BrickPal estimates a whole bunch of numbers from lots of different sources to save you time and effort and as a starter for 10.
It pre-filters properties down to only those that look interesting and may have investment potential. You must satisfy yourself that the numbers are correct and work fro you. Being a property investor is all about personal responsibility and accountability.
Please seek professional advice
It is highly recommended that you seek professional advice in the areas of legal, financial, investment, planning, building works, and talk to estate agents before investing in a property. We always do before we invest. Check out the ‘Power Team’ area of BrickPal for professionals that may be able to help.
Learn how to assess a property
I’ll share with you some of the things I do when I look for property – this is a big topic and I’ll only cover the basics here. I would recommend getting some training if you are new to property.
My first look over a property
Once you’ve got your Smart Search property results, click on ‘View Deal’ on BrickPal to go to the Property Deal Analysis page.
From here I generally check I’m happy with the property - what it looks like, the floor plan if there is one (looking to see if I can add value), its location and its features.
If I think the property has potential, then I check to see the history of the property in the Activity Log in the bottom right – such as how long the property has been for sale, whether sales have fallen through etc. This can give you helpful intelligence on vendor motivation when negotiating the deal. You can see in the example below, that the property has been on the market since December 2019 and has had sales fall over.
Now I check the Deal Analysis numbers. The first thing I do is check investment costs, such as development and refurb, making an estimate of works involved to add value/beautify the property. Enter in your own numbers.
Whenever you change the numbers, you’ll see BrickPal automatically recalculates the indicative cashflow and return on investment.
Then I check the rentals are correct – this can be on a single let or multi-let basis depending if you are letting on a room-by-room basis or a whole property. There is a ‘Rental Type’ toggle above the Deal Analysis to switch between the two.
Under the Comparables For Rent, BrickPal shows you rental rates it has found in the area.
Make sure you check over all numbers presented and are happy with them. Again, enter in your own numbers based on your research.
One thing I look for is how I can add an additional room. If you think this is possible then increase the number of rooms by 1 and see what that does to the figures.
And then finally, I check the monthly costs such as service charges, lettings fees, etc. Update these as required.
If the cashflow and return on investment work for you, then you may have a deal on your hands. Now save the property, do deeper research and, if it still works for you, contact the agent / deal sourcer to take the opportunity forward.
That's it. Really simple and quick to see if a deal stacks.