The Progressive Property Podcast Questions on BRR, Limited Companies& How to Influence a Valuer
In this episode, Peter discusses his answers to James questions from his experience in property. He also shares some knowledge on how to deal with JV partners, the things that you need to remember when dealing with joint-ventures and drawing up contracts and much more.
James' Question
“Wonder if you can help in raising finances, do you know of any solicitors who can arrange a contract to give the lender of the finance some security and confidence that I’m not going to or legally can’t take all of their money and run away with it? Do they have a floating charge on the property? Would you have a sample agreement you can forward to myself?”
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Security to a Lender. James is wondering how to give the lender security and how to make the lender feel comfortable with lending the money. One of the key things you must do when you’re thinking about doing a JV and when you are thinking about raising your finance is to take the time to get to know the lender so that you can understand exactly what it is that the lender wants from you.
- Different Personality Types. You can talk about any aspect of the property and it doesn’t matter what it is but we tend to think that whatever we think or whatever we feel is what everybody else is going to think or feel but it isn’t just the case. There are multiple personality types. Study the different personality types so that you will know how to approach a JV partner and how to get the best deal with them. You need to sit down with your JV partner and you need to understand what is important to them in a JV.
- Make things less complicated. Ask your JV lender, what rate of interest would you like? What rate of interest would make this JV work for you? Asking these questions to your JV partner would most likely save you a lot of money and it will make your deal with them a little less complicated.
- Do you need a solicitor to draw up a contract? It is important to have something in writing. But do you always need a solicitor to draw up the contract? When you become experienced, if it is a small simple deal, maybe you don’t. It is about scale and degree.
- What sort of solicitor do we need to go to? We suggest that you go on to Progressive Facebook group and ask who people are using.
- Sample agreement? Peter would not do that for the reason that every JV is going to be different. It is much better to start with a blank piece of paper, talk to your JV partner, make bullet points, heads of terms, and discuss between your JV partner/s exactly what you want and what you want to get out of the JV and what the JV looks like to you and which bits are important to you.
- Main Terms. Who are the parties? Who is borrower? Who is the lender? What’s the address of the property? Is the property gonna be provided as security? Is any other security going to be provided? What are the terms of the deal? Is it a profit share? Or are you going to be paying somebody interest? How much is the profit going to be? What is the interest going to be? What is the length of the term? These are the main things which we need to have down and to be understood.
- What could potentially go wrong in a JV? We are not hoping that something will go wrong, but we should think about this. Think about the what could go wrong, make sure that they are in your head of terms, and make sure that the solicitor actually incorporates those into the JV agreement.
- JV. Jv is a fantastic way of financing your deals and making sure that you can do more than one deal.
- JV with older people. A JV with younger people and older people works really well. Most of the time, older people have assets. They have the capital but they don’t have the income. You as the younger generation might want to give them that income. It is a good collaboration.
- Why would someone want to JV with me? When you have done 4 days with us on a masterclass, you will be able to look somebody in the eye and say, “I know about property investing.”
- Do they have a charge on the property? It really depends on the lender. What do they want? Ask them what they want. Don’t assume that you are always gonna give somebody a charge. You can also give them a restriction. A charge will allow you to repossess a property whereas a restriction doesn’t.
BEST MOMENTS
- “You need to be very very careful about assuming that you know what they (JV partner) need and want. Ask them what they need and want and then structure the deal accordingly.”
- “At the end of the day, what’s important is getting down the main terms.”
- “When you are thinking about your JV agreement think about all of the what ifs… think about the things that could potentially go wrong.”
- “If there isn’t a basic level of trust then I’m not sure I’m going to do a JV with somebody anyway.”
- “I don't know everything and I might make a mistake. And if I make a mistake, I might lose the money. Hopefully not. But I am never gonna run away with your money because that's not who I am. And if you think I'm the sort of person who could run away with your money, then I don't really wanna do business with you. And so I said, 'That's fine. Don't worry about it. I will find somebody else.' And I think they are taken aback by that but it had to be said and it had to be done.”
- “Older people are good JV partners because older people stereotypically, I know it doesn't apply to everybody, but stereotypically older people are much more likely asset rich and cash poor, which mean that they've got collateral. They've got a property which you can borrow against if they're prepared to put them up as a security, and that's all well and good. And you can then give them a return. Lots of older people, they may have the capital but they don't have the income. So you can provide them with the income.”
- “One of the things that you must bear in mind is that if at some point you’re gonna top up the JV funds with bank lending, for example, and if you think well can you actually do that? Well, yeah with the commercial conversions, something like that, you can do that. You need to make sure that there is no first charge on the property because the bank is gonna want the first charge.”
VALUABLE RESOURCES
- Progressive Property
- Progressive Property Masterclass
- Tony Robbins
- Rob Moore
ABOUT THE HOST[Text Wrapping Break]Peter Jones is a Chartered Surveyor, an author and a serial buy-to-let property investor. He has been involved in property for over 35 years and now owns 78 letting units. He is still actively involved in buying and renovating property, and regularly flips properties for profit. Peter has written a number of successful property books. The first, An Insider’s Guide to Successful Property Investing, was first published in 2000 and was one, if not the very first, book of its kind which was written for what we’d now call buy-to-let investors.
On the back of its success, he was invited to be a guest writer for Property Secrets, and wrote Spanish Property Secrets, French Property Secrets, and Portugal Property Secrets. He has since written a number of other successful titles dealing with UK investing including 63 Common Defects in Investment Property and How to Spot Them, the highly acclaimed The Successful Property Investor’s Strategy Workshop and The Property Renovator’s Workshop, in which Peter describes step-by-step how he built his own property portfolio, starting with virtually none of his own money.
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