UK Landlord Forum / Life

I'm new to the world of letting, so first of all thanks to the person on here that wrote the detailed guide for newbies like myself (http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/blog/guide-new-landlords/ ). After reading that and a couple of books on the subject of letting, I think I've got a half decent idea of how everything works and what my responsibilities (and costs) will be, so now I'm turning my attention to the decision of which houses to actually buy.

I've spent the last few weeks checking out house prices and rent prices on rightmove in my local area, and pretty much everything I can find in the areas I'm interested in is going to give me a profit of about £250 a month after mortgage (interest only) and letting agent fees. I appreciate there will be extra costs on top of that, but this is just to give me a rough figure I can compare against other properties. However when I looked in another city not too far from me I found I could be making about £350 a month profit but the houses are much more expensive so would require a higher deposit, and therefore couldn't buy as many.

So would you guys put down larger deposits to buy more expensive houses that will make more profit each, or would you buy cheaper houses that make less profit but you can afford to buy more of them? Or would you mix and buy some of each? The maths seems to suggest its better to go for more cheaper houses bringing in less rent as the total profit for 3 of the cheaper houses would be £750 rather than the total of £700 for 2 of the more expensive houses (the total deposit for 3 of the cheaper ones would be the same as the total deposit for 2 of the more expensive houses). But I'd rather get some opinions from people who are actually making a living from this kind of thing and have real world experience, rather than just relying on maths

Guess what? There is no simple answer.

More houses, more work, but Voids cheaper, Insurance, testing fees etc higher

Less houses, Voids hurt.

The easiest let IMO is a three bed house with a garden and garage, if you can get 8% return on them, either is good.

Can I just ask - are you enquiring about making a living from 2 or 3 properties?

Not a good living if that's the case. For Landlords with 2 or 3 properties the money coming in is just a bonus to your salary... it's not a living.