MacNab Property Solutions

13/11/2024

Something We Were Never Taught in School: Creating Wealth for Early Retirement Through Property Investment

One major lesson missing in traditional education is how to build wealth and create passive income that allows for early or semi-retirement without depleting our savings.

A smart approach to building wealth, property investment can provide cash flow and build an asset that serves as a stable foundation for your retirement. Here’s why it’s worth exploring:

Why Property Investment Over Shares? Stocks and pensions can fluctuate significantly based on external forces like elections, oil prices, and inflation. With stocks, you may only realize gains or losses after the fact. In contrast, property is a tangible asset that you can monitor closely and manage for long-term returns.

Plus, property values generally appreciate over time, making it a more stable investment option.

Consider This About Pensions Many company pension plans don’t transfer in full to a spouse if you pass away, and may not pass to your children at all. You’ve worked hard and saved for years, only for your pension benefits to possibly be limited in their reach to your loved ones.

This makes it critical to understand the specifics of your own pension and decide if this plan suits your family’s goals. If you don’t know what happens to your pension make it a mission to find out before you head into 2025.

Property Investment = Greater Control When you invest in property through a company structure, you have the flexibility to add directors and bring family members into the business. You always own the property, and the structure allows for smooth transfer of assets.

The SAAS Pension Option For those interested in even greater control, moving your pension into a Small Self-Administered Scheme (SAAS) allows you to buy commercial properties with pension funds. You can manage this pension yourself and keep it within the family. A SAAS can have up to 11 members, meaning you’re building a legacy that can continue benefiting your family for generations.

Investing in property can be a key to building a wealth plan that you control, with tangible results and more predictable growth—helping you create true financial security.

Within property there is so many strategies and building up your portfolio while you work is critical to provide cash
flow when you don’t.

I am going to go over some strategies over the next week or so help educate and open the minds to more options and ideas that should be taught in school.

07/10/2023

https://fb.watch/nwLZGcQVJr/

One of the highlights of the last couple of months in our property world, was attending the Property Refurb Academy for a two day course to learn in more detail about renovations.

It was a great two days, and we learned so much and went away armed with new tools, and access to the Property Refurb page, and Portal. The Portal has documents that the guys have used their experience to develop to help cost out a refurb and the FB page is regularly filled with knowledge are real project pictures of issues in refurbs and how to deal with them.

This was a fantastic course would recommend to anyone. The reason I am so excited today is we expect to get the keys for a project I am involved with as a JV with Michael MacNab.

We are going to modernise a 3 bed house, and put back on the market as an affordable family home for people in Wick.

Looking forward to getting the keys, and using my new knowledge, to improve our refurb process.

21/06/2023

Our newest project was to set up a JV and work in partnership with Kelly.

We bought the house before we seen it 🤦‍♀️ but it was a good deal.

We have our builders on site - 2 new bathrooms, new kitchen, media wall, new boiler and heating, sorting the sky light, decorated throughout and new herringbone LVT throughout.

It has an unruly garden that needs sorted.

We have two exit strategies, a Serviced Apartment, or to flip and the three bedroomed house in Oakbank Estate back into its former glory as a gorgeous family home. 💕

20/06/2023

Had a great weekend visiting some of our friends renovations.

Goska showed us an old house she is going to extend and tastefully restore along with three old houses that her and her friend Jennifer have restored and they are almost finished and look amazing 👏

We headed down to Broughty Ferry to see the Lorentes mill project. They are developing a 2 serviced apartments from an old derelict mill. 👌

It is great to see these old houses being brought back to life through a labour of love ❤️

Willow also had a great time playing with her new friends 🐾

04/06/2023

Building up several serviced apartment may give the financial freedom to leave your job and have enough income to live but there is a lot of work and cost involved that people do not see.
So this is what is involved.
When you buy the property you pay LBTT tax which is 6% in Scotland. So someone buying a house at 100k to live in, costs them £100k but as a ‘second home’ it costs £106,000 for the exact same thing.
A normal mortgage can give between 75% and 90% of the house value on a rate of around 4.84% at the moment, whereas a Serviced Apartment mortgage is around 65% of the house value and 8% mortgage interest rate at the moment.
Renovation costs which vary from £5,000 to £30,000 to bring house up to standard to be rented out as a holiday home.
Serviced Apartment Licences – cost between £500 - £900 depending on area, size and number of people staying. You also need an EICR certificate, PAT testing, EPC rating, floor plan, and a range of information that will take you weeks to prepare.
Building and contents insurance
Furniture – for good quality can be around £10,000 to £20,000 for carpets, curtains, beds mattresses, bedding, towels, smart tvs, couch, table, chairs, living room furniture, bedroom furniture, kit out a kitchen, and ornaments.
All of this is before you have had anyone slept one night in your new serviced apartment.
Once you are up and running you need to pay:
Advertise or commission.
Changeover cleaning
Window cleaning
Gas, electricity, broadband, tv licence, public liability insurance,
Water rates, dustbin collection
Rates if applicable, and double council tax until you meet the criteria for rates relief.
General maintenance to keep the place in tip top condition.
Then there is the time – paying and recording bills, organising house keeping, communication with guests, checking you are paid, website and various other small minor tasks.
You need to pay your bills 12 months a year, but you don’t always have guaranteed bookings from September to April so you need to have a reserve.
It is hard work, you are on call all of the time, and at times needing to deal with emergency situations whether it suits you or not.
Yes it gives you flexibility – you can manage your business from a beach in Dubai or in the office, you can take time off when suits, but you may be up at 5 am to deal with the workload the next day. It is not always a bed of roses, you work hard to build your reputation, and good reviews.
Having a great team around you of trades, maintenance and housekeepers, to keep everything running smoothly. Also a good network of people in the same business to hit ideas, share information and work together to look after our guests coming to Caithness.
Below is some pictures before the 'beautiful' end results. 🙂

27/05/2023

We bought a house last week in Perth in a JV with another property developer Kelly Archibald.

We picked up the keys last Friday and had the build team on site this week.

The house is probably the worst house in a great street. It was loved at some point but very dated and in need of modernisation.

Over thr next 8 weeks we will

✅️ New kitchen installed
✅️two new bathrooms
✅️ feature wall in sitting room
✅️ rewired throughout
✅️ prepared and painted throughout
✅️ New boiler and radiators
✅️ walls prepared, and painted throughout
✅️ Herringbone flooring throughout
✅️ New skylight window
✅️ garden tidied, shed demolished and garage renovated.

A long list to achieve in a tight timescale but we have a great team 🙂
We had considered using this property as an SA but when we ran the figures we decided a flip would give the best return on our investment. (ROI)

We are more confident now and moving out our comfort zone moving out of Caithness and setting up a Ltd Company with a friend, and buying a house without seeing it 😬🙃. We did our due diligence, worked out our numbers and knew we had a deal 👌

18/05/2023

They say the kitchen in central to the home. Here is a selection of some of the kitchens in our properties. Which is your favourite?

16/05/2023

We haven't been on here on a while, things have been crazy hectic and social media takes the back seat.

We have been working hard to get No40 renovated, and our SA Licence in place, and ready for our new guests on Monday.

Initially we were going to do a quick 'spruce up' and maybe a new kitchen but it ended up getting an overhaul.

☑️new bathroom with power shower.
☑️ new kitchen with integrated appliances
☑️ changed the cupboard to a utility with toilet and sink
☑️Painted throughout and new flooring
☑️ rewired a lot of it.
☑️ Clean, Clean and better Clean :) 😀🙃
☑️fitted it out with new beds, mattress's, furniture and essentials.

It is now ready to move over to Langley Serviced Apartments and bookings. 😄

21/03/2023

20/03/2023

Last week we had visitors from Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow come up to Wick to stay in our new property in Francis Street - Langley Lodge. We now have our licence in place, and have started taking bookings for our lovely serviced house.

The ladies were all part of PMW, the property group we are part of and were up to learn about serviced apartments and how to run them.

It was an educational field trip, a lot of experience sharing, and laughs.

The group didn't just learn from our experience, but Sam (Sam's Furniture Wick) Fiona Miller and Leona Durrand opened the door to their serviced apartments, and talked of their experience and answered questions.

It gave a wide a varied take on running an SA, and fantastic learning experience for everyone.

Big thank you to Fiona, Leona and Sam for their time and contributing to the fantastic experience of our guests.

21/11/2022

We have been involved in property for 15 years or so, but as a part time hobby we both enjoyed.

We love all property programmes especially Grand Designs and Worst house in the street.

We decided to move into property as our full-time jobs. This we felt gave us flexibility and allowed us to watch our grand daughter but it also provides a monthly income to live on that will continue long into our retirement and also provide a legacy for our children.

We have taken control of our pension instead of letting someone else 'look after' it and take fees and use it to develop our property income.

Last year we both attended Property Protege for a week to learn the strategies and tools required. A year later I am back to build on my knowledge and develop our skills to scale up our business.

An intense week of learning along with the rest of this week students.