15 Property Investment Tips: Lessons Learnt from Experts

Looking for advice on buying a residential buy-to-let property? These 15 property investing tips come from more than 20 years of helping investors buy property all over the UK, and of my own projects, mostly in the north-west but also elsewhere in England and Wales. They are for anyone buying a first investment property or adding to a portfolio.

These are lessons from my own experience. Everybody's situation is different, and none of this is financial advice.

Article updated: October 2026

Tip 1: Think Long Term

Property is a long-term game.

Don't wait to buy property. Buy property and wait.

Prices rise and fall in the short term. In my experience very few people do well treating property as a quick buy and sell. Markets turn quickly, and a single wrong move can undo profits built up over years. A longer view leaves time to plan through the bad patches.

For me, a long-term property investment strategy has meant buying for income first, treating capital growth as a bonus and thinking of property as a long-term pension. Long-term strategies include buy-to-let, holiday lets and purpose-built student accommodation.

Some investors plan further still, with the next generation in mind. Land can stay in one family for centuries, like the Grosvenors. Their London estate came to the family through a marriage in 1677, and Belgravia is still part of it today.

Tip 2: Set Clear Goals

Goals give every later decision something to be measured against. Clear real estate goals, written down before buying, make it easier to say no to a deal that looks good but does not fit.

These questions are worth answering first:

• Is the money for income now, or for building something for the future? Is it a property pension?
• Is monthly income the priority, or capital growth, or both?
• Hands-on or hands-off? On refurbishments I have run the trades myself and I have paid a firm to manage the work. Doing it myself was usually cheaper on day rates but took far more of my time.
• Do you have contacts or knowledge that give you an edge in one particular strategy?
• What sort of property projects are you naturally interested in? Buy to let, buy to sell, flipping or development? Residential or commercial property investment?
• What are you naturally good at? What has worked best for me is doubling down on that. For a while I was sourcing, negotiating, project managing, letting and refurbishing all at once, and spreading myself that thin held the business back.

Tip 3: Consider being a Contrarian

Warren Buffett wrote in his 1986 Berkshire Hathaway letter:

"we simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful."

In property, a contrarian buys when most people are selling, or looks at strategies that have fallen out of fashion.

I have tried to buy at auction and never won. I was always outbid, and the lots that stood out drew the biggest crowds. In my view the better prices tend to be on the ordinary lots that look like everything else in the catalogue.

Contrarian thinking also suits a property market which is often considered to be cyclical.

Tip 4: Have a Budget

This is true for homeowners, rent to buy tenants and investors. Most of the golden rules of property investment come back to the numbers, whether the aim is buying at the right price, growing income or getting a fair return on the money.

A budget shows early when a deal or a portfolio is drifting from the plan. It covers:

• The cash you have to invest, and how much you could sensibly borrow if you use finance.
• Purchase costs, including conveyancing, any mortgage broker fees and additional stamp duty tax. In England and Northern Ireland, buying a property that means you will own more than one residential property usually brings the higher rates for additional properties.
• Refurbishment costs, including materials and labour.
• Running costs once it is let: letting agent fees, repairs, insurance, any mortgage interest, and the months it sits empty between tenants.
• Selling costs, including estate agent fees and any capital gains tax on the profit.
• Costs set on the high side and income on the low side.
• A contingency for the costs nobody saw coming. On my refurbishments, the surprises came from things that were not obvious at the first viewing.

Tip 5: Location, Location, Location

Location, location, location is an often-repeated saying in property investment. Another one goes further:

Buy the worst property on the best street

The idea behind it is that improving a house does not change where it is.

Our comparison of the best buy-to-let locations puts average asking prices, rents, the highest postcode yield and a 30% deposit side by side for each place.

Every area is different, though. The guides to the best areas in Manchester and Birmingham property investment show how much prices, rents and yields vary from one postcode to the next, even inside one city.

The same applies when buying digital real estate or tokenised assets backed by a real building. That building's location still matters.

Tip 6: Make Use of the Data

The numbers are where a deal stacks up or it does not. What are prices doing? Are rents high or low for the area? What rental yield does that give?

I always start with the gross yield. It is the figure you will hear most from agents and sellers, so it is a quick way to line one property up against another, or one town against another.

There are plenty of property tools that show the key figures. The main sources are:

• Property market data. There are lots of property market data sources that collect and analyse prices and rents.
• Local estate and letting agents, who know asking prices, sold prices and rents in their area, and how the market there has been moving.
• Your own research on the property portals and in local listings, until the local market feels familiar.

Our free property knowledge game is one way to test that market knowledge, comparing UK locations across ten quick rounds.

Tip 7: Buy at the Right Price

You make your money when you buy

This is a common piece of real estate advice.

A good property investment on paper can be undone by paying too much for it.

When investing in property, I have always bought below market value, or BMV. The discount from buying below market value is the gap between the price paid and what the property would be expected to sell for on the open market at the time.

Getting a below-market price comes down to how you buy and where you buy.

The 'how' is about the deal itself, including knowing how to negotiate with estate agents.

The 'where' can mean buying pre-negotiated deals from a property investment company, buying at auction, buying property off-plan or buying off-market.

Tip 8: Do your Due Diligence

Carrying out due diligence when buying a house means checking things yourself rather than relying on what you have been told.

It covers what the seller or agent has said, the rents local tenants actually pay, and the type of tenant the property is likely to appeal to. It covers the area as well as the property itself.

For anyone finding renovation properties, it goes further. It is easy to price only the obvious jobs inside the house. In my experience the costs that catch people out sit outside that list: planning, licensing, tree preservation orders, party wall agreements, and structural work that needs an engineer.

On one three-bed terrace there was a large metal cover in the ground that nobody could identify. It might have been over an old mine shaft, so it needed checking. It turned out to be utility access. I have learnt to view more than once and to take time over the outside ground as well as the inside.

A mortgage broker, a conveyancer and a surveyor each check a different part of the deal.

Tip 9: Have an Exit Strategy

Getting into property is often the easy part. Getting out is harder.

Property usually takes much longer to sell than shares. And if the way out depends on remortgaging, you are relying on lenders and prices being right at that moment. A useful test is whether you could sell within six months if your situation changed.

Will you sell the property in the end, or leave it to family?

In what circumstances will your exit strategy come into play?

• Will you exit after a certain number of years?
• Will you exit when you retire (and when will that be)?
• Will you sell when your property reaches a certain value, or when your portfolio is worth a certain amount?
• If you buy-to-let, will you sell if the rent, yield or profit drops to a certain point, should that ever happen?

The end matters as much as the start. Nobody can reliably predict the housing market, so an exit plan that needs prices at one level on the day you sell may not work when that day comes.

Tip 10: Get Expert Advice on Finance

Most people need finance to start. I did. It lets you spread a deposit across several properties instead of buying one in cash. But interest, bridging entry and exit fees, arrangement fees and broker fees all come out of the deal's profit, and the wrong product or lender can turn a deal that works into one that does not.

In my experience finance is a stage, not the destination. Many experienced investors I know pay debt down over time and aim for a portfolio with no borrowing, even if that means less cash flow, because it gives them more control. I aim for that myself.

Not every investor borrows. For those who do, MoneyHelper explains that mortgage brokers are either independent or tied to a lender, which can restrict them to certain deals, and that some 'whole of market' brokers can offer a wider range of products.

Financial advisers and mortgage brokers can explain the most suitable type of finance for your property investment project, whether that is a mortgage, a bank loan, a development loan or bridging finance.

Tip 11: Get Expert Advice on Tax

Tax changes what a property actually earns, and the rules change often.

For example, the furnished holiday lettings tax regime was abolished from April 2025. Under HMRC's guidance, the rent from a holiday home investment that used to count as a furnished holiday let is now taxed the same way as other let property.

Advice from an accountant or tax adviser covers how the rules apply to you, including:

• Whether to invest through a limited company or in your own name.
• Whether a pension can be used to invest in property. Holding a home or buy-to-let directly in a pension can trigger HMRC's taxable property charges. Investing through UK REITs (real estate investment trusts) avoids those charges, as long as certain conditions are met.
• How Capital Gains Tax (CGT) applies when you sell.
• How Inheritance Tax (IHT) applies to property you plan to pass on.

Tip 12: Aim to Add Value

Rent and capital growth are not the only ways to make money from property. Others include:

• A lease extension on a leasehold flat. The Leasehold Advisory Service gives free legal advice to leaseholders in England and Wales.
• Buying a property that needs renovating.
• Making better use of the space, for example turning a one-bedroom flat into a two-bedroom, or a three-bed house into a four-bed.
• Adding an extension.
• Getting planning permission to split off part of a large garden.
• Changing a buy-to-let house into a holiday let or a house in multiple occupation (HMO). In my experience, investors look for gross yields of 6% or more on a buy-to-let, 10% or more on an HMO and 15% or more on a holiday let. But a holiday let costs much more to run than a buy-to-let, so once the costs come off, the buy-to-let can end up ahead.
• Buying at a discount.

Tip 13: Diversify Your Portfolio

Owning a mix of property types is one way investors spread a portfolio, and it starts with deciding whether apartments or houses are the better fit for your next buy-to-let. The idea is that if one type of property has a bad spell, the others may hold up.

Spreading out means relying less on one property type, place or strategy. It does not guarantee a profit. Ways to spread a portfolio include:

• A property bought mainly for income alongside one bought with growth in mind.
• Different strategies, such as buy-to-let, buy-to-sell, flipping and development.
• Different areas, such as the countryside, city centres and suburbs, where prices and tenant demand can move in different ways.
• Different property types, such as residential and commercial property, terraced houses, semi-detached houses and flats, which cost different amounts to buy and run and attract different tenants.

Spreading too thin has its own problem. The experienced investors I know mostly stick to one strategy, and a team of builders and letting agents is far easier to run in one region. But a portfolio packed into one postcode is hard to get out of if that area develops a problem. There is no right answer. It is a balance.

Tip 14: Regularly Reassess your Strategy

The property market keeps changing. Rules, interest rates, demand and costs all move, so what worked a few years ago may not work now.

Rolling every penny straight into the next project can work. It can also come unstuck when something nobody saw coming arrives, such as the financial crash, Covid, planning delays or a jump in material costs.

A regular review can revisit whether to add a property, sell some or hold.

Tip 15: Beware of the Risks

No property strategy is free of risk. Landlords, developers and investors can look for ways to reduce the risks of investing in property.

Some of the risk is financial, like a property losing money. Some of it is time.

The wrong property, in the wrong location, with the wrong management company, can take up a lot of your time to turn it around.

Even a good property investment can run into problems, including:

• Legal problems with the property.
• Planning problems with the property.
• Licensing problems with a rental property.
• Letting problems, such as empty months, a lower rent than planned or difficult tenants. These are the risks behind the question, buy to let is it worth it?
• Not being able to sell when you want to, because property is slow to sell compared with shares, or not getting the price you hoped for.

Knowing the risks of the specific property and the local market helps, and so does one more question:

Where are we in the real estate cycle?

Nobody can answer that for certain. A plan that still works if prices dip for a few years does not need the timing to be perfect.

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