How do you invest the money you make?

[jimibt]

The rent minus agent fees should be enough to cover the mortgage in most cases. The tenant is essentially paying your mortgage for you and you will be gaining by the property value increasing.

all makes perfect sense... just ned to find some free cash and I'm in!!

House prices never fall?

What about the running costs of the property, there are the day to day running costs such as the annual gas safety certificate, insurance, accountant fees, agent fees, electrical safety checks, council tax and utility bills during the empty periods, the medium term running costs such as carpets, decoration, furniture and then the long term running costs of new windows, doors, roofs etc.

What about the vacant periods?

What about the periods the tenants don't pay their rents and remain in the property, Section 21's are banned so it has become much harder and longer and way more expensive to get a bad tenant out.

What about the inevitable tenant that rips the doors off, spills stuff over the carpets, pulls the sink off the wall and floods the house.

What about the emergencies.

Like the stock market being a Landlord is great when you have a good tenant who looks after the house, pays the rent and house prices are rising. But also like the stock market at the moment, being a Landlord isn't so great when house prices are falling, tenants aren't paying rent and refusing to move out and at the same time are trashing the house and you get no rent for 6 months and have to spend a year or more's rent paying for all the repairs.

If you are a Landlord long enough you will experience all of the above. Just like a long term investor will experience the booms and busts of the stock market.

All of the above needs factoring into calculating the returns of being a Landlord and that is before you look at income tax, higher rate stamp duty and CGT.

The glory days of being a Landlord in the UK have gone for now imo.

i'm just the messenger!!

[arbitrage16]

How about you illustrate how and where I'm wrong instead? Then we can all learn something

whao -friday morning and the handbags are out... c'mon ladies, one walk left, the other right...

well he started it!!

But you're going to finish it with "commonsense, mathematics and logic"...So, whenever you're ready.

[PDC]

Not an expert or even a prepert, but time to sit it out i feel, or exit with a loss with a view to reentry once things have settled. We have NO clue how the oil markets will react if there transport grinds to a halt.

This is...not good advice. Exiting for a loss, to then re-enter later - at a point where the market has gone up - and so compound losses.

If you need the money in a short time frame, you shouldn't have been in such a volatile market, or you should have sold weeks ago when the signs were there.

If you are working to a longer time frame, then you sit and hold, wait for things to get really bad, and then begin to buy slowly back into the market.

Any other advice, as above, is based on pure fear.

+1 Arbitrage16

Who saw the S&P500 would have its best day in 12 years on Friday?

If you bailed out of the markets after Thursday, which I am sure many did around the world, you potentially got the double whammy of realising the losses from the falls on Thursday and then missed out on the near 10% recovery on Friday

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-ma ... 57012.html

I am not saying the worse is over, I suspect it isn't but I won't be trying to time the market, I will keep adding each week and have actually increased how much I am putting to work each week and will keep at these higher levels for the foreseeable.

Good chance it will get worse before it gets better and will continue to be very volatile. There are a lot of companies in a tough position and many won't make it out the other side unfortunately for the workers.

It ain't pretty looking at the statement at the moment but with a long timescale/outlook for me it isn't about timing the market it is about time in the market.

Morgan Housel has been putting out some excellent content via twitter this week which is worth a read:

https://twitter.com/morganhousel

[firlandsfarm]

If you are working to a longer time frame, then you sit and hold, wait for things to get really bad, and then begin to buy slowly back into the market.

One of my points exactly, I'm pleased you are coming around to my thinking. You don't blindly invest each month just because it's the day you invest. You take the market conditions into account … not day to day but by trend. If the market is reasonably stable then carry on as normal but when you see it is in a Bear market you hold back your new money until it seems to have stopped falling and you can buy cheaply. It's not about second guessing if the market will go down on Thursday and up on Friday … it's about the probability the market will be lower or higher in say 3, 6 or 12 months or more.

And in finale ...

But you're going to finish it with "commonsense, mathematics and logic"...So, whenever you're ready.

Oh dear another quote taken out of context, it doesn't work with me, I'm too old and ugly to cower to such tactics. Why can't you just let things lie? It is of little interest to others. As you are on this forum I assume you know that you can illustrate anything with statistics especially in a non exact world such as investment. I'm sorry if you have been on the receiving end of poor advice (though as an ex Compliance Officer who has acted in the capacity of an 'expert witness' for the authorities in assessing cases of wrongful advice I would like to see any such advice and comment). Anyway I see no point in taking this further and frankly I'm going to leave it at that, I have more important things to do than argue the semantics of investment stats with you. Many people more experienced and knowledgeable than you and I have done so for centuries and can't agree. Clearly we are of differing minds so let's just leave it at that. Bye.

[PDC]

You don't blindly invest each month just because it's the day you invest. You take the market conditions into account … not day to day but by trend. If the market is reasonably stable then carry on as normal but when you see it is in a Bear market you hold back your new money until it seems to have stopped falling and you can buy cheaply.

Please remember to come back and tell us when it seems to have stopped falling and we should start buying at the cheap levels.

[Kai]

What about the running costs of the property....

What about the vacant periods?

What about the periods the tenants don't pay their rents and remain in the property...

What about the inevitable tenant that rips the doors off, spills stuff over the carpets, pulls the sink off the wall and floods the house...

What about the emergencies.

Sorry in advance ( ) but this argument reminded me of a powerful song, it seems eerily appropriate : https://youtu.be/XAi3VTSdTxU?t=47

[firlandsfarm]

Please remember to come back and tell us when it seems to have stopped falling and we should start buying at the cheap levels.

Are you different to Arbitrage16 or a fake account … the two of you seem to have the same basic grudge on your shoulders and the same style of argument (or perhaps it would be more correct to say the same lack of style). Anyway my message to you is the same as to him/her … BYE

[firlandsfarm]

What about the running costs of the property....

What about the vacant periods?

What about the periods the tenants don't pay their rents and remain in the property...

What about the inevitable tenant that rips the doors off, spills stuff over the carpets, pulls the sink off the wall and floods the house...

What about the emergencies.

Sorry in advance ( ) but this argument reminded me of a powerful song, it seems eerily appropriate : https://youtu.be/XAi3VTSdTxU?t=47

+1 Kai … my experience of BTL over 15 years is none of the above … Good properties in good locations with well vetted, good tenants and a top class letting agent … never had a problem

[jimibt]

If you are working to a longer time frame, then you sit and hold, wait for things to get really bad, and then begin to buy slowly back into the market.

based on ongoing market sentiment, i'm sticking with my (personal) opinion from last week (before the big falls), that I would have exited on a stoploss and waited until the markets/ecosystem/social fabric in general had stabalised, rather than continuing to hold while things are falling. I'd (theoretically) wait until it's gone the further 30-40-whoknows% that it will and then buy back in once consolidation begins. you'd still be up on today's (or last week's) prices.

In short, i still agree with your closing statement, but agree to disagree on the former.

anyway, purely my very personal opinion and more a note to remind myself in the weeks/months ahead.

[firlandsfarm]

based on ongoing market sentiment, i'm sticking with my (personal) opinion from last week (before the big falls), that I would have exited on a stoploss and waited until the markets/ecosystem/social fabric in general had stabalised, rather than continuing to hold while things are falling. I'd (theoretically) wait until it's gone the further 30-40-whoknows% that it will and then buy back in once consolidation begins. you'd still be up on today's (or last week's) prices.

+1

[trad1ngbull]

When I started this thread, I was in a personal phase where I was optimizing my risk control and diversifying in case something serious happened with the global economy.

At no time was trading being suspended on Betfair even a chance for me. On the contrary, Betfair would always be my focus if the economy had problems.

Less than a month passed and here we are... The global economy heading into a deep recession and Betfair completely on halt.

[firlandsfarm]

Less than a month passed and here we are... The global economy heading into a deep recession and Betfair completely on halt.

So it's all your fault!

[arbitrage16]

If you are working to a longer time frame, then you sit and hold, wait for things to get really bad, and then begin to buy slowly back into the market.

based on ongoing market sentiment, i'm sticking with my (personal) opinion from last week (before the big falls), that I would have exited on a stoploss and waited until the markets/ecosystem/social fabric in general had stabalised, rather than continuing to hold while things are falling. I'd (theoretically) wait until it's gone the further 30-40-whoknows% that it will and then buy back in once consolidation begins. you'd still be up on today's (or last week's) prices.

In short, i still agree with your closing statement, but agree to disagree on the former.

anyway, purely my very personal opinion and more a note to remind myself in the weeks/months ahead.

So you're going to time the market? Which is what everyone tries to do, so what makes your approach different? Buy low sell high, simple right? But it's a lot different, as we all know, when money/emotion is involved...which you have admitted, if I recall correctly, you don't have in the market right now. All very well sitting on the sidelines and saying what you would do, but it's probably not what you'd do when money is on the line.

[arbitrage16]

Haha, you couldn't make it up. As if by magic, Euler has posted the data on the percentage of traders who lose in financial markets:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=20748

[arbitrage16]

Please remember to come back and tell us when it seems to have stopped falling and we should start buying at the cheap levels.

Are you different to Arbitrage16 or a fake account … the two of you seem to have the same basic grudge on your shoulders and the same style of argument (or perhaps it would be more correct to say the same lack of style). Anyway my message to you is the same as to him/her … BYE

The rationale behind this post seems to be 'it's not possible to have two people disagreeing with me, must be a fake account'

That highlights, once again, the quality, or lack thereof, of your thinking, and thus is it any wonder that you adopt such an outdated perspective on financial markets