Landlord Voice Magazine June 2015 - Bristol | Page 6

ALEXANDER

Property118 - a new kind of property
portal for landlords

B

y the time Mark Alexander started the
Property118 blog in 2011 he had gone from
almost losing his home in the late 1980s to
retiring from his commercial finance brokerage
which ranked 38 in the Times Profit Track by 2008
with a portfolio of rental properties to his name.
Mark first became a landlord in 1989 when he
rented out his three-bedroomed bungalow and
moved himself and his young family into a flat as
a way of recouping enough money to cover his
mortgage payments and keep his home.
At the time Mark was working as an advisor
to wealthy clients who were investing in cheap
property, modernising it and re-financing their
mortgages to buy more.

Mark Alexander is a co-founder of Property118.com – a donation-funded website
dedicated to promoting best practice in the private rented sector helping landlords,
tenants and letting agents with tips and property resources.

P6 | June 2015 | Landlord Voice

MARK

“I was arranging funding for these people,” said
Mark, “but I became better at it because I was a
landlord and I spoke the same language.
“I bought a
second property
six years later for
£20,000 – my first
intentional buyto-let. Business
started to take off
as I sold more mortgages. I re-mortgaged whenever
a window of opportunity made it sensible to do so,
used the extra funds as deposits to purchase more
property and went from there.

“I am at a stage in life now where I enjoy engaging
with other people – I get a real buzz helping them
solve their problems and hopefully preventing them
from making the same mistakes I did.”
Mark is the first to admit he has made a few gaffes
during his landlord career but he has also built up
a wealth of experience and insight – and this has
been the vehicle for the property portal section of
Property118.
“Why when landlords want to sell a property do
they kick tenants out for vacant possession?” said
Mark. “This causes all sorts of social problems with
people being uprooted but it happens all too often.”
“So we have created a portal where landlords can sell
their properties tenanted, and which is completely
free to advertise on.
“Landlords just need to make sure the tenancy
deposit protection has been properly dealt with,
that their property
is compliant
and they are not
taking on a load of
problems.”

‘Why when landlords want to sell a
property do they kick tenants out
for vacant possession?’

Mark’s buy-to-let portfolio enabled him to retire
aged 41, fund the mortgage on his own house and
live a reasonable lifestyle. However, he was left bored
and unfulfilled by the prospect of spending his
remaining days sat on a beach.
He said: “I was having a mid-life crisis and felt I
needed a new project to give me a new purpose in
life. Then somebody suggested writing a blog or a
book. I tried a book but was completely bored by
that so I started a blog which was far more fulfilling
due to the engagement I had with other landlords,
tenants and lettings agents who were equally keen to
share their tales of woe and ideas of best practice.

Mark and his
colleagues at Property118 have also created a
property research tool on the site which allows
prospective property buyers to type in a postcode
and examine everything from crime rates and local
planning applications to nearby schools, transport
and doctors’ surgeries.
The property portal has been up and running for
just one month and is flying along, says Mark.
“We want to make it as big as possible. At the
moment we are organising crowd funding to kickstart a TV advertising campaign. The Property118
portal caters for that part of the market which
Rightmove and Zoopla choose not to focus on.”
At Property118 landlords can engage with other
landlords in its forum, read useful articles and
access the other resources mentioned in this article.
For more information visit property118.com

Landlord Voice | June 2015 | P7