- So I'm walking along near my house, where I live,
and I just found this, but the question is,
what would you do?
Is there an opportunity here?
Would you investigate further, or would you just walk on?
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Hi, my name's Tony Law, from Your First Four Houses,
and I teach people how to build a small property portfolio
that generates a great income for them,
so they can give up their day job if they wish,
because they're not financially free.
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So let's take a closer look at this place.
Now, although I walk down this road
on a pretty regular basis, I've gotta say,
I've never looked that closely at this property before.
But now that I am, it seems really obvious to me
that no work is going on here.
I mean look at that front garden.
It's completely overgrown.
The scaffolding poles are all rusted out.
The windows are boarded up.
In fact, part of the roof is missing.
Obviously there's some kind of an issue,
some kind of a problem, but does that mean
there's a potential opportunity for us here?
Now just to spoil the fun,
I can't tell you if there's a deal here,
because I only spotted this today.
And so I'm gonna be doing a bit more digging
over the next few days.
But let me tell you what I've done so far,
and what I'm going to be doing,
and that way if you spot something similar in your area,
well maybe you're have a better idea of how to approach it.
So step number one is a little bit controversial.
I'm actually not suggesting that you do this.
But if I find a site like this,
might I be tempted to explore the site?
Maybe climb over a wall or two.
I might be tempted to do that.
But you mustn't do it, because it's technically trespassing.
In fact, let's scrub step number one
and pretend I never even said it, and start over. (laughs)
So step number one is to speak to the neighbours.
Now this isn't scary.
Just walk up to the door, knock on it,
step away from the door again.
Drop your body posture.
Be almost apologetic for troubling them.
And just ask them about the site next door.
Because they will know, they'll know everything about it.
And will probably want to really share
that information with you.
I've done this in this scenario.
They were lovely neighbours, and they did tell me
quite a bit about the place.
Step number two is to Google the address.
Now this property may already be on the market.
It's just that, if it's been on the market for a while,
the board may have blown down.
They may have chucked the board into the front garden.
And so you may be able to find out
who's actually marketing it.
But you might also uncover a real gem
of information about the site.
Step number three is to check if there's been
any planning applications made recently.
That may well be why no activity
is actually happening on site.
By the way, if you're finding this helpful,
I would love it if you could just click
on that thumbs up button down there.
It really helps me, if that's okay.
Step number four is to download the title deeds and plan.
Now this'll only cost you about six pounds for both,
and I put the link for how to do that
in the description box below.
Have a little look on there for anything
that looks untoward, anything that looks
a little bit out of place.
Also, is there a mortgage?
Are there any scary restrictive covenants about the site?
Any obvious issues with any of the boundaries around it?
Any obvious conflicts between what you're seeing
on the title plan and what you're seeing in real life?
Once you've done this a couple of times,
you'll start to see a few glaring issues.
They'll jump out at you when you start
to look at the title deeds,
once you've downloaded these a few times.
But above all, is the address of the owner different
to the address of the property?
If it is, step number five is to write to the owner.
Ideally, you wanna meet up with the owner,
maybe go and grab a cup of coffee,
and find out what the problem is.
Because there is a problem, because absolutely nothing
is happening on the site here.
So as I say, go and grab a cup of coffee,
sit down with them, build some real rapport,
and see if you can find some real win-win solution
that would work really well for them,
and obviously work really really well for you, as well.
Step number six, follow up, follow up, follow up. (laughs)
Honestly, so many deals are made
during the follow up process.
I can't emphasise enough, you need to put this
into a folder, and follow up on it.
And then go and look for another site down the road,
and follow up on that one.
And so on and so on and so on.
Have you checked out my completely free mini course
that will teach you how to invest in property
and build a passive income,
without needing to put money into each deal?
Click on the link here to find out more.