Very interesting post.

I think in all market conditions there are winners and losers.

We have built a large portfolio in South Yorkshire over the years and the portfolio stands on its own, i have always known this down turn was coming and knew i would have to walk through it before i would make some serious gains.

I wanted to be in a position when the market bottoms to be sitting on a good size portfolio ready for the next increases. With all the pent up demand as soon as the market starts to reach a near bottom everyone will be piling in and before we know it you are back in bidding wars for properties and picking up discounted properties in this market is tough, i have done it !

I reached the size of portfolio i wanted a few months back, what we have set up is to offer the exact deals i was taking on, made available from our marketing to investors, who have money to invest in deals. We don't advertise for these "associates" and they have to sign a code of conduct etc and already have an income away from property to be able to apply. This is to protect our "rent - back" clients.

The average amount our clients need to put in to each purchase is £10,000 which is for everything, deposit, solicitors, survey,broker fee, our fee, etc etc. What they get in return is an immediate "double" their investment ie for £10,000 put in you would get instantly £20,000 equity, the rent covers the mortgage by about £50 per month ! Through our service of using the discount to pay some towards all the costs it works out you have to outlay about 50% of what you would have to outlay using a conventional method and you also get more instant equity in return!

We have clients wanting anything from 2million to 10 million portfolios and works as a long term investment who live all over the UK because the properties can be managed fully for 6% !!! especially for our clients.

This shows that if you have some money to put in to deals in todays market there are some bargains to be grabbed before the herds return !

There will always be winners and losers in any parts of the cycle and different models to adjust to within each part !