent out. But the main stumbling block was the deposit required, as most buy-to-let mortgage deals need a 25% deposit.
Kathy says: “We had paid off most of the mortgage on our own home, so we remortgaged to raise the money needed to fund a deposit. We were then able to take out an interest-only buy-to-let mortgage.”
“The key for us was finding the right property. The property we bought was externally sound, but needed a lot of cosmetic work inside. We did this all ourselves to save money at a total cost of around £6,000,” she adds.
“We bought the property for just over £100,000 in 2016, and it was recently valued at £160,000.” She says since the couple put it on the rental market it has been rented fully since that time.
They decided to remortgage this buy-to-let property a few years later, to raise the money to pay for the deposit on a second property.
Hassle Factor
“Both these properties are very near to where we live in Cheshire so we can manage them ourselves. This reduces our costs but does add to the ‘hassle factor’. There will be times that we get a call in the evening at 6pm because something isn’t working and my husband will have to go and sort it out.”
Kathy says that the rent received on both properties more than covers the mortgage payments. “In an ideal world I would invest in further properties but we don’t want to take on any more debt,” she says.
“Our aim is to keep these properties for as long as possible. Hopefully this will provide an income when we both retire.”
These properties remain on interest-only deals, but she is hoping that by the time they come to sell them they will have made a profit from rising property prices, which can also further boost their retirement. They would like to pay off the capital at some point too on one of the properties to own it outright.
Pension Access
Elsewhere the couple’s main investments, aside from their residential property, are their pensions.
“My husband had various pensions from various different employers which he has consolidated into one plan. There was more than we had originally thought there would be, which is a nice position to be in.”
Shortly before the lockdown Kathy’s her husband was made redundant, although he has since got another job. “As he is 57 we were able to take some of this pension money.” They also used some of these funds to buy a motorhome and says they are hoping to travel round Europe when they both retire.
Her interest in property has led her to switch careers, from retail to estate agency. “Property have been a good investment for us, but you have to know where to look and be prepared to put in a lot of hard work yourself to help maximise returns.
“We’ve managed the properties ourselves, selected the tenants and been responsible for the upkeep of them. This takes time, but it adds to the overall returns.”
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