Key Post How risky is property investment?

I would have purchased an apartment or 250K back around the time that this post was created. It was a 3 bed apartment and I would have rented it almost continually apart from a period around 2015 where it was empty for a few months.

Currently stuck with a rent cap of 800pm.

The mortgage is about 1,200 per month.

I would have made up a shortfall of about 500 per month over the years.

I will retire in a couple of years and I will clear the approx 30K balance from the mortgage with my lump sum.

When I retire, the apartment will give me a gross income of about 700 pm or allow me to sell the apartment and realise 300K and only paying capital gains o about 50K.

A modest monthly benefit has allowed me to have a significant asset, and has forced me to save money I otherwise would have spent.

The property allows me to retire comfortably at 60, something I probably would not have considered without the apartment. In my retirement, by not paying the mortgage my net monthly income will be more than when I was working.

Regarding the future, the rent cap means that I am getting about 1/2 the market rent for the property. When my current tenant leaves in a couple of years it will probably be worth leaving the apartment vacant to reset the rent cap.

Over the years when I had difficult tenants I was tempted to sell and cut my losses, but glad now I didn't.

It is getting more difficult with the increased regulation, and tenants rights, although I would always have been fair to tenants and was generally lucky with the tenants I had. The only issue was at one stage it rented it to 3 individual people, a situation that evolved as tenants moved out. This was tricky as I was refereeing disagreements between the tenants till I got them to move out.
 
Following up on this given the current economic climate both global and local.
How risky is a buy to let these days / in the coming days
 
Yes, its a long term investment. Just to update post #61.

I retired in October last year. I did not take the opportunity to clear down the mortgage as I only have just over 2 years and a little over 30K left. The interest is now down at under 100 a month. I will have the mortgage cleared by the time my wife retires.

Still rented at about 1/2 the market rent and as it is in a desirable location, on a good day could be worth up on 350K for someone downsizing.

I have 2 years tax right off left so I will need to consider the situation when I have the mortgage paid off / and the tax allowance used up.

Paying tax on 800 per month income is hardly worth the hassle. At that stage it might make sense to sell up.

At that point I will have a 300 - 350K asset that I would have invested 125 K in at 500pm.

And I will have most of the money out paying 15-30K capital gains tax.
 
At that point I will have a 300 - 350K asset that I would have invested 125 K in at 500pm.
Are you also accounting for stamp duty and legal fees? If i recall correctly stamp duty on non PPR was 9% in 2002.

How much would you have net if you'd put the same deposit and €500 a month into a world equity or S&P 500 fund? I would guess quite a lot more.

How much effort have you put into the property as compared to dollar cost averaging into equites? Again I would guess quite a lot more.

How much easier would it have been to liquidate your investment at any point since you started it? I don't have to guess, it would obviously have been far easier.

Possibly most importantly, if you'd dollar cost averaged the same money into equites instead of residential investment property you wouldn't have had spent a day in negative equity.

In terms of risk i think it should be like any other investment- only invest what you can afford to lose.
 
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