Property Ladder

View other editions of Property Ladder.
View books by Sarah Beeny, Philippa Ransford.

doing who a favour? - Rated
The problem with this book and the accompanying tv programme is that it encourages maybe too many people to try their hand at 'developing' property. As another reviewer pointed out, 'developing' is buying land and building on it from scratch - what property ladder is describing is 'property modernisation', nothing more.

There are a lot people out there who know what they are doing, they buy a property for the right price, they know what needs to be done to it for the market sector it is in, and sell the property on for a reasonable profit (note 'reasonable' being about 10% of resale value, dependant on the timescale). The key to all this is in the INITIAL PURCHASE PRICE.

Go to a property auction and for most properties there is always some hopeful who will pay just that little bit too much for a property because he or she thinks there is a killing to be made. That is the problem - too many people want to try this for a living and the net effect is that for those that DO know what they are doing there are far less properties to go around. Net result, a market flooded with amatuerish 'makeover' jobs at inflated prices as people try to recoup what they have unnecessarily spent on their new money making scheme.

The bottom line is - you need to buy sound properties at minimum 25-30 percent below their potential value. By sound properties I mean properties which do not have unseen structural problems, this means you have to know what you are looking at. You then do 5 things:

1. Replace or renew kitchen

2. Replace or renew bathrooms, preferably fully tiled.

3. Replace or renew Fuse board and electric system

4. Replace or renew Heating system

5. repair and repaint everything else including gardens.

(NB 1 and 2 include plumbing)

These books spend far too many column inches on how to 'dress' the property for sale and not enough on how to identify and rectify underlying problems which is where most people fall down and 'go over budget'

I must add to this that (having met her) Sarah Beeny is a very astute and knowledgeable businesswoman who knows her stuff. However please remember that Property ladder is a TV programme which needs ratings - To do this they select the programme applicants that have paid over the odds for problematic properties and either dont know what they are doing or have plans to spend far too much on the modernisation.

What this book should tell you is how not to do it.

Thank you very much, Sarah! - Rated
I would like to say, that since we have seen the program Property Ladder, my husband and I have bought a property, which have made us a very healthy profit. As a result we are able now to open the business, that we've always wanted. I am ever so greatfull for this lovely program.

Interesting - Rated
Maybe not the best guide, more of a transcript of the shows which i absolutely loved. good book from a good series. interesting read at the least.

Good value for money - Rated
This is a very simple book, easy to read, clearly laid out and also cross-referenced well in case you want to follow a theme through the book instead of reading it through straight away. I would say that its' strengths lay in clear descriptions of the types of market and what different buyers are looking for in a property. It also pointed me to things like the Hometrack survey which allows you to see how property prices fare in your local area. Where there is less detail is in the mechanics of things like financing. While there were good descriptions of the various types of survey, I felt more time could have been spent on exploring different avenues of gaining the all-important money to start the project in the first place. Having said that, as a whole the book is a good way to focus your ideas before you start and I would definitely recommnend it to people contemplating property developing for the first time.

Dangerous. - Rated
While she does make some points about buying a property (in ENGLAND - different sstem in Scotland remember!!), she does little more than articulate what should be common sense. I suppose if you knew nothing about the property system this would be a helpful starting oint, but there its applicability would end. Surely no-one would buy a property to live in based on her reccommendations alone, and certainly would not try to profit from it.

Incidentally, she is not a property developer as she asserts. A poperty developer buys land and builds on it, ie, develops. She is little more than an interior designer who has profited from property sales.

To deal with property in anything like a sensible manner takes much more than her overly optimistic, get-rich-quick ethos. I wonder how many people have lost money as a result of hearing about her successes and those on her TV show? Even those who have made money (on her show, which are presumably her most successful followers) have made relativley little. Many have given up their careers to redesign the interior of their house, and made only £10,000 or £20,000. If money was as easy to earn as this book implies, why wouldn't everyone do it?