Ha! I'd like to be.... I do own 2 flats, but it kind of happened by default. I bought my first flat very cheap when I was 19. It was a very business minded decision... Rent was more expensive than mortgage repayments was about the basis for it...
The flat was crap, but good enough for me as a student. Did it up a few years later, and the flat next door came on the market. We swooped in and made an offer straight away with the idea of knocking them into one flat to make a place where we could stay for a few years. Kind of just never happened, and then we got a house. Tried to sell one of the flats and just as we were between the closing date and the entry date the arse fell out of Northern Rock and the buyer couldn't get his mortgage, so we were lumbered with the flat. We now just plan to hold onto them as investment properties. It's magic when you've got tenants who pay the rent, but a total pain in the hoop when empty, or if you (like we once did) get a tenant who goes into hiding and hasn't paid his rent... |