Author Archives: MizandTeam

Buy-to-let is still popular. Our friends at Belvoir highlight common mistakes to avoid…

Reduced Research

One of the most common mistakes made by landlords new to the industry is lack of research. This includes lack of research about the local rental market, the facts, figures and finances involved, the laws and legislations associated with letting a property, deposit rules or the tax implications of being a landlord. Always fully understand the commitment you’re about to make and your key responsibilities before you invest.

Property Power!

Additionally, some new landlords don’t understand the power of investing in the right type of property. The wrong property in the wrong location can lead to periods of void and reduced capital growth. Be aware of the rental demand in your chosen area, plus understand the sales market too so you can maximise your profit when exiting your investment.

Cutting Corners

Reluctance to spend any money on the property, failing to present the property to its full potential, substandard workmanship or installing inferior fixtures, fittings or appliances are also common mistakes which can lead to reduced rental return or periods of void. Plus, if you don’t show care about the condition of the property, it is likely that the tenant won’t either. Ensure you understand your obligations before you commit and always remember that cutting corners is often a quick way to cut profit potential.

Viewings – Be Careful

There are mistakes that can be made during the viewings process. Being too pushy, being late or making promises you can’t possibly keep will have a negative effect on your relationship with the potential tenant before it even begins. Viewings are an opportunity to showcase your skills as a landlord and the tenant will want to see that you are efficient, effective and fair before they commit to you and your property.

Quote Of The Day

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Alternative Quote Of The Day

“Where there’s a will, there’s a relative.”

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Ricky Gervais

Insufficient Information Box Stories

Failing to find out about your potential tenant’s financial status and their prior rental history can be a mistake with far-reaching implications. Bad tenants can lead to late payments, non-payments, disputes and lengthy eviction processes. Always carry out the necessary tenant credit checks, plus obtain references from their employers and previous landlord if they have rented before.

Behind Closed Doors

Never leave your tenants to their own devices for the duration of the tenancy. While it’s important to respect their privacy it’s also essential to protect your property. Regular inspections at a pre-arranged time to suit both parties are vital in order for you to assess the condition of the property and ensure that the tenant is living within the rules of the tenancy agreement. Without these vital visits it will be impossible for you to know what’s going on behind closed doors (including ongoing damage or subletting) and you may get a nasty surprise when you re-enter the property once the tenancy ends.

Misjudging Maintenance

Never leave minor repairs or maintenance to escalate. It can lead to withheld rental payments, an unhappy tenant and an unhappy working relationship, plus it’s surprising how quickly a small maintenance issue can become a big problem if left unresolved. Commonly ignored issues which can escalate at speed include blocked guttering or drains, missing roof tiles, the appearance of mould growth or leaking plumbing. Not only will unresolved maintenance affect your relationship with the tenant, it will also have negative implications for your property’s infrastructure and of course your wallet.

Business Blunder

Understand your target tenant and always remember that letting a property and being a landlord is a business venture. It’s surprising how many new landlords fail to realise this and invest in properties with their own tastes or needs in mind. Keeping a property neutral and basic will mean items and decor are easy to replace or repair if they get damaged, plus presenting a property in this way will also allow a tenant to imagine themselves living there. Remember too that your relationship with the tenant should be a professional one. Becoming over-friendly can lead to difficulties if issues arise or dispute management is needed.

Where’s The Exit?

Before investing you should ideally know why you’re buying the property, how long you’re going to keep it and how you’re going to execute its exit. Whether you’re looking for a high short-term monthly rental return or long-term capital growth, it’s useful to plan and prepare appropriately at the beginning of your investment journey.

What To Do: To find your nearest Belvoir office, visit their website at

https://www.belvoir.co.uk/

Today’s National Day

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NATIONAL CLEAN SLATE DAY!

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

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www.streetwisenews.com/89p

Running Story

I go out running from time to time and I hate it. I doubt there is anything that would make it anything other than a chore, but an Austrian team behind app, Runtatstic are giving it a go. They have created Story Running, a series of exercise length short stories designed to help joggers keep going.

In each of the current titles, the runner is the main character in the story. In one, for example, the runner is escaping from Alcatraz. Each audiobook was created with professional actors and sound technicians and includes music timed to motivate runners. The stories begin slowly before becoming more exciting at the peak of the run.

More and more people are attempting to exercise these days, but we all know it isn’t easy to get motivated and stay focussed. It seems that people are prepared to spend money on personal trainers and other aids to help motivate them. It’s worth giving thought to what you could do to help exercisers to overcome the natural desire to give up.

I just noticed these stories are 40 minutes long. I’d be showered, changed and sat down with a cup of tea before I got to hear the end of them!

Quote Of The Day

“The best and most beautiful things in the world connot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”

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Helen Keller

Alternative Quote Of The Day

“I met this cowboy with a brown paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper trousers…He was wanted for rustling.”

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Charles Chic Murray

Box Stories

People love stories. They’re keen to display their green credentials. Here’s an idea that combines these two facts.

Ebay have designed a strong re-usable box with space on the side for each successive user to write in some information about their role in the boxes life and to send a message to the next user. The boxes history can also be tracked via a virtual online community. Needless to say, once the boxes life is over, it is fully recyclable.

Ebay has printed 1000,000 boxes like this. Aside from the environmental Brownie Points they get for doing this, they get additional exposure and consumer involvement with the brand through the story element of the process.

Is there some way you could build a story element into your product, brand or packaging? Imagine a car rental company for example. Wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to see who had hired your car before and what they’d used it for? There have to be hundreds of applications of this story idea in different businesses and sectors.

Today’s National Day

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NATIONAL PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE DAY!

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

 “Is This The Fastest Way To a Luxury Retirement?”

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Dear Streewise Customer,

Did you know that by doubling your money, you’re only 16 steps from turning £100 into more than £1,600,000 – (THAT’S ONE MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS!)…

double 2 letter.png

This powerful wealth strategy is THE fastest way to a luxury retirement. What’s more, it’s now available in one full package for the very first time.

Let me introduce you to one of my most trusted insider sources. To meet him visit:

 www.streetwisenews.com/onemillion

It took me a while to arrange this invitation, so I hope you’re going to take advantage of it. Don’t waste this chance, you’ve just been referred to someone who can change your life.

Kind Regards 

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John Harrison-Streetwise Publications

PS This comes with a full cast iron money back guarantee. Take a look today with no risk what so ever.

There’s No Such Thing As A Negative Event

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I’m sure you’ve heard the old  saying: “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.”  Like me though, you’ve probably not given it a great deal of thought, or considered what you can learn from it.

Ill winds don’t come  much worse than  tornados. Despite being  an  incredibly  destructive force, there is a positive side if  you look hard enough. For example, there  was a  gentleman called Tetsuya Fujita, of the University of Chicago, who has made a career out of  ‘twisters’. He is a world expert, and the scale on which the severity of a tornado is measured carries his name. Thanks to tornadoes, Fujita’s place in history is  assured. Without them nobody would know who he was, and he  may never have made his mark. Tornadoes have benefited  others too. Numerous  film-makers,  TV   documentary  teams,  authors   and   photographers   have enhanced   both  their  professional  reputations  and  bank   balances  as  a   result   of   work associated with these killer winds.

When news of a tornado is reported in the press or  on TV,  everyone  focuses on  the  cost. It’s always portrayed as a negative  event, which  is  understandable. But  one  man’s  cost  is another man’s revenue. The cost of clearing up  after  a  tornado  doesn’t  disappear  into  the ether. It goes into the pockets of the  enterprising  individuals  and  companies  who  make  it their business to deal with such matters. The following news story illustrates this…

“Great news today from Jackson County, Texas, where a tornado ripping  through  several large towns has created a boom for construction firms in the area. A spokesman for the local trade association estimated  that $30 million of  work  would  be  coming  the  way  of   local building   firms, and  at  least 1,000  short-term  jobs  will  be  created. Local  hospitals  also reported record business, with billings to insurance companies likely to approach a five-year high.”

I’m sure you realise that I’m using tornadoes as a euphemism for just about any “negative” event. The point is this – for any negative side to  an  event there is  always  the  other,  more positive, side… a  positive side for someone. The  task is  to  identify  that  positive  side  and capitalise on it.


Let’s look at more examples. War and  international  conflict  are  universally  regarded  as negative. Yet for many – those involved in the production of  armaments  for  example – war is good and peace is bad. It’s the other side of the coin that we rarely look for.

Understandably, when my office was broken into, I wasn’t  in  the  mood to  appreciate  the positive side of the ever-increasing crime figures in this  country. However,  the  companies I subsequently paid to install an  alarm system  and  roller shutter  doors were  probably  better placed to do so.

Then there’s the economic recession, which is almost universally  viewed  as  negative. Yet in   any  recession  there  are  winners  and  losers. Reduced  property, equipment  and  stock  prices will provide an economic springboard to many new ventures.

Redundancy   is   also   perceived   to   be   a  negative  event.  And  yet  an  equally  valid interpretation is to see it as an opportunity to  make  a  fresh  start, allowing  time  to  find  a  new,  more fulfilling path, and there may  be  a  hefty  redundancy  payment  to  finance  the  search.  Many people  go through redundancy and find a  far better  paid, more fulfilling  job than that which they lost. And with their redundancy payment still intact.

There isn’t a single ‘negative’ event that doesn’t  have a  positive side –yes, even  death, as any undertaker or  florist  will testify. The important thing is to identify the positive aspect to events and put yourself on the right side of the fence.

Kind Regards

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John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

“Is This The Fastest Way To a Luxury Retirement?”

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Dear Streewise Customer,

Did you know that by doubling your money, you’re only 16 steps from turning £100 into more than £1,600,000 – (THAT’S ONE MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS!)…

double 2 letter.png


This powerful wealth strategy is THE fastest way to a luxury retirement. What’s more, it’s now available in one full package for the very first time.

Let me introduce you to one of my most trusted insider sources. To meet him visit:

www.streetwisenews.com/onemillion

It took me a while to arrange this invitation, so I hope you’re going to take advantage of it. Don’t waste this chance, you’ve just been referred to someone who can change your life.

Kind Regards

john sig.png

 John Harrison – Streetwise Publications

PS This comes with a full cast iron money back guarantee. Take a look today with no risk what so ever.

You’re As Strong As Your Weakest Link

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On the night of April 14th 1912, during her maiden voyage, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank two hours and forty minutes later in  the early hours of  April  15th.  At the time of her launch in 1911,  she was the largest passenger  ship  in  the  world  and  regarded  as  the safest. The sinking  resulted  in  the  deaths  of  1,517  people,  making  it  one  of  the  worst peacetime disasters in maritime history and by far  the  most  famous.  But  what  caused  the unsinkable to sink?

It’s been the subject of much controversy for decades. Some have blamed a faulty rudder, while others have cited navigational errors. But according to new research, the key factor in the ship’s sinking may have been the use of sub-standard rivets.

The ‘rivet theory’ was first raised  in  the  1990’s,  no  pun  intended,  but  was  denied  by Harland  and  Wolff,  the  company  that  built  the  ship.  Now,  historians  have  uncovered evidence that the company was forced to compromise on quality as it struggled to build three huge ships at the same time. Faced with a regular  supplier  unable  to  cope,  they  turned  to smaller forges producing less reliable products, to make up the shortfall.


RMS Titanic was deemed unsinkable because it was designed to stay afloat, even if four of its watertight compartments  were  flooded.  But  when  it  hit  the  iceberg,  so  many  rivets popped along the starboard side  that five compartments  took  on  water,  and the  ship  went down. And so it seems that this most famous of  ships succumbed to the truth of a well-worn saying: “A chain is as strong as its weakest link.  ”No amount of engineering  or  technology could overcome a deficiency in a small, but critically important part of the ship.

What’s true of RMS Titanic s true of you. Are you confident  that  the ‘rivets’ in  your  life are strong enough to withstand some unexpected impact? Or have  you  perhaps  cut  corners along the way, gambling that you can avoid any nasty icebergs? The bottom line is  that  you can’t afford to neglect any area of your life (and health is particularly critical)  in  pursuit  of what you see as more important goals. Any shortcomings will eventually  find  you  out  and sink all your plans.

Kind Regards

john sig.png

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

“Is This The Fastest Way To a Luxury Retirement?”

double 1 letter.png

Dear Streewise Customer,

Did you know that by doubling your money, you’re only 16 steps from turning £100 into more than £1,600,000 – (THAT’S ONE MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS!)…

double 2 letter.png


This powerful wealth strategy is THE fastest way to a luxury retirement. What’s more, it’s now available in one full package for the very first time.

Let me introduce you to one of my most trusted insider sources. To meet him visit:

www.streetwisenews.com/onemillion

It took me a while to arrange this invitation, so I hope you’re going to take advantage of it. Don’t waste this chance, you’ve just been referred to someone who can change your life.

Kind Regards

john sig.png

 John Harrison – Streetwise Publications

PS This comes with a full cast iron money back guarantee. Take a look today with no risk what so ever.

Selling Your Invention!

So you’ve created a new product, but now you face a problem – how do you go about selling it? Getting a product into retail stores is far from easy, and can be risky if the product doesn’t take off. Marketing direct to consumers is another approach which has its advantages, but writing effective sales copy isn’t something that everyone can do. One alternative is to sell via a catalogue.

Catalogue owners need new products to sell and are therefore open to approaches from inventors. It’s easy to find catalogues that are a fit with your product, and the owners won’t care that you are a small operation or even a one product company. They will usually create an advertisement for your product and bear all the cost and risk of the promotion. All you need do as the product owner is sit back and wait for the orders to come in.

The downside is that you can expect some pretty tight profit margins, but it may be a price worth paying for the simplicity and risk free nature of this kind of deal.

Quote Of The Day

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

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William Shakespeare

Alternative Quote Of The Day

“Airline hostesses show you how to use a seat belt in case you haven’t been in a car since 1956.”  

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Jerry Seinfield

Selling Magazine Pages

This isn’t a new opportunity, but it’s so easy for anyone to start up that it’s worth revisiting. Here’s what you do.

Buy up a stack of old magazines – the older the better – and go through them to find interesting pages. Typically these will be advertisements from a bygone era. Carefully scan them and then offer for sale via eBay. As an additional service, you could offer to mount and frame the pages. If you do a search on eBay, you’ll see what sort of things are on offer and what sells.

An additional source of revenue could be to directly approach the companies who placed the ad’s originally – assuming they’re still around. They may be interesting in securing copies of their old advertisements for their archive or for display purposes.

You probably won’t get rich doing this, but it’s an interesting part-time project to have a go at during the dark winter nights.

Today’s National Day

clean slate day.jpg

NATIONAL CLEAN SLATE DAY!

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

 “Is This The Fastest Way To a Luxury Retirement?”

double 1 letter.png

Dear Streewise Customer,

Did you know that by doubling your money, you’re only 16 steps from turning £100 into more than £1,600,000 – (THAT’S ONE MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS!)…

double 2 letter.png

This powerful wealth strategy is THE fastest way to a luxury retirement. What’s more, it’s now available in one full package for the very first time.

Let me introduce you to one of my most trusted insider sources. To meet him visit:

 www.streetwisenews.com/onemillion

It took me a while to arrange this invitation, so I hope you’re going to take advantage of it. Don’t waste this chance, you’ve just been referred to someone who can change your life.

Kind Regards 

john sig.png

John Harrison-Streetwise Publications

PS This comes with a full cast iron money back guarantee. Take a look today with no risk what so ever.