Early mistakes drive landlord on

When Richard Aylward started out as a landlord, he was making a £20-a-month net loss on one property and a £30-a-month profit on another.

Needless to say, his early years as a buy-to-let investor didn’t bode well for a comfortable retirement.

Mr Aylward, now 67, bought his first property in 2007 – a one-bedroom flat – with a 130pc mortgage, and he still owns it today.

He said: “I should have taken advantage of more 100pc mortgages at the time. But then we had the financial crisis and I couldn’t do that. I missed a golden opportunity to buy another 30.

“Luckily, I managed to avoid negative equity unlike so many others by buying at a discount.”

There was no clear strategy to start off with. Another property Mr Aylward bought, he almost immediately sold. Completing on the Friday, he stripped out the baby room and got an offer from a neighbour a week later for £10,000 on top of what he had paid. After costs he made a profit of £4,000.

That property has now more than doubled in value. “It was a big financial loss. But the experience has driven me on to what I do now.”

Mr Aylward joined the Army aged 20 and left 17 years later for fear of missing out on his children’s formative years. He has tried various jobs while dabbling in buying and letting properties. In 2016, he decided to make a go of being a fulltime landlord. Today he owns six flats, three houses and one office, plus another seven flats with different investors.

He has also set up a Facebook group with property investors stretching from Swindon to Bristol, where he has met a handful of new business partners.

Mr Aylward says his wife, who he proposed to six weeks after meeting her in the Army, is “completely uninterested” in his portfolio. They recently marked their 40th wedding anniversary at the Savoy.

“Incomes are now reasonable. But I’m not going to the Savoy every weekend, I did have to save up for that one. We’re comfortable, not rich.”

Mr Aylward says his attitude to life has changed dramatically over the years. Now, he likes to think of himself as more focused on others – his wife, children, the community. A casual arrangement with the council sees him regularly drive disabled children to school.

He has tried to apply this way of thinking to his buy-tolet portfolio, too.

“I said I would never let property I wouldn’t live in myself. I always keep the rents below market because I like long-term tenants. You need to respect your tenants, they aren’t cash cows.

“I’ve had tenants in homes for 12 years and more. I know my tenants and their families. They pass on my name.”

Mr Aylward admits, however, that not all his experiences with tenants have been plain sailing.

“I had some abysmal tenants at the start. Some were plain disgusting. I never used to charge a deposit, I’d just let people move in. But I was just cutting off my own nose to spite my face.” Buying property during a period of low interest rates meant Mr Aylward could build his portfolio quickly, before lending came under strain. He still wants to buy £2m worth of new property. “The end will come when I’m too old to be lent money. Then I can pay the loans down by selling one or two properties and put the rest in trusts for my grandchildren.” Income generation is Mr Aylward’s goal, and he’s not worried about negative equity in new purchases. Typically, he puts down a 25pc deposit and never goes lower. The average loan- to- value across his wholly- owned portfolio is 62pc, averaging more like 75pc on properties he part owns with other investors. “I’m refinancing the bulk of my portfolio in 2025, 2026 and 2027. But I’m not sitting pretty. A raft of legislation to extract every last drop of blood from landlords has made things tough.”

Ruby Hinchliffe