Top 5 Tips for Buying Investment Property

Buying investment property

Buying investment property is stressful.  Buying investment property typically means taking your personal tastes out of the decision. But, paying close attention to details will make the home pleasing to future tenants. There are so many things to consider when buying an investment property, that it is a good idea to learn as much as you can beforehand from real estate investment experts like Than Merrill. However, here are some basic tips for buying investment property. Tips for Buying Investment Property Get Pre-Approved Unlike some personal home loans, investment property mortgages generally require at least a 20% down payment.  Make sure the properties you intend to buy are something that you can afford.  You should attempt to get pre-approved for a mortgage before … Read more

Affordable Homeownership: How To Get Help To Buy a Property

Using a mortgage calculatorThere are more would-be first-time house buyers than ever before, who think that they will find it almost impossible to get on the housing ladder without a bit of help to get them started with affordable homeownership.

Many first-time buyers either have to make use of some funding from the bank of Mum and Dad if it is available, towards the deposit, or they turn to one of the homebuy schemes that have been set up to help people achieve their dream of owning their own home.

Home ownership schemes

There are currently four specific home ownership schemes that are being backed by the government for property purchase, with different schemes operating in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Here is a look at the schemes available and how you might be eligible to apply in order to assist you in buying your home in England, if can’t afford to do so without extra financial help.

Help to Buy With Affordable Homeownership

The Help to Buy program, or scheme, is probably the most accessible option in terms of eligibility, as the equity loans offered are available to not just first-time buyers but home movers as well.

The scheme is designed to help people buy newly built homes with a purchase price of up to £600,000 as long as it is intended to be your only property and you don’t sub-let it after purchase.

The government-backed equity loan is designed to bridge the affordability gap by offering you as much as 20% of the purchase price in the form of an equity loan, which is secured against the property. You will be expected to be able to put in a minimum of 5% deposit and then qualify for a mortgage of up to 75% to complete the purchase.

This scheme is understandably heavily subscribed when funds are made available, as you won’t be hit with any loan fees on the 20% portion from the government, not until the 6th year of ownership. You will be expected to pay a 1.75% fee on the value of the loan as a fee in the sixth year and this will increase each year thereafter, in line with index-linked inflation plus 1%.

You will have to buy your home from an approved Help to Buy builder and the loan is repayable when you sell your home or after 25 years have elapsed, which is the normal mortgage term.

Read more

What Will Switching to Card Reading Do to Your Tips

Do you practice excessive tipping?If you’re the owner of a small business that employs people who work for tips, your choice of payment system is holding their livelihood in the palm of your hand. A lot of considerate bar owners, restaurant owners, and more will think twice before they institute any changes that could adversely affect the people who work for them. This is both kindness and practicality.

If you can’t get the people working for you a decent living wage then they’re going to leave, you’re going to have high turnover, and everything that you wanted or worked for is going to blow up in your face. That’s not where anyone wants to be.

So, when you’re looking to trade out the clunky old cash register for something with a bit of a modern flair, you have to consider what it’s going to mean for everyone who depends on you to put some food on the table and let them pay their rent. Well, the results on mobile point of sale systems, credit card reading apps, and more are in and the results are only good.

Tips Fall When People Have to Do Math

If you run a bar, then you know this very well; when people get drunk, tips get crazy. They’re either way too high or way too low, and typically, they’re on the low side. Even drunk people hate doing math and want to save money. That’s why it’s so harsh to get a flat ten dollar tip after serving up complex cocktails all night.

It’s terrible when a drunken person tries to do math and ends up leaving you an 8 percent tip instead of a 15 percent tip. When people have to put in a lot of effort, good tips simply don’t happen. This is the first building block to explain why digital tips are so good when compared to traditional cash or write-in tipping methods.

Present Percentages Send Tips Through the Roof

When businesses make the switch to accepting credit cards for the first time or they change their credit card practices to more easily add tips (say, from making the customer write it in themselves to letting them either select a preset amount like $1 per tap or calculating options for the percentage of their bill (typically 15 percent, 20 percent, and 25 percent)), they see a sudden boom in tips.

Read more