How is it for you?

“I work with my mother, Saroj, who is an accountant and does all the books. My sister Avanee works with us as well. We all work for each other.”

THE EMPIRE BUILDERS

Fergus Wilson, 58, and wife Judith, 56

Portfolio size: 677 properties in Kent

Portfolio value: £135m

Started buying: 1991

Still buying: yes, if the right property is available

“There is never a wrong time to buy,” says Fergus, “but he who hesitates is lost. Don’t mess around with detail: if you start nit-picking over tiny things, you could lose the deal. If I am buying a house, I don’t care if the vendor wants to keep his wheelbarrow, or a garden spade. I just want to get on with it.

“My advice? If you are getting 25% growth a year, which most people are, don’t be greedy. I also believe values will continue to go up, because we haven’t enough properties in this country to satisfy demand. Buy-to-let is the second-best thing that’s happened to me — the best was meeting Judith.”

THE HOT-SPOTTER

Ajay Ahuja, 34

Portfolio size: 150 properties across the country, half of them in Scotland

Portfolio value: £11m

Started buying: 1996

Still buying: yes

“The secret of my success is my lack of fear about borrowing. I borrow from anyone and everyone. I borrow my deposits on an unsecured basis, paying up to 30% APR, and then take out the highest loan- to-value, buy-to-let mortgage possible. So I buy as much as possible with as little personal investment as I can help: I have only ever put in £500 of my own money.

“I would recommend that investors focus on a minimum rental yield of 10%, which will ensure capital growth of more than 100% in three to four years. At that yield, your property will be highly desirable for other investors. I also never sell. A recent hot spot? Wishaw in Scotland, where you can buy a two-bedroom house for £50,000.”

THE REFURBISHERS

Philip Stewardson, 42, and brother, Mark, 39

Portfolio size: 65 residential properties across the Midlands, 15 commercial properties in the Midlands and Staffordshire

Portfolio value: £9.75m

Started buying: 1995

Still buying: yes

“My brother and I started in buy-to-let because we had no faith in traditional pension schemes. We always bought derelict properties for cash. Quite quickly, our portfolio snowballed, and we realised there was huge potential in refurbishing, revaluing and then using the increased equity to borrow for the next one. We don’t use buy-to-let mortgages because we were offered a great facility whereby the bank didn’t look at each property individually, but at the whole portfolio. Over the past 10 years, our properties have doubled or even trebled in value, but rents have only gone up by about 20%.

“Unless you are already in it, I think it’s a poor investment as the margins are so low. The best idea now is to “convert-to-let” — creating rentable units out of commercial buildings such as a pub or offices. That’s what we are doing.”

THE REMORTGAGERS

Matthew Jones, 33, and twin brother, Peter

Portfolio size: 22 properties in west London

Portfolio value: £6.5m

Started buying: 2002

Still buying: yes

“We tend to buy something,” says Matthew, “develop it, keep it and remortgage it. If we do it right, we get our money back in its entirety. So we get a property for free. Then we use the same money to repeat the process. I don’t see any reason why we can’t keep on doing it, so long as property rises at the same rate as inflation, which means that in the next 10 years, property will go up between 10% and 20%. You would hope that it will go up faster than that, but 10% is all that’s required.

“I think in the next few years, society will become divided between the haves and the have-nots: people who have a buy-to-let portfolio and those that don’t. Without wishing to appear arrogant, we are glad to be on the housing ladder in this way.”

THE MODEST INVESTOR

Karen Currie, 39

Portfolio size: three properties in Wapping, east London

Portfolio value: £1m

Started buying: 1992

Still buying: yes

“What matters most for me is the desirability of the area balanced against ease of access to the City of London, and a personal feel for the space in which someone wants to live. If you get that right, you will rent out your properties quickly.

“My advice is not to be heavily geared, and to look for areas that are up and coming, such as King’s Cross. Research areas that are being specifically developed, and watch out for good transport connections, airports, railway stations — and a local Waitrose. A good-quality supermarket that you can walk to makes all the difference. I think that one can derive a lot of satisfaction when one makes a good property purchase and your tenant is happy to rent it from you. It can be a very worthwhile arrangement.”

THE MID-SIZE INVESTOR

Robin Lawton, 63

Portfolio size: 14 properties in Southampton, one in London

Portfolio value: £3.5m

Started buying: 1996

Still buying: no

“I got into buy-to-let because I already had some experience of letting out properties, and saw the potential when buy-to-let mortgages arrived. I consider it to be a relatively low-risk strategy because the long-term trend of property values is always to go upwards — provided you are prepared to play the long game.

“Just don’t get too overgeared and carried away with sucking every last pound out of the portfolio to reinvest, because if there is a change in interest rates, then you are very vulnerable, and your liquidity will go out of the window.”

THE PARENT

Martyn Witt, 49

Portfolio size: one house in Sneinton, Nottingham, bought for student daughter, Angela

Portfolio value: £180,000

Started buying: 2002

Still buying: no

“Since we invested, commercial developers have completely swamped the student market, and the number of students wanting to rent from us has gone down hugely. I’m sure there must be other areas in the country where it’s good to buy student accommodation, but it’s certainly not Nottingham.

“Also, the new HMO (house of multiple occupation) licensing system is pretty heavy if you are an amateur landlord. We already had the necessary fire doors and alarms, but if you haven’t, you will be faced with a raft of bureaucracy and a fine if you don’t comply. The house only just about broke even, but our profit was that our daughter lived there rent-free.”

THE DISILLUSIONED QUITTER

Tony Gledhill, 50

Portfolio size: at height, 10 flats in central Leeds; now, one

Portfolio value: at height, £1.25m

Started buying: 1999

Still buying: no

“I’m getting out of buy-to-let for several reasons: to spend the money I have already made. To have more time on my hands. And because I don’t think the rapid growth we have seen in recent years will continue. Long-term, I want to be in commercial rather than residential property, because I believe there are more opportunities there. I have also gone back to the stock market because I think it’s a safer investment.

“What got me down about buy-to-let was the falling rents, increasing mortgage costs and the endless complications of leasehold property. You always had to go through managing agents, and I didn’t feel in control of my investments. I’m glad to be getting out of it.”

Brits abroad

First came buy-to-let, then fly-to-let. In the past few years, as UK property-price growth has slowed and rental returns fallen back, investors have increasingly looked abroad in the quest for the kind of profits no longer possible at home.

Although definitive figures are difficult to obtain, industry experts estimate several million people now own abroad. Many are holiday homes, but properties, especially in new developments, are increasingly being marketed as investments, sometimes with overly ambitious predictions of likely rents and capital gains.

Barring horrible mistakes, anyone who has bought overseas in the past few years is sitting on a considerable profit. Prices in Europe, North America and beyond have risen strongly, buoyed by low interest rates and the growth in global liquidity. Hong Kong and Germany have both been significant exceptions, although prices in the latter have started to pick up, boosted by demand from institutional investors.

Knight Frank International, which compiles a quarterly global price index, says house prices grew 8.5% in the 12 months to June. The strongest growth was in Latvia (+45.3%), Bulgaria (+20.5%) and Denmark (+15.4%), while the worst performers were Serbia (-5.1%), Japan (-2.7%) and Hong Kong (-2.4%).

Liam Bailey, the agency’s head of residential research, has warned, however, that things are calming down; a year earlier prices had been up by 12.3%. “The most notable trend is that growth is continuing to slow across the globe,” Bailey says, pointing out that “affordability constraints have been hit in more locations”. A case in point is America, where the National Association of Realtors has reported that average prices fell by 0.9% in the year to July: those planning to invest in Florida or elsewhere, take note.

Not that such talk of a slowdown looks likely to deter British buyers, especially given the increasing availability of mortgage finance. Those buying abroad have traditionally paid for their property by remortgaging at home, but it is possible these days to borrow from a foreign lender against the property itself; in many cases, especially within the eurozone, the interest rate will even be lower than at home. More and more developers also offer guaranteed rental returns, although anyone buying into such a scheme would do well to read the small print.