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- Investing in property with no money is Impossible. Property investment requires some form of expenditure, either monetary or time investment.
- However, there are ways to invest in property with little money. This includes renting out unused rooms in one’s home, leveraging equity from one’s residential property, collaborating in joint ventures, or property sourcing where deals are found and passed onto investors for a fee.
- While these methods offer avenues to start, they may not be suitable for everyone, especially beginners who may not own property or have expertise.
By far one of the most common questions that we are asked is how do I invest in property with no money or very little money. It’s a common question because everyone wants to get into property investing (why would you not, the returns are amazing) but not everyone can casually drop a 25% deposit and pay stamp duty on a property – even if we consider the cheaper properties up North, this would still be a very hefty sum of money.
Since we’re asked so often, we decided to answer this red-hot question by writing a guide on all the different ways that you can invest in property without breaking the bank. Notice that I didn’t say with no money at all – let’s jump into that first, is it actually possible to invest in property with no money?
Is It Possible To Invest In Property With No Money?
The reason why I didn’t say that you can invest in property with no money at all is that there will always be some sort of expenditure whether that’s travelling to do viewings or purchasing cups of coffee for investor meetings. There’s also the vast amount of time that you’re going to have to invest into these methods that should be taken into account (after all, time is money). This goes back to the age-old adage of ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’ – you’re either going to have to pay with your money or with your time.
I know that this may not be the answer you were looking for but it’s the truth. If you don’t have money that you can use to invest in property, you’re either going to have to raise funds or invest your time. Now that we understand that none of these methods will be zero money down, let’s look at the different options that are available.
How To Invest In Property With Little Money
When looking to invest in property with little money, there are only two different routes that you can take – either you find a way to utilise your residential property to help you begin your property investment journey or you work with other people. Let’s look at the different ways in which you can do this.
1. Take In Lodgers
If you don’t have the money to buy another property, why not utilise your current residential property to kick-start your investing journey? The easiest and least expensive way to do so would be by renting out unused rooms in your property to lodgers – these are simply just tenants who live under the same roof as you and share the communal spaces such as the kitchen, bathroom and living room.
This may not be the most attractive way to invest in property because you’re essentially sharing your own home with another person but if you have one or two rooms available, it’s something you should consider because it can help you make a very good amount of money. Let’s look at a quick example:
Let’s say that you own your property which is worth £200k and your monthly mortgage repayment is £830. You have 2 rooms in your house that you can rent out for around £475-500 per month each. If you rent out both rooms, not only do they pay for your entire mortgage but you’re also left with a nice profit of £120 to £170 every month. Another great thing about renting your rooms out to lodgers is that any rent you charge is tax-free up to £7,500 per annum thanks to the Rent a Room Scheme.
2. Use Equity From Your Home
If you don’t fancy sharing your home with someone else, you can instead use some of the equity that you have built up in your home. This won’t be a viable option for someone who’s just purchased their home because its value likely hasn’t changed too much. But, if you’ve owned your house for a few years now, it’s quite likely that it’s gone up in value and you can use some of that equity to start investing in property.
In order to release the equity, you will have to refinance your property at a higher value. This will raise your monthly repayments so it’s important to run the numbers to check if it’s worthwhile. Let’s look at a quick example of how this would work:
Let’s say that you purchased your residential property 5 years ago for £150k with a 10% deposit and today it’s worth £200k – this means that you have around £24,000 in equity (the initial deposit plus monthly repayments) as well as a £50,000 gain from the capital growth, totalling £74,000 that’s tied up in the property. If you refinance at £200k and put down a 10% deposit, you will release £54k that can be used to invest in property. This will raise your monthly repayments from around £650 to £875 (assuming that both rates were at 4%) so we need to check whether the rental property would receive enough profit to cover the higher payments.
With that £54,000, you could purchase two buy-to-let properties worth £90,000 each – these would net you a monthly profit of around £200 each, so £400 total. This would more than cover the increase in your mortgage and you would have doubled your exposure to the property market.
3. Find Investors (Joint Ventures)
If you don’t fancy the above two options or you don’t own a residential property, a joint venture may be your best option to invest in property with little money. How this works is pretty simple, you need to find an investor who is willing to provide all the necessary cash whilst you handle all of the work and split any profits from your investment 50/50.
If you’re willing to handle all of the work, this can be a great way to get started with property investment but may be a bit difficult if you don’t already have a track record. For this reason, joint ventures are usually recommended for individuals who have experience in property investment. If you have no prior knowledge of property investment, I wouldn’t recommend undertaking a joint venture as investors will be looking for experience.
4. Property Sourcing
Although it’s often marketed as a no-money-down property investing strategy, property sourcing will require some start-up funds since you’re essentially starting a business and require things such as compliance. But if you’re willing to make that upfront investment, property sourcing can be a very fruitful strategy for you – likely the best strategy that you can use to build up large amounts of capital in a relatively short amount of time.
This is how property sourcing works – you find property investment deals which you then pass onto investors for a handsome fee. This fee can range from around £2000 all the way up to £10,000 per deal depending on how much value you provide and the quality of the deal. With some practice, it’s entirely possible to source around 1-2 properties per month which can help you save towards your first investment property quite quickly. This could even be the beginning of a new career for you as property sourcing can quite quickly and easily become a full-time job.
The Key to Successful Investments
How to Save Enough Money For Property Investing
Whilst there are numerous ways in which you can begin your investing journey if you have little or no money, it’s still not going to be easy. It may even be the case that none of the above methods are plausible for you as they either require you to already own a property or have a good amount of expertise.
If you’re a beginner investor, neither of these are likely going to be the case, so your best bet is to continue saving and looking into ways in which you can boost your income. Here are some tips for how to hit your savings target as soon as possible:
1. A Pound Saved Is a Pound Earned
Your first focus should be figuring out how you can save more money – I stress this because if you save a pound, you gain another pound but if you earn another pound, it will be taxed and thus you’ll make far less.
I’m not going to tell you to reduce yourself to living a miserable life in an effort to save enough money – you can maintain a comfortable quality of life but try to identify areas where the expenditure is unnecessary. For example, buying designer clothes or eating out often. Ask yourself what’s more important – designer clothes and fancy restaurants or building generational wealth?
Note – sign up to cashback sites in order to save yourself some money on everyday purchases.
2. Create a Second Source of Income
Trust me, this is a lot easier than most people would think. There are a tonne of opportunities out there to make some extra money in your evenings. For example, when I was at university, I used to do matched betting to supplement my income – it was fairly easy to learn and it revolved around football which made it quite good fun. Even today, I still use other methods to make some extra money like paid surveys and refer a friend offers.
I’d recommend checking out our sister-site Paidfrom.com for step-by-step guides on various ways to make additional income streams.
3. Open a Lifetime ISA
The first step in any property investors journey should be to purchase their own home. Not only will this open up buy-to-let mortgages for you (owning your own property is a criteria for these) but it will also present you with an opportunity to make some money. For example, when purchasing my first house, I opted for an unmodernised property so that I could utilise the BRR method and used the profits to kick start my investing journey.
A lifetime ISA can help you boost your savings for your first home purchase. It’s a government backed scheme in which your savings will be boosted by 25% every year (up to £4000). In other words, the government will give you £1,000 every year for your house deposit.
Final Thoughts
These are the numerous ways to invest in property with no or little money – each option has its pros and cons, and may not be suitable for everyone. When you’re putting together your property investment strategy, it’s important that you be realistic so if none of these methods particularly appeal to you and your situation, you may instead want to take a step back to continue learning the ropes whilst you save up more money.
We know that saving money is easier said than done, that’s why we’d recommend checking out our sister site paidfrom.com where you’ll find a wide range of side hustle guides – a lot of the methods we write about were exactly how we managed to save up for our first investment property purchases. And of course, don’t forget to continue your education by checking out the other property investment guides on Amateur Landlord.
Victor Sterling
Hi, my name’s Victor - I’ve been investing in property for three years now, with my preferred strategies being buy-to-let, BRR and house flips. My goal with Amateur Landlord is simple - to provide beginners with easy-to-follow resources that simply weren’t around when I started, and to offer these for free and without ads.