Work to have everything in place in advance, know when to give your solicitors contact details out & ensure they are ready to confirm your instructions to the other side.
Ensure you have run through the application procedure with your mortgage broker and get them to carry out the preliminary checks that will be required by the mortgage lenders, ensure that when you need to apply for a mortgage it will go through smoothly.
Also Ensure you know how the surveyor will be instructed and by who, this is one area that holds up the buying process but once the ‘survey’ has been done vendors normally start taking you seriously.
Once you have these basics in place you need to decide how you will assess deals as they are presented to you, you must look at your local area and identify things like average prices, the various sectors in your area which represent low, medium and high desirability.
Establish in your mind the various letting values for each area & each property type. Ensure that you understand the rental returns required by your broker to get the mortgage agreed if you are going for a buy-to-let or what other criterion will be used to assess your property for funding. It would also be useful to gain an understanding of building and maintenance costs by talking with builders and preparing relationships that you can call on in the future.
Once you have built your data you need to establish your key figures which you will use to analyse each deal as it is presented, you should be able to know quickly if a deal is for you or not – at the very least you need to know if there are parts of the deal you can live with and which parts need to be renegotiated.
You must know things like how much mortgage finance you can raise, what rental yield you need to have, decide on a maximum price you want to pay in a given area for a particular property type and what level of works you are prepared to undertake – all of this will make you look decisive and help you act professional.
Systemise every aspect of your business