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As
a writer of property books,
I
get asked an extraordinary number
and
variety of questions.
These
are a brief selection of the most
common
enquiries made.
Are
you THE Tony Booth?
If you mean the
chap pictured on the right, no, sadly I have never appeared in a hugely
successful television comedy series with Warren Mitchell, nor was I
married to Coronation Street star, Pat Phoenix, nor have I had the
benefit of being so closely related to a Prime Minister (if I had, Mr
Blair would surely have had incessant earache during his premiership). And if anyone still
remains in any doubt, check the picture above with the one on the right
... there is just a slight age difference!
Estate agents are just
leeches, aren't they?
Well, there are
lots of very good estate agents who offer a very competent service and,
despite it being popular to show contempt for them, we all employ them
from time to time, which must mean something! My guess is that vendors
rarely see the extent of work involved in selling a property because
much of it occurs behind the scenes, consequently they believe agents
get a great deal of money for doing very little. Many are characterised
and ridiculed as being fat-cats with a mobile phone in one hand and the
steering-wheel of an expensive car in the other. If you really
think estate-agents are leeches, don't employ them the next time you
want to sell your home - do the work yourself (go to "How To Be Your Own
Estate Agent" to learn more).
How long does it take you
to write a book?
On average, about
6 months, but much depends on the subject matter ... and the flow-rate
of creative juices at the time. Research takes the longest because
property books need to be accurate, up-to-date and crammed full of
useful information. Writing is the easy part, but editing is often
fraught with problems because you are, in effect, destroying the volume
of words you have written to improve readability. By the tenth review
and re-write, the typescript is usually ready for the publishers ...
and then begins the process of proofing, indexing and waiting for it to
arrive on the bookshop shelves. After that, there's the publicity
interviews and a year later, if you're lucky and the book has sold
well, you finally get some payment in the form of a royalty cheque.
How do you become a
professional writer?
With sheer
perseverance and determination. If you believe in your own ability and
accept that taking a day to write ten good words in a sentence is
better than producing 1,000 bad ones, then you are in with a good
chance. Luck rarely has much to do with it. The fact is that a writer
must consistently produce near perfect typescripts and then be prepared
to have editors and publishers turn them down
(often without getting a reason). It may be that there was no space for
your work in the publication or that the piece you sent in was too long
or too short or failed to meet the publisher's criteria. It could even
be that the editor just had a bad day! The trick is to keep writing and
keep sending submissions in, targeting them to the appropriate magazine
or publisher (buy a copy of the Writers & Artists Yearbook for
contact addresses and  details of the subjects each
publisher covers). One final point, we would all like to be the next
Stephen King or J.K.Rowling and write a best selling novel, but very
few ever achieve such fame or fortune. Be prepared to write about
subjects that editors want, rather than cover personal interest topics
that may not be in such high demand. Above all else read, read, read
... and then read some more ... because by exploring how others
construct their material, you can fine-tune your skills, thereby
improving your own writing style.
Have you ever made a loss
when selling a property?
No,
but I did make
a fatal error once, simply by being young and greedy. I had a property
to sell,
which was on the market at £150,000 and was offered (this was the
early 1990's) £100,000 plus the prospective purchaser's own home,
which she reckoned was worth about £60,000. I turned the
offer down because I simply didn't want the hassle and cost of selling
another property. Months passed by with no other offer in sight ...
then the country hit recession and property markets crashed. I
eventually sold the property for two-thirds of its valuation. Although
I still made a profit on the original purchase price, had I not held
out I would have made much more. A lesson learned: be realistic about
how much your property is worth and keep a watchful eye on what's
happening to property values and the general economy of the country.
The Buy-to-Let boom is
over, isn't it?
Far from it ... in
fact, the buy-to-let market is one of the most stable forms of
investment ever seen in the UK and continues to produce rates of annual
return higher than many other forms of investment, including stocks and
shares and most savings accounts. The careful buy-to-let investor who
conducts thorough research before buying and letting a property, is
almost always in a 'win-win' situation. He not only gains a good rental
income, but also has the benefit of capital growth over a period of
just three to five years (and in some parts of the country this can
even be as short as just a few months). Location, as always, is
everything. Checking that the property is in a prime high-tenant-demand
area and
one where the neighbourhood is 'on the up'
rather than deteriorating, are crucial factors. ARLA recently surveyed
its members and found that cash-buyers and geared investors were
achieving an annual rate of return of between 10% - 20%. The Council of
Mortgage Lenders also confirmed recently that there are now more
buy-to-let mortgages being taken out than first-time-buyer loans.
Do you want me to tell
you a good estate-agent joke?
Oh, go on then!
Few of these are ever complimentary and, to be honest, I have almost
always heard the same ones told a thousand times before ... anyway, it
is against my sensitive (not to say, professional) nature to find any
of them funny! You can take a look at my personal choice of the 'Worst
Estate Agent Jokes' by clicking here.
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