If you’re like most people, you’ll have had the dream at one of two key times. Either you have just sold your own property and made a small fortune, despite the fact you did very little work on the property when you owned it. Or you’ve been watching one of the very popular TV property shows, where a couple of amateurs have blown their budget, made a series of basic mistakes, yet still made a small fortune.
Yes, life as a property developer seems romantic, and probably better than the daily slog you currently face at work.
Yet there can be few occupations as risky as being a property developer. Where else would you be asked to invest tens of thousands of pounds into a project, dedicate months of hard work and only then find out if you had made a profit. Even running your own business isn’t that risky, as you can measure your profitability along the way.
The reality is that it’s quite hard to make it as a full-time property developer. The money you made on the sale of your last house may have come from the growth of the housing market while you owned it. That’s not something you can rely on as your main source of...