NC Real Estate has again gone out and found the most amazing gust bloggers to help you on your investment journey. This week Lukas Sheen of Vamoove talks us through the UK Property Market, his journey as an investor, one incredible deal and how that has prompted him to set up business matching investors with sellers of unique property.

Guest Blog Written by Lukas Sheen of Vamoove – service@realescon.com

Follow Lukas on Twitter – @buyoffthemarket

UK Property Market from an outsiders perspective,

The UK property market can often seem a large and daunting place. There are so many different agents, online agents, property consultants and many more entities. All of which have carved their careers and livings from this multi billion pound market.

Sure enough there are many things we must be aware of when we are getting involved or looking to work with within this diverse industry. But as with most subjects today, the majority of info can usually be found at the click of a button from good old grandma Google.

Yet, what do we do when google can’t give us answers?

Google can guide us through a tenancy agreement, what the best mortgages are right now or a comparison websites comparing insurance for your new home.

But, what about when we are going to sell one of our most highly prized assets like our home? How do we ‘really’ know that what we are doing? Are the agents we are dealing with are capable of finding a legitimate, well financed buyer?

Don’t worry I have the solution. But, let me first tell you about an investment I brought which sparked the WHOLE business idea.

Searching for the perfect renovation project

About a two years ago I was looking for a new property venture for myself and my family to get involved with. We were coming to the end of the development that we were working on and were now in quite a hurry to find a new project to keep our team working without having to let anyone go.

We mainly worked with and were geared up for grade two listed refurbishments and renovation projects so finding and sourcing this kind of property took some and effort sourcing and filtering out the good from the bad.

Time was flying by and we were not having much success in finding a development that was fitting our criteria so we put the word out to some of our contacts that mainly deal with medium to large sized developments that never go onto the mainstream market or agencies. (off market property deals)

The Awesome Find

We finally came across a beautiful pub in East London which came without any permission for development. But had bundles of potential to add some real value by taking the risk and going for planning ourselves once purchased.

We bought the pub and to cut a long story short, two years down the line we have permission. Currently we are developing the site with four beautiful luxury new build apartments with a rooftop terrace over looking the whole of London. Aswell as turning the large pub below into a trendy hip East London hangout.

Ok, so the point of me writing this is not to have a fat boast of how well we have done. If truth be known it was a huge risk to purchase the pub without planning permission. If we would have not achieved permission we would have been in a bad situation.

The reason for my little story is what started the cogs turning through this transaction. If we rewind back to the initial deal on this property. There were two HUGE points that were brought to my attention during this period:

Off market property trials and tribulations

1-The difficulty in finding something that we could add real value too on the mainstream market through mainstream agents.

2- The way the deal was done. i.e. why did the sellers agree to deal with us when they could have gone anywhere else to sell?

I spent sometime looking into both of these points (it is inbuilt in my entrepreneurial spirit). I was sure that there was something that could be done with this information, something that mimicked our success that we could duplicate for others in the same situation.

The Problem in the Market

The main difficulty in finding unique property, developments and refurbishments is that sellers don’t want the whole world know that they are looking to sell. Private sellers are also not allowed to list on the main sites like Rightmove and Zoopla. These sites are reserved for registered agents. It can also be quite tricky to value the property correctly. Or target the right sort of buyer for something quite unique and different. Portals can be hit and miss with unique stock. Deals do come and go but you really do need to know what you are looking for. And keep your eye on things everyday for properties that are a little out of the ordinary.

The second point which absolutely gripped my attention was the way that we carried out the deal. In short, the seller wanted a proof of funds before we were able to even view the property. This came from us in a note from our solicitors. It stated that they would confirm that we were well able to complete on the purchase of the pub for the full asking price.

This proof of funds could also come in the form of a bank statement or any other of proof that backs up your eligibility to fund the deal.

Now this was the quickest deal that we have ever been involved with. No agent, just solicitor to solicitor. Transparency, honesty and two happy parties.

Now I am not suggesting for one minute to not use a registered agent. We still 9/10 times use agents for our rentals and sales.

Agents are usually a great reassuring positive force when selling your home. And a fantastic mediator between the two parties involved.

That eureka moment… Problem Solved

What really amazed me was how efficient the deal was with that added layer of reassurance for the seller. They knew that we were 100% serious in the transaction. The fact that we had the money there to buy. It wasn’t just a ‘carpet treading Saturday venture to see whats about’.

Finally I came up with a plan to combine these elements together.

And after various trades from over seven different countries employed, we recently launched an online platform called vamoove.com.

Vamoove provides an online space where buyers can provide their proof of funds via a private secure profile. Agents and private sellers can list their quirky off market and non-conforming deals. We currently have agents from the UK, Europe and the US with sales and even lettings listed.

You can visit www.vamoove.com for further information or future up and coming off-market deals.

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Do you think that this is an awesome new service (I certainly do!)? Did you like what Lukas and Vamoove has to offer? Let me know in the comments section below. Also if you have any questions for Lukas directly I have included his contact details with the blog.

Also come back over to the blog on Tuesday 11th October to read the interview I did with Lukas. It is a very honest look at what goes on in Lukas’s life and it is fascinating, such a great developer and business man.

NC